The Saotome Gambit
by Shinji Ikari7
Summary: Not writen by me but thought it would be good to have the story on FF.N
1. Chapter 1

Disclamer: I don't own anything pretaining to Ranma 1/2 nor Battletech and what not. This story was writen by J. Austin Wilde

First off I'd like to say I in no way am taking credit for this story. I didn't write it and have no ties to it what so ever. All credit belongs to J. Austin Wilde. I have not been able to reach the author so I wasn't given a yeah or nay to posting it here, however I will remove it if so asked by either the author or the readers for this reason. The reason why I am posting it is because for some reason this story is getting hard to find. The link I had no longer works and the fission park press one is tempermental at times. And The Penultimate Ranma fanfic index only has to chapter 26. Since is easier to access and has more traffic I thought this would be the best place to put it.

If any one has issuse with me posting this story or think I should take it down then please let me know. I don't want this story to disapear its just so well done that if Fission park press goes down finding it may become even more difficult.

_Shinji Ikari_

Have a nice day


	2. Chapter 2

For centuries the Inner Sphere has been aflame with war.

Struggling from the ashes of the Star League are five Great Houses: House Kuno of the Furinkan Combine, House Gosunkugi of the League of Five Nails, House Joketsuzoku of the Jusenkyo Commonwealth, House Shiratori of the Federated Shiratori, and House Tendo of the Nerima Confederation. Each House has a claim to the Star League throne, and each has an army of mighty Battlemechs with which to conquer - but only one House can rule the Inner Sphere, and none will allow that rule to come without price.

Planet Lightoller, Epsilon Indi System.

Jusenkyo Commonwealth

12 January 3025

"Step on it, Pop!" Ranma Saotome screamed to her father as crackling balls of charged particles blazed around them with violent thunderclaps. The communications antenna on their stolen Swiftwind scout ATV wouldn't retract, which left a big hole in the top of the ATV's armor, and Ranma was trying without success to fix it.

The giant panda, growling in abject terror the entire time, already had his furry foot on the floor.

The six-wheeled ATV swerved past a pile of boulders as another volley of lightning death lashed into the muddy ground. Clods of dirt and geysers of steam erupted at the impact point, bathing the open top hatch of the vehicle's antenna mount in scalding water droplets.

Ranma, suddenly male, turned back to face their pursuer as the now human Genma Saotome fumbled with the map function display. A Panther battlemech lumbered behind them, slowly dropping back as the ATV outran it. The particle projection cannon on its arm smoldered at its glowing hot muzzle tip from constant use.

"Doesn't she ever give up?" Ranma groaned. The Panther's PPC shivered with another thunderbolt, and a blindingly bright blue ball of lightning screamed overhead to explode a dozen meters in front of the ATV.

Genma swerved again to avoid the sudden five meter wide crater in front of him, nearly rolling over as the ATV tipped up on three wheels. Ranma was pitched out of the vehicle to land hard in a muddy puddle of water. She bounced out of the puddle with the force of the impact and crumpled into a dazed ball. The ATV continued on, with Genma either ignorant of his son's fate or unwilling to turn around and face the Panther to retrieve him.

Ranma, covered in mud and dripping wet, tried to pull herself upright as the Panther's footfalls shook the ground. Doing her best to ignore the pain and the pounding in her head, she managed to crawl out of the way of the battlemech as it continued on in pursuit of the ATV.

Shampoo grit her teeth as her 'mech's computer informed her in a saccharine voice that her PPC was overheating. Whichever of the two interlopers was driving that infernal ATV was either a panicked fool or else the galaxy's greatest stunt driver. She had never had such trouble eliminating a wheeled vehicle before. She was so intent on keeping her particle cannon online that she did not notice Ranma's accidental ejection from the ATV.

As the overheat warning became more urgent, she bit down on her lip and thumbed her weapon selector over to her missile launcher. One good volley would do the job, even if it wasn't as satisfying as frying them with a lightning bolt from her particle cannon. The gratifying tone of target acquisition sounded in her ears, and she sent her missiles flying with a curse for the damned girl who had destroyed her life.

Ranma watched as four Short Range Missiles streaked from the Panther's launch tubes and corkscrewed into the air. The stubby ballistically-guided weapons arced over the fleeing ATV, then dropped suddenly to the ground. Tremendous explosions threw clods of mud and bits of shrapnel high into the air. From the midst of the fireballs flew the ragged and burning hulk of the ATV.

"Pop!" she screamed in horror.

The ATV rolled end over end a dozen times before coming to a stop upside down a good forty meters from the blast zone. The Panther turned its sensor head to survey the destruction for a few moments, judged it good, then turned for home as if nothing had happened.

"Pop!" Ranma cried again hoarsely.

Dragging herself to her feet, she staggered across the muddy plain to the smoldering ruin of the ATV. Ragged bits of armor plate continued to rain down from the still air. Sharp pieces of scorched metal lay scattered about the wreck. Deep within the hulk came the tell-tale hiss of emergency venting from the scout's fusion reactor.

A tear spilled down her mud streaked face.

"Pop..."

A sob wracked her body as she sunk to her knees and wept.

"That's very touching, boy," a weak voice grunted from within the wreck.

Ranma's head bobbed up in disbelief.

"Pop?"

Genma Saotome's head appeared from the smoking ruin of the wreck. His face was smeared with mud, blood, and charcoal. The pungent tang of cyclo-trimethilene trinitramine, better known as the military high explosive RDX, filled Ranma's nostrils.

"Pop, how are you even alive?" Ranma asked, tears still in her eyes. "I saw what happened."

Genma gave him a grave look.

"Thank the gods for seatbelts, airbags, and armor plating," he replied slowly, and released his straps to fall in the mud at her feet.

Ranma helped her father up. "That Shampoo's gonna pay for this," she growled.

"We can still make the spaceport," Genma declared wearily. He had no intention of going back to face any Joketsuzoku. "If they think we're dead, they won't be watching for us."

"We might as well be dead," Ranma grunted, her elation at finding her father alive fading fast before the reality of their situation. "Look at what's happened to us! We've gotta go back and get a cure!"

Genma waved a hand in dismissal. "Are you out of your mind, boy?! We don't even know exactly how this happened to us! You think we can just sneak back in there and find a cure? That's assuming there even is one!

Ranma's face fell. She knew the reality of their situation as well as her father, but to just run away without a fight...! "Well I'm fresh outta ideas, Pop."

Genma lowered his bloodied head in thought.

"I have a plan," he said at length.

Ranma gave him a dubious look.

"Where have I heard THAT before?" she groused. Genma offered her a weak smile, which made her cringe with dread. Finally she could bear the suspense no longer. "So what is it, Old Man?"

"We're going to the Nerima Confederation," he announced.

"What?" Ranma cried. "You gotta be kidding me. The Confederation is about to get crushed by both the League and the Combine. They're broke, their 'mech forces are holding on by their fingernails, and they're halfway across the Inner Sphere from here. What could possibly be there that could help us?"

Genma eyed his son, now a buxom scarlet haired girl. "I have an old friend there. If anyone could help, it's him."

"Whatever," Ranma replied, nonplussed. She gathered up what little they had that was salvageable from the wreck of their Swiftwind and started walking. "It's a long march back to the starport, Pop. We better get going and hope you're right about them not looking for us."

BATTLETECH: THE SAOTOME GAMBIT

by J. Austin Wilde

As Shampoo powered down her Panther and popped the hatch to debark her 'mech, she noticed the sour and taciturn commander of the planet's garrison waiting for her on the gantry. His red reptilian eyes fairly burned under the light of the hangar's mercury vapor arc lamps. She made a point of ignoring him as she disconnected her cooling vest and neurohelm from the 'mech, then pulled herself gracefully through the hatch to alight soundlessly upon the steel non-skid diamond deck of the gantry catwalk. Still ignoring him, she slipped her helmet off and set it gently in a shielded and padded caddy near the mech's hatch.

"Did you finally eliminate them?" Herb asked archly, his patience with her at low ebb. The Commonwealth battlemech hangar was a cavernous and noisy place, and his presence on the Panther's boarding gantry was a clear sign of his concern in the matter.

Shampoo responded with a toss of her long purple mane of hair, a gesture that both inflamed and irritated the hybrid mechwarrior general. Herb had been put out by her insistence on dealing with the two outsiders herself. Lightoller was his domain, and to have a strumpet from Jusenkyo, even the great-grandaughter of the Matriarch, personally handling the internal affairs of the planet's security was intolerable to him.

Shampoo knew this, and with a look she made certain that he knew it as well.

"I left their vehicle a smoking wreck three kilometers north by east of Checkpoint November," she told him curtly. "Cleanup is your problem, not mine."

"Excellent," he managed. "I was beginning to worry that they had escaped for good."

"Have you determined their method of infiltrating the labs?" she countered, driving home her contempt for him. "It would be in your best interest as Governor if the Matriarch knew that the labs' integrity remained intact despite this breach of security."

Herb glared at her.

"That is being determined this very moment," he replied icily. "So long as the intruders were eliminated, the secrets of the Jusenkyo Labs will remain secure."

Shampoo doubted that. Rumors of the Commonwealth's Star League era biotechnics lab had been leaking out to the Inner Sphere for decades now, almost since her great-grandmother's breeding program began, and while the location of the labs and the exact nature of the experiments performed remained secret, she doubted that could last forever. The Combine's spies were always scuttling about in the shadows, and the Commonwealth's confederates in the League of Five Nails weren't always the type to keep their mouths shut. One day the labs' location would be known, and the truth about what they were doing would be revealed. It didn't take a genius to realize that shortly thereafter it would become the number one priority bombing target for every single aerospace fighter outside the Commonwealth.

"So you say," she replied, and stepped gracefully past him to the mechwarrior locker rooms to shower and change.

Herb watched her go, desire and contempt welling up within him to wage war on each other. He was a general in the Commonwealth battlemech forces, and when he was not on campaign in the periphery against the numerous pirates and bandit kings, he was the planetary governor for the most important world in the Commonwealth other than the capitol. All that power and glory should have been enough for any man, even an ambitious one like Herb.

But it wasn't. He wanted the supreme command of the Commonwealth military, something Cologne had kept from him despite his obvious qualifications. The reasons were clear: the Matriarch wanted that honor to go to her great-grandaughter Shampoo, whom she considered to be the crowning glory of her century-long Breeding Program, first above all of her other progeny. The second reason was even more bitter for Herb to swallow. He was a man, and a man would never command the Commonwealth's armed forces.

As his lustful eyes followed the graceful sway of Shampoo's hips he clenched his fists tight with determination. No matter what, he would have all that he desired, whether it was given to him or had to be taken. Taking Shampoo and making her his slave would be the sweetest prize of all.

Shampoo stepped back under the hot pulsating stream of the shower to rinse herself off. The steam was thick and warm around her, and she was grateful for it. General Herb made her feel cold inside whenever he was around, a cold that was hard to dispel even after he was gone, and cold was a feeling she now had a very good reason to fear.

Since she had joined the battlemech forces upon her first mense, she had encountered him time and time again, and each encounter left her with the same icy feeling. It wasn't that he was a man, for despite the clan's indoctrination promoting homosexuality over promiscuous and potentially damaging genetic harm to the Breeding Program, Shampoo had little desire for relations with other women. It was something else about Herb, perhaps the dragon blood bequeathed him through his parents and their exposure to the Jusenkyo Effect. Perhaps his cold-bloodedness was more than just a front for him, but was ingrained into his very being by the Program.

She had never questioned her great-grandmother's wisdom before, but the use of the Jusenkyo Effect to augment the superior genetic stock of the Commonwealth's mechwarriors was beginning to make her uneasy. If it created cold-blooded monsters like Herb and his two henchmen, Lime and Mint, what would it do to her? Hers was no longer a pure strain of the Matriarch's line, and now she wondered with some fear of what would become of her - and her future children?

Shampoo closed her eyes and let the water wash over her body in a rush of delicious warmth. She was tainted now, an undocumented, accidental, and unauthorized experiment in the Jusenkyo Effect, all because of that meddling red-haired girl! Her only hope lay in Doctor Gaido, and the slim chance that the Effect could be cured.

With some trepidation she shut off the shower. The steam lingered, and the air in the open shower bay did not have its usual chill. She had jimmied open the thermostat for the climate control unit and turned the heating to maximum, and it appeared to be doing its job. It would be a disaster for a sudden draft on her wet body to force her transformation - possibly in front of someone else.

She reached for a towel and dried herself off quickly. Only when she had donned a thick terry robe and slippers and stepped into the locker room to change into her uniform did she feel safe. Though not for long, as the door opened and a man in long flowing robes and equally flowing long black hair blundered inside.

"Get out, Mousse!" she cried indignantly at the young man.

Realizing his error, Mousse adjusted his thick eyeglasses to confirm that he had in fact walked into the wrong locker room. His weak eyes went wide at the sight of Shampoo in a state of half-dress, and his face burned with a fierce blush.

"Sh-Sha-Shampoo?" he stammered in shock.

"I said out!" she screamed. Still clutching her uniform cheongsam minidress ineffectually to her body, she searched for something heavy and hard to throw at him.

"I'm sorry!" Mousse managed, and ducked back through the door in time to avoid a steel laundry hamper.

She waited until she was certain that he was gone before swiftly changing into her uniform.

"Stupid Mousse," she huffed. He was always following her around like a puppy, and making foolish and embarrassingly public declarations of love for her. All this despite the fact that though he was an excellent and experienced mechwarrior, he was also hopelessly nearsighted, and therefore disqualified from the Breeding Program. The possibility that he had in fact not intended to walk in on her slowly crept into her thoughts, but that didn't mean she couldn't be angry with him anyway.

She knew that she didn't hate him. They had grown up together, after all, and though he had always been annoyingly infatuated with her, she tolerated him well enough. He was handsome despite his extremely thick glasses, and he had a terrific body from extensive training in several obscure forms of kung fu, but he was so irritating in his obsession with her that she never took him very seriously as a romantic prospect.

She gathered her things up into her kit bag with a sigh. She needed to get off this cursed planet and away from Herb, Mousse, and above all, the House Jusenkyo Labs. After her talk with Gaido, the first JumpShip headed for the Jusenkyo System would find her on it.

Furinkan Combine JumpShip _Imperator_,

in orbit above the planet New Hawaii,

Alpha Centauri System, Furinkan Combine

13 January 3025

Prince Tatewaki Kuno of the Furinkan Combine stood in uneasy silence on the Executive Bridge. His sister was conducting operations against the Confederation, which always worried him. It wasn't for any concern over his sister. Though it would sadden him to learn that his own flesh and blood had fallen in battle, the truth of the matter was that he considered her a hindrance to his plans of conquest, and a hindrance he would be well rid of.

What did concern him were the rumors that Akane Tendo had taken command of the 1st Nerima Guards, the Confederation force that currently reinforced the threatened planet of Abydos. His lovely battle maiden was a formidable foe in honorable combat, but at the hands of his cowardly and blackhearted sister, she could come to harm.

Indeed, his twisted sister had hinted at that very possibility when she announced her intention to raid the parts depot at Port Said. Though he had sternly rebuked her for such evil intentions, there was no way he could guarantee her conduct of the raid short of participating, and that he was reluctant to do. His reputation would suffer to be associated with the foul deeds of his sister's Black Rose regiment, whereas by remaining elsewhere, he could distance himself and make a public condemnation of her. He could do little else, for Kodachi enjoyed the favor of their father, and until the fool was dead or he abdicated his throne, he was powerless to prevent his sister's excesses in any meaningful way.

He stared out the main viewport to the blue bauble of the planet beneath his mighty starship. His hated father was somewhere down there inspecting the terraforming efforts and trying out the surf. His gorge rose at the thought of it. His own father, Shogun of the mightiest of the five Successor States, wasting his time and his nation's treasury trying to turn a planet into an imitation of the Hawaiian Islands of Earth. If he had half a mind towards conquest, he could become First Lord of the Star League, reestablish the throne on nearby Earth, and then have the _real_ Hawaiian Islands for himself.

Tatewaki frowned in distaste. When he was finally the First Lord of the Star League, he would order the Hawaiian Islands destroyed - by continuous nuclear bombardment if necessary - as an act of final contempt for his father. Until then, he needed to conquer the Nerima Confederation while keeping an eye on the Jusenkyo Commonwealth and its Comstar puppet. The League of Five Nails was at best an annoyance, and the Federated Shiratori and its vapid Goddess-Empress was not even deserving of mention.

Only with the Inner Sphere his, Hawaii a glowing radioactive cinder slipping beneath the waves, and most importantly his new bride Akane Tendo by his side, could he find fulfillment. Until then there was only room for battle and conquest in his heart. How terrible was the burden of the Gods' divine instrument of destiny!

He raised a fist in anguish to his brow and grimaced in silent despair and with tears streaming down his face at the thought. His crew went about their tasks on the Bridge, studiously ignoring their lord until it was clear that the moment had passed and he was approachable once again.

The City of Port Said,

Planet Abydos, Algol System

Nerima Confederation

13 January 3025

"Charlie Company of the 2nd Battalion reports contact with enemy 'mechs in company strength moving east along Khafre Boulevard towards the north/south freeway interchange."

The report came over the crackling command net for the 1st Nerima Guards Regiment. It was grim news if not unexpected. Alpha of the 2nd was supposed to have guarded the approaches to Khafre Boulevard and the freeway from their vantage point in the heavily wooded Osirien Park. No one at any level of the regiment had heard from Alpha Company of the 2nd Battalion for over an hour, and the regiment's scout assets were too busy evaluating the enemy's other positions to investigate.

A slender gloved hand thumbed the 'talk' button on her HOTAS (Hands On Throttle And Stick) controls. Akane Tendo, commander of the 1st Nerima and Heir to the Nerima Confederation, took a deep breath and addressed her commanders.

"Order Charlie Company to engage enemy forces in a holding action," she said, knowing that Charlie was a rump company of only two lances, one of which was understrength at that. It was going to be hard on them, but if the Furinkan Combine raiding parties reached the freeway, they would have a straight shot into the heart of the city and the parts depot they had come to loot.

"Yes sir," her adjutant in the mobile command center acknowledged.

Akane took another deep breath. She was only nineteen years old, and although she was an excellent mechwarrior, she was still not used to having so many lives on her hands. Not only those of her regiment, but those of the tens of thousands of civilians living in the heart of Port Said. The infamous Black Rose Terror Regiment was known for its atrocities, and Akane had no doubt that they would raze the city to the ground if they could.

These were her people. _Her_ people, as the daughter of their liege, Grand Duke Soun Tendo. She knew that she had to protect them, and she was too young and naive to realize that her life was more important than all of theirs.

Her tac-net display opened up to reveal her beleaguered Charlie of the 2nd Commander. His young face was pale with fear, despite the sweltering heat of a battlemech cockpit. The roar of particle beam fire mingled with fierce explosions in the background noise.

"Two-Charlie Actual reporting enemy battlemechs in company strength, all heavy units, approaching our positions from the west. We are taking them under fire, but do not have the numbers or the ammunition to hold them for long. Requesting immediate reinforcements!"

The display blurred into an angry buzz of static a moment later. When the image returned, Akane could see the cloudy blue sky through the battlemech's cockpit windows heaving crazily above the terrified mechwarrior, and she knew that he had been hit hard, perhaps had even lost his main gyroscope.

"Headquarters Company!" she called over the tac-net, so that every member of her regiment could hear her voice. "Move out! Proceed by lance to map reference One-Charlie-Three by Six-Oscar-Niner! Reinforce positions held by Two-Charlie!"

Akane's bright red Warhammer surged with energy as its fusion reactor came up to battle-power. Her regimental headquarters company, in reality her personal bodyguards, quickly acknowledged her order and followed suit. The company of battlemechs thundered down Alzred Parkway towards the freeway business loop. If they could reach the interchange before the Furinkan Combine forces, they would have the advantage of the high ground as the Combine 'mechs tried to scale the on-ramps to engage them.

She thumbed her battlecomp display over to the Civil Defense Order of Battle. A lance of Civil Defense Urbanmechs and Riflemen was in position in an elevated parking garage within three hundred meters of the interchange, ostensibly to act as air defense against the Combine's aerospace fighter assets. Their long-range autocannons could come in handy against any battlemechs that tried to jump jet directly up to the interchange. She called to her adjutant to order them up for fire support, the civil defense forces being in a separate but inferior chain of command from her own.

"Lady Akane," her adjutant addressed her with more than a little concern. He was a former mechwarrior in his mid-forties whose crippling injuries in battle had shunted him to a staff position, and he had a most fatherly protective attitude towards her. "This is a dangerous position you are taking."

Akane grit her teeth. Instead of keeping her reply strictly on the command channel, she again patched through the tactical net where the entire regiment could listen in. "Two-Charlie has a dangerous position, Colonel Mukaida. I'm trying to do something about that."

She was playing dirty pool with a man she deeply respected, but as a nineteen year old girl who commanded the 1st Nerima Guards by virtue of her birth as the daughter of the Grand Duke, she had to win the loyalty of her troops if she was ever going to truly lead them. Now they would know that their commander wasn't afraid of getting a little muddy and bloody to protect her own.

She was rewarded with a cheer over the tac-net from those very men and women she wished to lead. Her heart swelled with pride, and for a moment wasn't sure if the flush of heat she felt was from herself or the mighty reactor beneath her. The Warhammer pounded the reinforced roadway, shaking the buildings that surrounded her, and bringing forth to the windows curious civilians who began to wave and shout as they saw the Ducal pennant that flew from her 'mech. Suddenly she felt invincible.

And why shouldn't she? Her crimson red Warhammer was seventy tons of white hot death shaking the pavement with its cloven hooves. The long armored tubes of the twin Donal particle projection cannons that made up the battlemech's arms were capable of annihilating a light 'mech with one salvo.

The approaches to the business loop were guarded by a company of mechanized infantry and supported by a pair of Rommel tanks; not nearly enough to defeat a company of heavy 'mechs, but enough force to hold them until other units could reinforce their position. The tiny figures in their urban camouflage battle dress made way for her column of battlemechs as they stomped past. A tank commander waved from his hatch and signalled that the way ahead was clear to the interchange.

Colonel Princess Kodachi Kuno of the Furinkan Combine licked her lips in anticipation of the coming orgy of violence she and her Black Rose Terror Regiment were about to commence. The pitiful Confederation battlemech forces had so far put up valiant if futile resistance, and even the vaunted 1st Nerima Guards so feared by her brother's regular forces were hardly a significant threat. Her spearhead company was practically in position at the freeway interchange, having stopped briefly to engage a couple of lances of Confederation 'mechs. Once the freeway interchange was secured, her convoys of armored vehicles would move up and stand by to haul off the tons of battlemech parts and other critical technologies her forces looted from the depot. And then, once the depot was cleaned out, she could amuse herself by burning Port Said to the ground.

There were rumors from her Intelligence Section concerning the recent change of command within the 1st Nerima Guards. It would be amusing to face Akane Tendo in battle, and having crushed the girl under the heel of her black painted Marauder, to throw it in her dear brother's face. The only question in her mind would be whether or not killing the Tendo girl or holding her for ransom would be more entertaining.

The image of her staff major appeared on her battlemech's head-up display.

"Spearhead company reports only mop up operations against enemy lances near the interchange, your Highness. They will have the area secured within the next fifteen minutes."

Kodachi chuckled with glee. Despite the delays for skirmish actions, her troops were ahead of schedule! She clicked her mic open to respond.

"Inform them that we shall be joining them shortly. Order the caravans to move out to their final positions, and alert the DropShip commanders to prepare to receive captured supplies within the hour."

The major nodded briskly on the display.

"At once, Highness!"

That taken care of, Kodachi opened the throttle on her Marauder and let the seventy-five ton battlemech run at full tilt down Khafre Boulevard. Her plan was coming off without a hitch. She could see lines of smoke from the recent skirmish between her spearhead company and the hastily deployed forces of the 1st Nerima Guards.

It was a plan worthy of her reputation as the Black Rose of the Furinkan Combine. In a daring attack on the outskirts of Port Said's vital starport, two of her three 'mech battalions were keeping the enemy distracted and engaged over twelve kilometers from the real objective. Meanwhile her remaining 'mech battalion plus her Special Forces and her Transportation Battalions had landed outside the suburbs and near the two main traffic arteries of the city to carry out the raid.

Thus far the 1st Nerima Guards had shown no sign of getting wise to her plan, and even if they did, they would have to fight a withdrawal from the starport and race back across an elevated freeway while being taken under fire from her aerospace fighters every last kilometer of the way.

It was enough to make her laugh, and once she got started, there was little to stop her. She flicked her mic over to the external P.A. speakers and began cackling with glee. Swinging her 'mech's twin PPCs to bear on the suburban homes, she began blasting away. The particle bolts blew the timber and drywall structures to flaming bits, and her machinegun and light laser equipped lance mates began hosing anti-personnel fire into the panicked survivors.

Kodachi found another reason to laugh, and began picking targets for her particle cannons that would likely produce the most potential targets for her men. It was amusing to watch the pathetic Confederation citizens scrambling like ants at the feet of her 'mechs as shopping centers and homes blazed and streams of brilliant light incinerated them in little strobe-like flashes of flame.

Her revelry was short lived however, as an autocannon shell careened off her Marauder's precious Lamellar armor with a loud _spang!_ Too late, her threat indicator warned of a hostile Garret D2j radar search and tracking array in the area. The Garret array could only mean the presense of air defense 'mechs such as the Rifleman or the Jagermech in the area.

"Combat spread!" she ordered her troops. The massacre stopped abruptly as her battlemechs fanned out into a dispersion pattern that would minimize potentially fatal artillery and airstrikes while keeping the 'mechs close enough to give support to each other. Her eyes flicked between her viewport and her tactical instruments, searching for the enemy battlemech.

_Did her spearhead company miss one of the enemy in the confusion, or was just it a stray shell?_

She had her answer a moment later when one of her spearhead 'mechs exploded in a shower of silver plasma near the freeway on-ramp a scant kilometer distant. Streams of autocannon tracer fire rippled through the ranks of the spearhead company from an elevated parking garage on the other side of the freeway. Before they realized what was happening, another spearhead 'mech went down in flames, its legs blasted off at the knees as it rushed the on-ramp and ran straight into the enemy defilade.

Even as they started taking up defensive positions around the solid masonry of the interchange, they were hit again from a different quarter; from the on-ramp itself came pulses of heavy laser fire and bolts of charged particles. There were more than just air defense 'mechs in position at the interchange, and they had gone completely unnoticed by her staff!

Kodachi managed a strangled cry of rage as a third spearhead 'mech, a Catapult making a desperate jump jet leap out of harm's way, was ripped apart by an internal ammunition explosion as two Riflemen in the parking garage came to bear with their swiftly trainable anti-aircraft weapons and opened up with all four barrels. Missiles cooked off and spiralled crazily out of the ruptured ammo bins of the Catapult, some striking other spearhead 'mechs and adding to the confusion. The view of the interchange became obscured from visual and thermal imaging as smoke and flames from the wreckage came streaming down from above.

"Full advance!" she shouted to her men. She ordered a full missile bombardment on the parking garage as soon as the fire lance came into range. Next she called in one of her Air Lances covering the freeway for an airstrike. The Confederation was going to pay in kind for this!

A flight of Slayers answered her call, hosing the parking garage with laser and autocannon fire and screaming out of the way as her fire lance's missile barrage struck. The building shuddered with the blasts, becoming engulfed in flame and thick black smoke. The streams of autocannon shells and laser fire abruptly ceased, though whether this was because the 'mechswere destroyed or merely unable to track through the smoke was unknown. The respite given her spearhead company was good enough for the moment.

Her own Marauder was well ahead of the rest of her company, and she reached the freeway interchange before her spearhead company could shake off the shock of the ambush and start to fight its way out of the killing zone. Kodachi's sudden appearance on the scene made it clear that the only acceptable direction to move was forward. She pushed aside a Crusader that wobbled drunkenly from a double blast of particle beam fire and started up the ramp.

A Phoenix Hawk, hidden from sight by the solid masonry and steel curve of the ascending on-ramp, jumped out in a clumsy attempt at death from above. Kodachi swatted it down with the derringer-like forearms of her 'mech, and leaving it behind, swiveled her PPCs back to blast it while it was down. The Confederation 'mech blazed with blue light from the hits, and was immolated a moment later as the rest of her company joined her on the ramp.

Next up was a Griffin that left its protected position to help its lancemate. Kodachi gave it both barrels of her PPCs, plus her lasers. A bloom of heat burst from her 'mech's radiators, more than the cooling system could bear, but Kodachi was a past mistress of pushing her Marauder's plant to the limit and living to tell of it. With remarkable grace she shouldered the clumsy Griffin aside, knocking the hand-held PPC from its grip in a shower of sparks and twin sprays of ruptured liquid nitrogen coolant lines. The Griffin was finished an instant later by a volley of short range missiles that blew the bubble like cockpit into a cloud of flame and transparent durallex canopy shrapnel.

She was at the top of the ramp now, laughing in triumph as the Confederation 'mechs now felt the sting of the Black Rose's thorns. Her laughter reached a crescendo as she spied the crimson Warhammer of Akane Tendo closing in on her 'mech.

"Akane Tendo!" she cried over the enemy tac-net frequency. "I challenge you to single combat! May we fight in all fairness!"

"I accept!" Akane returned. No sooner had she said this than every single Combine 'mech in the fight trained their weapons upon her Warhammer and began firing everything they had.

Only an act of pure desperation saved her as the blistering fusillade of Combine weapons bore down on her 'mech. Searing bolts of laser and particle beam fire splashed into the Warhammer as she dove for the relative cover of one of the elevated freeway's support towers. Alarms wailed in the cockpit and the _whoosh_ of automated fire extinguishing systems told her of impending disaster.

The brief respite offered by her covered position gave her a moment to evaluate the condition of her 'mech. One glance at the displays was all it took to let her know that it wasn't good. She had never been mauled this badly in combat before.

The left side of her mech's torso was breached and gutted, including the left side gun cluster and several heat sinks. Only by her desperate torso twist and leap to cover had she been spared a potentially fatal ammunition explosion from her short range missile launcher or an equally fatal crash out from her fusion reactor. Her left PPC was damaged but functional, and her left leg was reporting an unextinguished fire near the knee actuator that threatened to immobilize the limb.

"Hey!" she cried indignantly into the tac-net. "What happened to single combat and fighting fair!?"

Autocannon fire and machine gun rounds slammed into the reinforced concrete of the pillar in reply, chewing into the masonry to expose the rebar in showers of green and gold sparks.

"Okay!" Akane shouted over the din. She was practically shaking in her ejector seat with fear, but she refused to die without a fight. "If that's your idea of a fair fight, then come and get me!"

She poked her left PPC arm out from behind cover and began firing point blank into a Combine Warhammer that charged her position with the intent of gunning her down. The mighty battlemech caught a bolt through the head as it practically ran down the muzzle of her PPC, and stopped dead in its tracks before her. She was rewarded with the sight of Kodachi's black Marauder, carefully positioned behind two Thunderbolts, practically shivering with rage as another of her mechwarriors was slain. Her fear melted away upon seeing her nemesis balk, and she charged with a fierce war cry.

The Combine 'mechs again opened up, but their own dead Warhammer absorbed most of the shots and flew apart in a cloud of smoke and shrapnel. Through that cloud came the battered crimson form of Akane's Warhammer.

A few 'mechs triggered their medium and light lasers wildly at her, which she ignored in favor of clubbing them with the now dysfunctional left PPC arm. The heavy armored tube of the particle cannon made a lethal bludgeon, and she smashed through the torso of a Quickdraw in a single blow. The ferocity of the attack took the Combine mechwarriors by surprise, and Akane waded into them, now swinging both PPC arms furiously.

Kodachi bit down on her lip as she watched the insane Tendo girl clobber yet another of her 'mechs. She watched with not a little horror as the red Warhammer stood over the fallen Archer and beat it savagely with its PPCs over and over until the dying battlemech's arms were broken and its torso and cockpit smashed in. A Catapult lashed Tendo with point blank laser fire, blasting the ruined searchlight to smithereens and starting a fire within the gutted torso - and received a vicious double blow across its own torso in return. The Catapult fell over, crashing into the pavement and leaving a crater.

Kodachi threw her Marauder into reverse and began backing down the on-ramp, ostensibly to get beyond the minimum range of her primary weapons so she could finish off Akane's Warhammer with one salvo. It turned into a full fighting retreat as the remainder of Akane's bodyguards began a fierce counterattack. Only the strong discipline of her troops kept it from becoming a total rout on the spot.

"We shall meet again!" Kodachi Kuno vowed angrily as her battered Black Rose 'mechs withdrew under the cover of a flamer-induced smoke screen. Her blood boiled with hate and anguish at the terrible defeat she had suffered. Never before had she known such a disaster!

She consoled herself with burning as much as she could on the way out of the city, but by now the civilians were in shelters and there was little sport or amusement in it. The raid was a failure, her crack battalion was in shambles with heavy casualties, and she now faced the humiliation of explaining to her brother the losses she had suffered. She could already see the smug look on his face and hear the angry tone of reproach in his voice. The only reason he wouldn't strip her of her command was because Daddy liked her the best and wouldn't permit it.

Akane stood up through the hatch of her Warhammer and surveyed the damage. The left torso was truly gutted, and the PPC arm hung battered and limp at its side. The searchlight was obliterated. Her 'mech now limped when it walked due to the knee actuator damage. The bright red paint was burned off in most places from the waist up, leaving only scorched and dull heat-discolored metal wherever it wasn't slashed open outright with laser fire. Her Warhammer was going to face an extended period in the tech shed before it would be ready to go out again.

Grim mechanized carnage lay all about her, most of it by her own hand. The Combine forces had lost four 'mechs outright on the freeway, and three more leading up to the on-ramp. The rest had fled with varying degrees of damage. She had lost four 'mechs, not including the Civil Defense lance which had lost two precious Riflemen and their pilots when part of the parking garage roof collapsed on them.

Sketchy reports from her recon lances indicated that the enemy 'mechs threatening the starport had broken off their attacks and were falling back in an orderly fashion to their drop zones. If she had sufficient aerospace fighter assets available, she would have made sure that the Combine forces received a billion joules per liter send off, but she barely had enough to cover her own forces, and the Black Rose Regiment would escape with no further losses.

Civilians in Kodachi's path had fared worst of all. She had begged her staff not to give her any more reports about it in the field, as she was close to tears already. The smoke from the fires raged in the distance with nothing available to combat them.

The only victory today lay in keeping Kodachi out of the heart of the city, and the only spoils of that victory lay in the salvageable remains she had left behind. For that victory they had paid a heavy price.

As she watched the Ghouls in the 'mech salvage and recovery squads pore over the wrecked battlemechs, the voice of her adjutant sounded from below. Akane looked down to see him strapped to his wheelchair in the back of a staff jeep waving up at her. His scarred face seemed relieved to see that she was all right.

"I'll be down in a second," she cried, and clambered out of the hatch to climb down her 'mech to the scorched pavement. Like most mechwarriors, she was wearing little more than a tank top and shorts underneath her cooling vest, and the driver of the jeep hopped out to provide her with his uniform cloak.

Her adjutant, Colonel Mukaida, saluted as she approached.

"I have the preliminary casualty reports," he said evenly.

Akane tensed for the blow.

"How bad?"

Mukaida handed her the hastily drafted preliminary report.

"Bad enough to pull the regiment back from the line," he replied. "We weren't full strength when we arrived on planet, and now we're barely at fifty percent effectiveness."

Akane took the news like a punch to the gut.

"Can the frontier hold on without us? There was a good reason why the 1st Nerima was needed here, and that was because of the buildup of Combine forces on the border."

"I don't know," Mukaida replied. "What I do know is that another battle like today - which was apparently nothing more than a large scale raid - could put the 1st Nerima out for good. We need to fall back to our second line to repair and replace our 'mechs."

He lowered his face for a moment before regarding her.

"I can't order you to withdraw," he began. "The regiment is yours to command. You've proved yourself beyond any doubts of that. But I have to recommend that we withdraw."

Akane looked up to the sky. What would her father do? It had been so long since he had been a mechwarrior, but Akane could still remember the solemn look on his face from behind his neurohelmet. What would Dad do?

She took one last look at the devastation and sighed.

"Order the withdrawal to our secondary positions as soon as practical," she said tonelessly. The secondary position for the 1st Nerima Guards was the Nerima System itself. She was going home already, and she had barely left it.

Primary Continent,

Planet Capra, Capra System

League of Five Nails

31 January 3025

The deformed monstrosity of a Hunchback battlemech cleared the low rise of rocky hills at a run. Reaching the high ground, the thirty foot tall war machine came to a halt. Its sensors began to probe the surrounding territory.

"Where is he?" Mechwarrior Pansuto Tarou demanded of his instruments. His radar suite showed only the steadily advancing blip of his companion, Ryouga Hibiki. The yellow and black trimmed BattleMaster seemed to be in no particular hurry, which was just as well, as Ryouga had a tendency to get lost when he was in a rush.

"Any luck?" Ryouga called to him over the tac-net.

Tarou grit his teeth and squinted at the display. His radar wasn't in the best shape after fifty years of service to his family battlemech, and the mechanical shock it suffered every time he triggered his primary weapon - a huge Tomodzuru Type 20 autocannon that gave the mech its distinctive deformity - wasn't helping the unit.

"I don't understand," Tarou replied. "How could that bastard simply disappear?"

The BattleMaster came to a halt several meters from the Hunchback.

"Beats me," Ryouga shrugged. "If you really did see him, which I doubt, just remember that Locusts are pretty fast. Maybe he just outran us."

"He can't outrun my radar," Tarou grunted, more than a little perturbed with Ryouga's skepticism. He keyed the telescopic bifocal unit mounted in the head of his mech, and zoomed in on a rock formation almost a kilometer distant. "That's the only place he could be hiding."

The Hunchback's right arm extended in the direction of the red-brown pile of sandstone in the distance.

"Could be," Ryouga agreed, concealing his distaste for their hunt. The poor excuse for a sun on Capra was going to be setting soon, and the early evening sandstorms that rose with the sunset winds were murder on sensitive battlemech parts. He wanted to return to Capra City and park his mech in a covered hangar before that happened. "But we're already way out of our patrol sector."

"What's another klick at this point?" Tarou scowled.

"Another klick could cost us our jobs," Ryouga returned, baring a fang for Tarou's benefit. "I don't know about you, but I want to make enough money to get off this stupid planet. Forfeiting our contract because you _think_ you saw him is no way to do that."

Tarou cast another look at his noisy radar display.

"All right," he conceded, scorn dripping from his voice. "But I know that he's out there somewhere, and my vow to atomize the little freak will finally be fulfilled. After that, Cologne and House Joketsuzoku."

Ryouga had his doubts about Tarou's sanity some times, and this was one of them. What was worse, this planet was getting to him. Ryouga hated Capra, and he hated the Joketsuzoku for what they had done to both of them, but how could they realize their vengeance if they lost their jobs? Worst of all, their deal with the mercenary company they now served included stiff penalties for breach of contract.

If they weren't careful, they could both lose their battlemechs. Until they passed their probationary period with the company, they would have to suffer liens on their 'mechs for spare parts and adaptation to the harsh sandy climate. There wouldn't be much sympathy for them from the Governor of Capra, either, as the mercs represented the only significant protection he had from the predations of bandits or the Combine. No, it would all be nice and legal, and in the end they would join the hated ranks of the Dispossessed. Suicide would be the only honorable way out after that.

He cast his eyes out across the desolate expanse of waste and sighed. Home was many parsecs away.

_How did we end up on this forsaken dustball?_

He knew well the chain of events which led to their practical exile on the frontier League world, but the reasons why Fate had decreed that this should happen to Ryouga Hibiki and Pansuto Tarou escaped him. What had they done to deserve this?

Their last assignment as part of the mercenary garrison on the Commonwealth world of Lightoller had been dull - as the planet was heavily fortified against attack - but extremely lucrative. Perhaps too lucrative, Tarou now asserted. Ryouga still reserved judgement on that score, but was beginning to see his point.

Happousai, posing as an agent for independent mechwarriors, had steered them into the job as they looked for work within the Federated Shiratori. They agreed to a sweet deal, booked a trip to Lightoller - travel expenses paid for by the Commonwealth, Tarou liked to point out - and began months of tedious but well paid patrols around the primary starport. It wasn't bad, but for reasons that became clear one fateful night in the not-so-distant past, their Commonwealth employers were extremely interested in their physical and mental condition. They both received extensive physicals and psychological exams, gave blood regularly (ostensibly for their own protection should they become badly wounded in battle and need a reliable source for transfusions), and periodic follow ups.

Then came the night of the 11th of January, 3025, and their lives as they knew them ended.

Ryouga remembered almost all of it painful detail. They had been on patrol in a light hovercraft, battlemechs being reserved for higher stages of alert, when they were directed towards a position outside the landing fields by the starport security chief to investigate a possible smuggling operation. They turned out instead to be scouts or spies, probably for the Combine, as he later reasoned, but Tarou had mocked his conclusion ever since. At that point their otherwise reliable commo system had failed, and they were unable to report their findings.

Unwilling to let the spies get away in order to report back to base, Tarou suggested they follow the spies and wait for a chance to take care of them. Ryouga reluctantly agreed, and they followed them to an off-limits area almost a hundred kilometers from the starport. The area was restricted to Household forces only, but with no way to sound the alarm, the two of them decided to take matters into their own hands.

What followed was an utter nightmare that still made his skin crawl. The Joketsuzoku had some kind of Star League era biological science lab running in secret for a purpose he and his companion could not even guess until it was too late. His memory was still vague on what happened inside, though whether this was from the effects of the weird machinery that he and Tarou fell victim to, or his own subconscious trying to protect him, he did not know. The last thing he remembered before the change was the sight of a red-haired girl flying at him from above, being chased by a large and furry black and white beast.

When consciousness returned, he was no longer human. What was worse was the sight of the thing that had become Tarou towering before him and wailing in terror and anguish. He fled the facility in panic, with the thing that Tarou had become chasing after him.

It was only much later that they came to their senses enough to stop running and take stock of their situation, and dumb luck in the form of Tarou's clumsy fumblings with a hot flask of coffee left behind in their hovercraft to reverse their hideous mutations. They had left their uniforms and ID cards back at the demonic laboratory, making it clear that the Commonwealth forces would consider them among the spies that had broken in. Fear and utter loathing of the Commonwealth for the black arts they had chosen to dabble in had made them decide to make a run for it, and so just before daybreak they marched their battlemechs to the starport and hired a tramp freight hauler bound for the League to take them out of the system.

Their money was only good enough to get them as far as Capra. Since then they had been on the run from the Commonwealth, who were now rumored to have put a price on their heads. As for their transformations whenever they were splashed with cold liquids, neither he nor Tarou would speak of it to the other, much less to anyone else. The closest either came to the subject was talk of revenge on the Commonwealth, which had forged a bond between them that no amount of previous combat had been able to create.

But Tarou had another axe to grind; the reason they were now out in the middle of the wastes looking for a Locust battlemech. He considered it to be no accident that they had ended up at the lab that night, and that they fell victim to such a horrendous fate. Ryouga had listened to him night after night since their arrival on Capra about how the Commonwealth doctors had done such extensive testing on them before that night. He was convinced that they had been used as unwitting guinea pigs for some kind of freakish Commonwealth experiment, and he was convinced that Happousai was ultimately responsible for their present miserable conditions.

Now Tarou was convinced that he had seen Happousai, of all places, on the very shithole planet they had been exiled to by blind chance. Ryouga wasn't sure what to make of Tarou, whom he knew wasn't entirely all there upstairs _before_ their trip to Lightoller. He decided not to press the issue. The two battlemechs turned with the grace of rhinos and began marching back the way they came.

A kilometer away, a cunningly painted Locust stood against the rock face with its reactor down. A battlemech could have marched right past the well camouflaged war machine and never noticed it - which was just the way the Locust's pilot preferred things.

Happousai watched as the two battlemechs receded over the line of ruddy hills, and puffed on his pipe. It was a very near thing as far as he was concerned. He hadn't lived as long as he had by taking foolish risks, but to be fair to himself he reflected that there was no mention of Pansuto Tarou and Ryouga Hibiki in the rosters of the mercenary battlemech company he was observing.

Those two were going to be trouble, he decided. The rest of the mercs were a bunch of third rate cupcakes who had deserted from the Federated Shiratori - easy pickings. Hereditary mechwarriors like Hibiki and Tarou could eat them for lunch, and they'd certainly be a handful for the company of Combine mechs scheduled for a surprise raid on this dustball.

He took another thoughtful puff on his pipe.

The direct approach wasn't going to work. He may have been one of the best mechwarriors in the Inner Sphere, but his Locust wasn't going to make it toe-to-toe with a BattleMaster and a Hunchback. Neutralizing the two was going to require personal action on his part.

Happousai nodded to himself as a plan formed.

Kawaii City, the Capitol of the

Federated Shiratori

Planet Genevieve, Martina System

2 February 3025

Brigadier Ukyo Kuonji of the Federated Shiratori battlemech forces waited outside the throne room of her Goddess-Empress, Azusa the First, with her adjutant. She wore her dress blue uniform with all her medals and braid for the audience with the Empress, and strapped to her back in place of a sword was her family weapon, an implement that looked suspiciously like a humongous spatula. Despite her rank and her dedication to her career as a mechwarrior, Ukyo looked distinctly uncomfortable in her dress blues. She disliked having to speak to the Empress and dealing with her fawning sycophants, but for what she wanted it would be necessary.

Major Konatsu, Ukyo's devoted adjutant, looked prim and military proper at first glance, but upon closer inspection the skillfully applied makeup, fastidious grooming, and hand tailored uniform brought out a distinctly feminine side that drew second looks from male passers-by. It was only upon learning who the attractive young officer was that the men shied quickly away, for Konatsu was in fact male.

Konatsu checked his watch, a little golden heart-shaped pendant with brilliantly executed scrollwork and decorative enameling.

"Pardon me, sir," he said gently to Ukyo. "But it's past three-thirty."

Ukyo blew her chestnut bangs out of her eyes.

"Tell me about it, sugar," she groused. "We've only been standing here waiting for the last hour."

She brushed at a piece of lint on her jacket. Wool attracted lint like a magnet.

"I suppose we only have another hour or so to go."

Konatsu nodded absently. One of the things that endeared him to Ukyo was his unflappable patience, something she herself did not possess in any great abundance.

"Yes sir," he demurred, then smiled coyly at a young General Staff lieutenant who dared a second glance. The lieutenant blushed furiously and continued on.

Ukyo had noted the brief exchange and sighed. Here she was in the flower of her youth, fairly pretty if she was any judge of appearances, and quite desperately single. Meanwhile, her adjutant, who was in fact a man even if he was a little confused on the whole gender issue, was getting all of the attention from the guys.

Konatsu stiffened beside her, bringing her attention to the swaggering figure of General Mikado Sanzenin, the Chief of Staff for the Federated Shiratori Armed Forces. Mikado was making a beeline straight for her, and he was not alone. She bit down briefly on her lip when she noticed the attractive red-haired captain by his side.

As he neared within three paces she reluctantly snapped to.

"Brigadier Kuonji," he said absently, returning her less than enthusiastic salute with one equally sloppy. He then took Konatsu's white gloved hand and with a warmly said "Major Konatsu," kissed it gently, causing the adjutant to blush. Ukyo for her part thought she was going to be sick. Mikado knew full well about Konatsu, and while there was absolutely no evidence to support the notion that he swung both ways, he was most assuredly sincere in his efforts to flatter Konatsu.

"General Sanzenin," she and Konatsu returned. There was a considerable difference in the level of enthusiasm present between the two of them, and Ukyo felt like stomping on her adjutant's foot.

"Have you met Captain Curtiss before?" Mikado asked Ukyo with one of his patented teeth-gleaming smiles. The captain, who couldn't have been in the service more than six months judging by her overwhelmed look, tried to smile and yet still maintain respect for Ukyo and Konatsu's ranks. She had beautiful red hair, deep and dark - not orange like most redheads - piercing blue eyes, heart shaped face, a slim figure and curves in all the right places. She also didn't look terribly bright, although that could well have been chalked up to her present state of bedazzlement in the halls of power. She was a real prize, Ukyo decided. No wonder Mikado had snatched her up.

"No, sir, I don't believe I have," she returned, hoping that he was simply here to show off and then leave. Mikado had always taken somewhat personally her rebuff of him in the past, and every now and then would attempt to demonstrate to her just what she was missing. So far it hadn't had much more of an effect than annoying her.

"Captain Curtiss has just joined my personal staff," Mikado declared.

_Imagine that_... Ukyo thought dryly.

"She'll be taking over the strategic logistical planning system," he went on, and alarm bells began ringing in Ukyo's head.

"That's quite a task," Konatsu said, stepping blindly into the trap. Ukyo very nearly stomped on his foot in desperation.

"It is indeed," Mikado replied smugly. He was looking straight into Ukyo's eyes as he did so, and she now confirmed by the twinkle in his eyes that he meant to screw her over yet again. "So much so that I'm going to have to personally see to the turnover process with Jane, I mean, Captain Curtiss. We're going to my Winter Headquarters on Calliope to begin the process..."

"But the Spring Manuevers!" Ukyo protested weakly. She was screwed, and she knew it, but still the desperate plea escaped her lips. She wanted to stomp on her own foot now. At least then she might have a dignified excuse to slip away.

Mikado shook his head sadly. "You'll have to take over for me, Brigadier Kuonji. This turnover process is too important to jeopardize. One mistake could throw the entire army out of kilter for a year or more. Besides, you've handled it exceptionally well before, something that can't be said for other officers of the General Staff."

_That's because between you and the Empress you've managed to fill the entire staff up with beautiful looking incompetants!_ Ukyo screamed to herself.

"I'm here to petition the Empress for diplomatic duty," she said instead. "To the Nerima Confederation as a military attache."

Mikado shook his head.

"Sorry, my sweet, I need you here in the Federated Shiratori. You're one of my only effective generals. You'll have to beg off to the Empress in light of the new situation."

The urge to split Mikado's skull with her spatula began rising within her, and Konatsu turned to offer a concerned look that was resolutely ignored in favor of hellfire eyes directed at Mikado. The Commanding General either ignored her or was oblivious, thinking that even now she was under his spell.

"Yes sir," she sizzled.

"Excellent!" Mikado replied, sickeningly happy to have shirked his responsibility once again in favor of seducing one of his junior officers. "Carry on then, Brigadier. I expect detailed reports from the exercises as they develop, and a copy of your orders has already been sent by guard mail courier to your headquarters." He tossed them both jaunty salutes and then took Curtiss gallantly by the arm. "Later!"

Ukyo Kuonji turned to her adjutant, her green eyes burning and her heart pounding in her ears.

"I hate that man," she growled. "With a passion beyond words..."

Tetsuyama Fortress

Capitol of the League of Five Nails

Planet Angbad, Melkor System

The League of Five Nails

3 February 3025

The private apartments of Hikaru Gosunkugi lay deep within the roots of Tetsuyama Fortress, sheltered from the sanguine glow of the red giant star Melkor and the prying eyes of his meddling parents. Bookcases carved whole from single trunks of ironwood and Aldeberan black oak dominated most of the available wallspace, while the remainder was taken up with portraits of Akane Tendo. The collection of books were mostly of the bound paper variety, though Hikaru was no technophobe, and maintained an equally formidable library of electronic media. The photos and stereographs were a combination of Nerima press shots and ones surreptitiously acquired through his personal network of spies and informants within the Nerima Confederation. Hikaru paid not in C-bills but in gold for the most candid of these second variety.

The air hung heavy in these rooms, both from the many votive candles that burned upon occasion during Hikaru's rituals, and from the lack of adequate ventilation such a remote and withdrawn location within the mountain dictated. Hikaru didn't mind, as he had been living this way for most of his life. Visitors on the other hand frequently succumbed to the oppressive weight of so much black basalt hovering over their heads, the lack of fresh air, and the foreboding stacks of ancient and half-forgotten books that dominated the place. These people often felt the sudden urge to flee to the exposed battlements of the fortress and never return, which suited Hikaru just fine.

He preferred his privacy, and despite his very public status as the heir to the League of Five Nails, he made every attempt to maintain it. His parents, no great lights themselves, wanted him to be some shining example to his people. Hikaru could have cared less about the billions of souls that called the League home and the Gosunkugis their liege lords. Only one thing motivated him: his pursuit of Akane Tendo.

Akane was his love, his driving passion. She was the blessed light of creation, the angelic goddess that inspired the poets of old and drove men mad with desire. She was also, Hikaru was absolutely certain, destined by the very Cosmos itself to be his.

The fact that he had never even met her face to face meant nothing to him. Nor the reality that though the opportunity had arisen several times during diplomatic functions between the two countries, he lacked the nerve to approach her, much less even speak to her. None of it mattered, because as he had read in the various and numerous auguries he had cast, Akane would be ultimately be his.

Despite such cosmic assurances, he did have to admit that he had a deadly rival for Akane's affections. Prince Tatewaki Kuno of the Furinkan Combine also desired her, and had waged continuous war against the Nerima Confederation since the day he took command of the Combine's army in order to get her. The beleaguered troops of the Confederation had fought many hard battles since then to keep her safe, and prevailed each time, which in Hikaru's mind was proof enough of Fate's intention to deliver her to Angbad as his bride.

Grudgingly, he admitted that while the cosmos smiled on his future union with Akane, he couldn't sit completely idle and wait for her to come to him. The Combine's military might was slowly pushing back the Confederation while the League fought indecisive skirmishes that brought him no closer to his goal.

Clearly the path to Akane did not lie with military action. He was intelligent enough to see this, but his entire family was sotted with the old triumphs, the old conquests. They could not see that the glory days of the Army of the League of Five Nails were long past, that they had become weak and impotent on the battlefield.

His parents were the most blind of all to this truth, pushing him into a career as a mechwarrior when it was obvious that he lacked the skills and the temperment to prevail in combat. He was the Heir to the League, they reminded him, and the Heir's first duty was to the Army. They did not want to understand that he answered a different calling.

The alternative to military action was intrigue. It was plain to unclouded eyes such as his. Armed with such wisdom, he considered the facts.

The Furinkan Combine was too great a power to successfully oppose on an extended campaign. That was obvious. The war the Combine waged against the Confederation was driven by one man, Tatewaki Kuno, for the purpose of taking Akane Tendo for his bride. If Tatewaki were removed from the equation, the war against the Confederation might lose momentum and the Inner Sphere would return to its usual state of hostile equilibrium. Even if peace did not immediately result, it solved Hikaru's problem with a rival for Akane's love.

Removing Tatewaki Kuno would prove exceedingly difficult, and thus prohibitively expensive. He had once made discreet inquiries among those darker elements of the Inner Sphere who specialized in such matters. It was at a point not long ago when it seemed that the Combine was about to flatten the Commonwealth like a nuclear powered steamroller, and the situation had seemed desperate. Fortunately the Confederation rallied soon afterwards, though Hikaru had spent many a sleepless night in prayer.

What he learned from his inquiries was that Tatewaki Kuno was often considered for assassination by elements both within the Combine and without, and due to a little healthy paranoia on his part and an elite staff of fanatics who served as his personal guard, was a tough nut to crack. At one point the use of nuclear weapons was bandied about before being quashed as doing more harm than good. In any event no hit man would even consider the job without a ridiculous fee, at least half of it up front, and the rest waiting in escrow, with clauses for the killer's next of kin, to receive on completion.

There were other problems with assassination, and reprisal was one of them. State-sanctioned murder of another state's heirs lowered the bar of acceptable conduct far too much for Hikaru's taste. The Inner Sphere had barely lurched back from the brink after the First Succession War, and he had no desire to be next on the chopping block.

What he really needed was a plan to spirit Akane out of the Nerima Confederation. Once she was with him she would fall madly in love with him, and together they would demand of her father the entire Confederation as a dowry. Grand Duke Soun Tendo was a nervous wreck and a doting fool; there was no chance that he would refuse to capitulate, Hikaru was certain of it.

He also needed to craft and execute this plan from some point away from Tetsuyama and the interferance of his parents. They would not approve of such methods unless it was presented to them as a _fait accompli,_ and so he had no use for them. Where to go, and how to keep his parents out of his hair?

As he paced down a short hall from his study to his bedroom an answer to his dilemma came to him.

He would go on campaign. With a large portion of the League's army at his disposal he would have troops, battlemechs, DropShips, JumpShips, bases near the frontier, supplies, wide access to funds, special forces and intelligence personnel; everything he would need to carry out his plan. His commands to his personal spy network would be concealed within the huge volume of message traffic flowing through the headquarters of an army corps. He would also be far away from Tetsuyama, and his parents would be fooled into thinking that he had finally come around to their desires.

It was perfect!

Suddenly inspired, he rushed to his private shrine. Once there he hurriedly donned the headdress and lit the candles. Two carefully crafted straw effigies were withdrawn from the shrine, one resembling Grand Duke Tendo with a long moustache and the other like Tatewaki Kuno with blue rice paper hakama and a katana etched from a toothpick. Each was stuffed with hairs taken secretly and at great expense from their respective victims.

Hikaru then took a namesake iron spike and drove it with a curse through each effigy. The spike used on the Kuno effigy was driven through with a single blow, an omen Hikaru found to be especially auspicious. The other was driven through with a similar ease. The gods had spoken. Fate had chosen Hikaru Gosunkugi for the richest prize the Inner Sphere had ever known.

Akane Tendo.

A SUMMARY OF THE SUCCESSOR STATES OF THE STAR LEAGUE, ca. 3025 CE

HOUSE TENDO (The Nerima Confederation)

The Nerima Confederation is headed by the widower Grand Duke Soun Tendo and his three daughters, Kasumi, Nabiki, and Akane. The Confederation holds on to its territory by mere fingernails. It is pressed on two fronts by the Furinkan Combine and the League of Five Nails. It maintains a relaxed neutrality and trade pact with the Federated Shiratori, and has little formal contact with the isolationist Jusenkyo Commonwealth. In reality it is a state living on borrowed time, where only the most desperate of gambles can hope to save it from total subjugation.

HOUSE KUNO (The Furinkan Combine)

The Furinkan Combine is the most powerful of the five Successor States. It is led by a deranged lunatic and his two equally unbalanced children. The battlemech forces are led by Tatewaki Kuno, and have made significant attacks on Nerima Confederation territory. Tatewaki is obsessed with Akane Tendo, and hopes to gain her as a prize of his conquest of the Nerima Confederation. Kodachi Kuno has her own axe to grind with Akane Tendo, though she usually prefers to act as foil for her brother's plots.

The Furinkan Combine is at war with the Nerima Confederation and with the League of Five Nails, who are also trying to conquer the Confederation and wed Akane Tendo to one of their own. The Combine maintains a watchful guard against the Jusenkyo Commonwealth and the Federated Shiratori.

HOUSE GOSUNKUGI (The League of Five Nails)

The League of Five Nails is actually second to the last in wealth and power, but by picking on the weakest nation, the Nerima Confederation, its status has improved greatly over the last few decades. The League is run by the Gosunkugi family, once wise and powerful and now decadent and failing. The family's last hope rests with the heir, Hikaru. The League is at war with the Confederation and with the Furinkan Combine. It maintains a good relationship with the Jusenkyo Commonwealth, serving as an access point to the rest of the Inner Sphere for Cologne's covert agents. The League has a tepid relationship with the Federated Shiratori.

HOUSE JOKETSUZOKU (The Jusenkyo Commonwealth)

The Commonwealth is an isolationist state second in wealth and power in the Inner Sphere, and first in the possession of technology. House Joketsuzoku has in its possession a Star League biotechnic research facility and cloning ward, and from this facility has come up with a terrible new weapon: the Jusenkyo Effect. This mutagenic agent forces the victim to assume a new physical matrix (usually an animal) almost instantaneously after suffering a sudden change in external body temperature.

The Commonwealth has ties only to the League of Five Nails, using it to infiltrate their agents into the Inner Sphere. The Commonwealth has also heavily infiltrated Comstar, giving them almost unrestricted access to the message traffic of the Inner Sphere - an Intelligence coup of the highest order. Because of this, it is practically impossible to keep information secret from House Joketsuzoku for long...

HOUSE SHIRATORI (The Federated Shiratori)

The Federated Shiratori is a state devoted to worship of its Goddess-Empress Azusa. All other considerations of statecraft are secondary, although Azusa has declared a jihad against the Furinkan Combine for the loss of one of her pet commanders in a Combine raid. Free enterprise blossoms in the Federated Shiratori under Azusa's benign anarchy, and the country is quite prosperous. This prosperity has not translated into any military success, however, as many of Azusa's generals are appointees chosen by her for their looks rather than their ability.

The Federated Shiratori has declared a jihad against the Furinkan Combine, though the Combine doesn't deign to reciprocate with its own declaration of war. It has poor formal relations with the other states, as Azusa can't be bothered by such trivialities as diplomacy.

Fort Dettmering, on the outskirts of Capra City,

Planet Capra, Capra System,

The League of Five Nails

1 February 3025

Ryouga Hibiki was lost once again. It was absolutely humiliating, but at least no one was about at such a late hour to notice. His barracks room had to be around somewhere, as the fort just wasn't that big.

At least he was still in the fort, he thought with some relief. The other night he had ended up in the middle of the Governor's Mansion lawn facing a pack of paranoid bodyguards. It had taken a little fast-talking to get out of that one without serious trouble.

Tarou was probably asleep, he reflected. The guy was still fuming about having to give up on his Happousai hunt, and without coming out and saying it, he blamed Ryouga for letting him get away rather than admit that the very idea of Happousai being on Capra was absurd. There would be no help from Tarou tonight.

The sight of a passing sentry was both cause for relief and for embarrassment. He was going to have to ask for directions - for the third time in an hour. Maybe the guy would just give up and lead him step by step to the barracks...

Happousai prowled the shadows across the unevenly paved street that separated Fort Dettmering from the sleazy bars and topless joints that had set up within walking distance from the garrison in order to better part the soldiers with their money. It had taken a great deal of resolve to wait in a place like this, and several times he had given in to temptation in order to sample the place's wares. Fortunately for his mission, the girls in the clubs were rather uninspiring to all but the most neophyte of voyeurs. Happousai had seen much better in far more enjoyable surroundings.

Somewhere on the other side of the coils of cyclone wire and the concrete retaining walls of the fort were Ryouga Hibiki and Pansuto Tarou. In just under ten hours a Furinkan Combine battlemech company would be dropping out of orbit to stage a punitive raid on the League, and it was his job to provide intelligence prior to the attack on the city. He knew that the attack would not go very well unless the two mechwarriors were dealt with, and he also knew that unless the attack went well, he would not get paid.

The question was how to deal with them. He was technically under contract with the Combine at the moment, but just prior to taking the job, he had heard whispers out of the Jusenkyo Commonwealth that the two mechwarriors were wanted men. Happousai went back a long way with the Commonwealth, and he was certain that handing them over would do well to ease the current bad blood that sat between himself and the leader of the Amazon nation, Cologne.

He had some ideas about why they were wanted. For example, he was the agent who had signed them up for duty on Lightoller, and he knew to some degree about the things that went on there. It didn't take a scientist (though there were few of those these days) to realize why the Commonwealth might want Bad Things to happen to Ryouga and Tarou before they could spill the beans. They might also want their guinea pigs back in order to complete their experiments...

What to do? Kill them? No, that seemed like a waste of good material. If they died on the battlefield, then so be it, but not underhanded murder. The Inner Sphere needed great mechwarriors like those two in order to remind all those other wannabes what being a great mechwarrior entailed. Standards were slipping as far as he was concerned, and he was not going to help them get worse. It seemed like anyone with a battlemech and access to a training simulator could finagle his way into one of the Successor State armies these days.

Sabotaging their 'mechs was a possibility, but kidnapping them seemed like the best answer. That would take them out of the picture, he'd be able to hand them over to the Commonwealth, and the possible capture of two intact battlemechs by the Combine raiders might well convince them to look the other way when he loaded them on board the Combine DropShip. Hell, he might even get a bonus out of the deal!

His mind made up, he darted across the street. The wall was lit at even intervals by security lamps, but there were gaps in the coverage for him to exploit. There were also motion detectors in place, but he had been observing the fort for the last few nights, and noted that just about anything from a stray dog to a sandy gust of wind set them off, and now they were generally ignored by the sentries.

It wasn't difficult for a man of his diminutive stature and martial arts-imbued grace to slip past the triple coils of razor wire unscathed. A scrabbling leap at the wall put him up and over in scant seconds. As he set down on the firmly packed sand of the fort's parade ground, he mused that it would have been much easier to slip through the front gate, but at least this way he wasn't getting rusty in his old age.

He scampered lightly across the parade ground to a quonset hut, leaving no trace of his passing in the sand. From the hut he skulked into the shadows to let a sentry pass him by. Once the mercenary soldier had passed, he vaulted up onto a stack of crates and from there took to the roof of the quonset hut. The barracks was a low three story building near the center of the fort and within a quick jog to the hangars. Only a few lights burned in the windows at this late hour.

There would be a listing of room occupants in the possession of the Duty Barracks NCO, whose office was likely on the first floor. A quick scan of the building revealed a fire escape that could serve as an entry point. He leaped off the roof and sprinted across the rows of jeeps and light armored vehicles that separated him from the barracks. A younger man would have been winded for certain at this point in his expedition, but Happousai was a man who burned with a strange madness that fueled him with almost boundless energy.

As he had expected, the fire escape door wasn't alarmed. A scattering of cigarette butts on the ground by the door confirmed this. Residents apparently came here to smoke out of sight.

He crept inside the barracks and turned down a hall to a source of light, which turned out to be a lounge. A television glowed soundlessly in the darkness of the room, playing to absolutely no one. The noise of a drinking fountain refrigeration unit was the only sound to be heard.

Continuing on past a bank of unoccupied phone booths, he reached the lobby. A front desk watch dozed at his post, periodically stretching out his arms and yawning loudly. A forest of yellow post-it notes fluttered behind him on the neglected phone message board. It would be interesting to see if anyone called for Ryouga or Tarou, but Happousai doubted it. They were both loners, and from what little he had seen of them, not exactly skilled with the ladies.

A door labeled 'Barracks Officer' seemed the obvious choice. The front desk watch turned back to dozing in his chair, and Happousai slipped past him to work on the door. The lock was a simple single row tumbler; about two seconds work with an automatic release gun.

The Barracks Officer's computer was already powered up. It was a new model; clunky and slow compared to units the Inner Sphere had been able to produce in better days, but functional in a primitive way. A few minutes of noodling with the system produced the answer to his question. Ryouga and Tarou shared a room on the third floor with the other mechwarriors and techs of the mercenary unit.

He slunk out of the room and to the stairwell. The elevator was out of the question in a place like this. A quick jog up three flights of stairs brought him within meters of his destination. Before he left the stairwell he produced the large sack and restraints with which he would spirit the two away. While he could only carry them one at a time, he was confident that he would be able to keep the other from going anywhere or doing anything until it was his turn to go.

The door to room 301 was locked, as could be expected. It was also of the simple single row tumbler variety, and Happousai had no sooner produced his release gun than he was inside. The room was divided into three sections. The living area had a small couch, two desks and standing lockers, and a small coffee table. There were only a few personal touches present, namely martial arts gear and weapons, and a red shamboo umbrella that could only belong to Ryouga. Beyond the living area were two segregated sleeping areas set off with black curtains on a curved track that reached from floor to ceiling. A door to a bathroom lay half-way open on the far wall, between the two sleeping areas.

The wet sounds of someone snoring led him to one of the curtained sleeping areas. Peering into almost absolute darkness he spied a figure lying on a bed underneath the covers. It was impossible to tell who he was simply by looking.

The thought occurred to Happousai to take the other one first, so that any sounds of struggle might be covered up by the snoring. This thought was discarded in favor of shutting off the source of the annoying noise as soon as possible, say, with a nice duct tape gag. He proceeded to draw a fresh roll of the stuff from his sack.

As he crept into the sleeping area to deal with the snoring occupant, the front door of the room opened behind him. He spun around as the lights came on to see Ryouga Hibiki looking tired and thanking a uniformed soldier with a slung assault rifle for his help. Ryouga turned in that moment to look directly into the beady little eyes of Happousai.

Recognition set in immediately, and Ryouga's left eyebrow began to twitch. His hands clenched into fists and trembled. Happousai was certain that a faint yellow glow of battle aura began to flicker from the young man.

"...YOU..." Ryouga growled.

Happousai, momentarily stunned by this setback to an otherwise flawlessly executed plan, stood there clutching his roll of duct tape and looking guilty.

"...I can't believe you actually had the nerve to come here," Ryouga went on, now practically shaking with rage. "...After what you did to us..."

"Now come on, Ryouga," Happousai replied, finding his voice. "What did I ever do to you?"

Something deep inside Ryouga's head snapped. Happousai could almost hear it. The faint flickers of battle aura now became a fiery torrent of ki.

"BECAUSE OF YOU I'VE SEEN HELL!!!" Ryouga screamed.

Happousai only narrowly avoided getting squashed like a bug when Ryouga's fist slammed into the floor where he had been standing. As he sprang to safety, the sharp report of cracking concrete snapped in his ears. Ryouga, unfazed by an impact that should have shattered every bone in his hand, lashed out with a spin kick that caught enough of the airborne little mercenary to send him sprawling into the unoccupied sleeping area curtain.

"What the hell is going on?!" Tarou demanded from his bed.

"Happousai's in the room!" Ryouga barked as he charged for the now entangled spy.

"WHAT!?"

"You heard me," Ryouga snarled. Happousai turned his grasping hands aside with a deft flick of his pipe and tried to squirt free of the melee. Ryouga struck back with a desperate sidelong head butt that knocked him back into play just as Tarou was leaping clear of his bed.

"Save some for me!" Tarou demanded.

"Come and get me!" Happousai chortled. He had his back against the wall and was facing two skilled martial artists with murder on their minds, but he wasn't going to lose his nerve over it.

There was only one possible escape route, and that was through the bathroom. Ryouga and Tarou realized this at about the same time and rushed him in order to block his exit. Happousai narrowly avoided two wall-splintering fist smashes, and slipped into the bathroom anyway. Tarou recovered first and charged in after him, lunging with a reverse roundhouse kick that missed Happousai and ended up smashing the sink with an ear-splitting crash of porcelain and tile.

A fountain of water gushed into Tarou's face, transforming him into his hideous Jusenkyo form. Happousai had never seen anything so horrifying in his entire life, and stood aghast at Tarou's feet, practically gibbering in terror. A howl of agony and rage lit across Tarou's lips as he raised his huge hairy arms over his head to crush Happousai flat.

"Kill him!" Ryouga shouted before catching a splash of water from the ruptured sink and collapsing into the folds of his uniform with a squeal of surprise.

The sight of Ryouga as little black pig was enough to break the spell of horror Tarou had woven over Happousai, and he laughed with maniacal glee at the mechwarrior's misfortune. He also managed to dodge the double fist smash that Tarou drove down at him, and without a human Ryouga to impede him, slipped effortlessly past the pig.

From outside the room came an insistant pounding on the door. It was the soldier who had escorted Ryouga back to his room. When he got the door open he was immediately bowled over by the fleeing Happousai.

Tarou was about to tear off after him when an insistant squeal from Ryouga cut him short. Any second now the soldier was going to sit up and see them in their Jusenkyo forms. Action had to be taken, and quickly, lest their terrible secret be revealed.

Tarou grabbed Ryouga with one hand and with the other hand cranked shut on the sink's shutoff valves, securing the spray of water. He then pulled Ryouga into the shower with him. He spun the valve for hot water, getting a blast of lukewarm water that immediately became scalding. A twin scream of pain erupted from the now human fighting duo, followed by a frantic rush to get into dry clothes.

The soldier was clocked a little harder than they thought, for they actually got away with it. When the man came to, they were both dressed, though suitably mussed, and the room around them was totally destroyed.

"What the hell happened?" the soldier demanded of them.

"There's a sapper in the building!" Ryouga replied. "Sound the alarm!"

The soldier nodded his head vigorously and fiddled with his radio. It wasn't necessary, for the racket the brawl had raised had already roused the entire building and caused a general alarm to be sounded. Lights were now snapping on all over the place and sirens blared.

Happousai watched from the safe vantage of his well concealed Locust as the mercenary garrison of Capra annihilated the Furinkan Combine raiding party. At the center of the conflagration, indeed the cause of it, were a Hunchback and a BattleMaster. The two 'mechs fought like raging demons, obliterating their opponents and sowing fear in the Combine ranks.

He knew that every time they had an enemy 'mech in their sights they were visualizing his Locust in its place, and that was fine with him. As long as they worked off their wrath on someone else, it was all good as far as he was concerned. Like the brawl the previous night, they would be lucky to get in a blow, much less destroy him in actual 'mech combat.

The raid was obviously a debacle. He would be lucky if the DropShip commander even let him aboard, and his work with the Furinkan Combine was certainly over. Forget about the money.

It made his skin crawl to be humiliated like this, but he wasn't about to face the two now, while they were knee-deep in Combine blood and thirsting for more. He would have to cut his losses, and that meant getting off Capra. After that, he wasn't certain. He wasn't likely to be welcome in the Furinkan Combine for awhile. Of course he would have to put just the right amount of spin on his report to shift the blame over to the hapless raid commander. That would certainly help his cause.

He loped his 'mech away from the battle to take up a position along the projected Combine path of retreat - assuming any of them managed to disengage. He would deal with the survivors as they limped for retrieval, for it was easier to lay blame elsewhere when there wasn't anyone left alive to dispute your version of the facts. It would serve them right for not heeding his warnings of the garrison's fighting ability. Two 'mechs can make all the difference when the right two mechwarriors are at the controls.

His options seemed limited. The Combine paid the best for his line of work, although there was never a lack of demand for it in the League of Five Nails. Perhaps he should kill two birds with stone, and go pay Cologne a visit. She might be very interested in Hibiki and Tarou's whereabouts, and better still, pay handsomely to get them back. At least that way he could work without any unfortunate conflicts of interest.

FCJS _Libertine,_

Wolf 142 System Zenith Point

Furinkan Combine

29 January 3025

Colonel Princess Kodachi Kuno stood alone on the grav deck of her regimental flagship. News of her defeat on Abydos was spreading at the speed of Jump, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Her reputation was damaged, though not beyond repair, not yet!

She had spent the last week thinking of nothing other than revenge against Akane Tendo. It had been stewing within her ever since her defeat, but hadn't become an obsession until her stern dressing down at the hands of her brother. His effrontery was galling, coming from a man who had yet to defeat her in six separate engagements!

Now she was hearing disturbing news from the Confederation. That treacherous snake Nabiki Tendo had made Tatewaki an offer, one that had him firing off his entire diplomatic staff to Nerima aboard the _Acropolis_, the Combine's finest JumpShip after the _Imperator_. What were Nabiki and her dear brother Tatewaki up to, and how could she ruin their plans in the most amusing fashion?

"Sasuke!" she called to the empty compartment.

"Yes, mistress!" a voice responded.

A short chameleon-suited figure seemed to step out of the wall at her feet and bowed face down on the deck before her.

"I want you to find out what is going on with my brother and Nabiki Tendo. You've heard a little of what's transpiring, I'm sure. I want to know the rest in detail and immediately."

Sasuke nodded, his face still lowered to the deck.

"At once, mistress!"

He scuttled off into the shadows and disappeared. When she was certain that he was gone, she chuckled to herself. The family ninja was useful to her for his ability to probe into Tatewaki's plots, but she was also quite certain that he was being used by her brother for the same thing against her, and on top of all that was playing his own game between them. She had to admire him for having such a zeal for intrigue, though if she ever caught him at it she would have no choice but to see him flayed alive. She was also certain that he knew this, which made their little games all the more amusing.

Yes, someday she would miss her little games with Sasuke, but in the grand scheme of things there could be only one winner, and that winner would see the losers crushed under her stilleto heeled boots. That went for her dear little ninja and her dear older brother, and it was doubly true for that psychotic bitch Akane Tendo. She would definitely get hers.

Army Group 'B' Headquarters,

Planet Veridian, Alpha Canaris System,

League of Five Nails

3 February 3025

Hikaru Gosunkugi had been on campaign for less than a week, and he was already hating it. He had yet to actually launch any offensive, having barely had time to start setting things up and organizing his forces, and already his parents were bombarding him with demands via HPG for the status of his operations. He had left Tetsuyama to get away from their meddling, and he still couldn't shake them!

His cousin Tetsuo was with him at his command post in the Hotel Lyonne, which was one of his few comforts. They shared a common view in that the League was incapable of lasting military success against the Combine and had managed to become a capable diplomat and intelligence operative instead of a mechwarrior. Tetsuo also happened to share Hikaru's affectation for black magic and astrology.

They were discussing the precession of the galaxy and its effects on astrology at breakfast. It was usually an entertaining diversion, but a recent development weighed heavily on both their minds and sapped their debate of its usual delight. Nabiki Tendo of the Confederation, Akane's older sister, had dropped an interesting proposition to their agents on Nerima through the usual cut-outs and middle men. It seemed too good to be true, and they wanted to know if it really was.

"I tell you, cousin, that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by attending," Tetsuo offered.

"That's what concerns me," Hikaru replied. He may have been frail and sickly, but his gift for intrigue was clear. "It seems like that at first, but the fact is that we can't possibly outbid the Combine. To even dare would be to lay bare our weaknesses to those Furinkan butchers, and invite them to more than just a few raids. We were lucky on Capra with a mercenary unit - a mercenary unit! - that smashed a Combine raid of equal strength. We won't have such good fortune a second time."

He lowered his face to his bowl of rice and scooped up a few mouthfuls while Tetsuo considered this.

"That may be true, cousin," Tetsuo admitted. "But to let the Combine succeed without effort would be foolish, no, suicidal. At least the threat of competition from us would drive the price up, and perhaps we can bluff them into paying more than they would otherwise dare. And in the meantime -"

"- We take steps to ensure that Tatewaki Kuno does not get what he craves most from the Confederation," Hikaru finished for him. "I see your point, cousin, but there is little time to put an such an operation as that together."

Tetsuo wasn't put off.

"Nabiki holds the strings in the Confederation, and she's a lawyer through and through. She won't finalize any deal without a representative from every Great House present, just like in the old days of the Star League. You know as well as I do how easily the Federated Shiratori can be put off from such matters, even without a little help from us. Let me represent the League, and I'll get you the time you need."

Hikaru began to see the merit of his cousin's proposal.

"Okay," he said after swallowing a spoonful of miso soup. "I'll send you to the Confederation as my Ambassador Plenipotentiary. You can take the Third Special Group along as well - the diplomatic immunity should cover them nicely." Having a unit of Special Forces on hand could prove valuable indeed should the opportunity arise to use them.

He began to plot out the success of their endeavor on his pocket computer. The stars formed and whirled in their great circle of motion for the projected dates of the operation. Hikaru studied them intently, searching for a clue among the heavens that this was the proper path. Tetsuo himself leaned over the display to look.

There were several signs that pointed to failure for the Combine, which was a victory in itself, though the stars were not as clear for the success or failure of the League. There was even a puzzling omen in the position of the Equus Nebula in relation to the Capella System, which was the capitol of the Confederation, and the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy on the opposite side of the Milky Way's core from Sol. The triad formed by these three important celestial bodies signified conflict - a sure warning from the gods to tread lightly.

Tetsuo looked to Hikaru Gosunkugi and nodded solemnly. He had read the signs and found agreement with his cousin in their portents. He would go to Nerima, and Hikaru would prepare the way for the fatal coup against both the Confederation and the cursed Furinkan Combine.

Once Tetsuo had gone he bent his mind towards a proper plan of action. A full scale raid on the most heavily defended system in the Confederation was not going to succeed without a heavy price paid. A covert action had the advantages of being cheaper, less man-power intensive, and under the right circumstances, plausibly deniable if it failed. He also had the perfect man for the job.

He punched for his aide de camp, who appeared without delay to await his instructions.

"Send for Kurenai at once," he told his aide.

"Yes, my lord," the aide acknowleged.

Tsubasa Kurenai was a man of many talents. He was a master of disguise, including some of the most unorthodox methods of concealment. He had a good network of personal contacts throughout the Inner Sphere. He wasn't much to speak of in a fight, but a man like him rarely found himself in those kind of circumstances. Hikaru empathized with him in that respect, although Tsubasa did have one disturbing mark against him. He was an ardent transvestite, and an uncomfortably convincing one. It was a trait that Hikaru felt certain would allow him to get close to Akane to effect the snatch.

The Jusenkyo Laboratory

Planet Lightoller, Epsilon Indi System,

Jusenkyo Commonwealth

3 February 3025

Doctor Gaido was a rare thing in the Inner Sphere: he was a scientist. He would be the first to admit that the one truism about being a learned man in the 31st Century was how monumentally ignorant he actually was. Such a declaration would mean little to the masses, for what little he did understand about the workings of the universe was several orders of magnitude greater than theirs.

Personally, he considered himself something of a witch doctor and a tour guide, and given his research assignment for the last forty years, he was probably closer to being a tour guide. The Star League Biotechnic Research Facility - Lightoller Complex (its official title from antiquity, although Gaido had unlocked enough of the place's secrets to know that this was deliberately misleading) had remained essentially unchanged throughout his tenure, as well as the tenure of his predecessors. This was because no one, himself included, had any rational explanation for what went on here, and rather than risk destroying the facility's properties, they left well enough alone.

The Jusenkyo Labs, as they had been renamed since their discovery by House Joketsuzoku over a century ago, always gave Gaido the creeps. If it had been his decision to make way back then, he would have preferred to strip the place for its critical lostech and then rebury it. Cologne on the other hand saw the facility as the key to gaining the Star League for her children, and had drafted her Breeding Program from the faltering scraps of knowledge they had gained in studying it.

The place had been something of a bastard step-child even in the days of the Star League, Gaido noted from ancient diaries and memoranda recovered from the nearby ruins of the administrative section. There was no mention of what had ultimately happened to the scientists and technicians who had tended to the facility, though after forty years of experience with the place Gaido could now hazard a guess. They were likely the last victims of the facility for over two centuries.

Gaido stepped through the security doors and into the facility. Large white and red signs were scattered about reminding staff to watch their step at all times and to report accidents at once to the Chief of Staff's Office. Fresh non-skid had been applied, and the adhesive smell lingered in his nostrils as he started on his way to the office.

The facility proper was a large geodesic dome of clear polycarbonate plates and foamed aluminum spars that had at one time long ago been painted a dull and mottled grey-green to blend in with the surroundings. Gaido knew this because the humidity of Lightoller had taken its toll on the exterior in enough places to reveal dozens of coats of paint in the chunks of material that eroded from the dome. Rather than carefully strip and repaint the dome, his predecessors had simply applied successive coats. There were even ragged _holes_ in the dome, which were haphazardly patched as they were discovered, but given the tangled mass of technology the dome housed, it was easy to see how intruders could get inside without being detected.

Within the dome was an irregular series of shallow pools of water - over a hundred, in fact. Their arrangement corresponded curiously with the ancient practice of Feng Shui, or geomancy, and had the facility not been discovered by the descendants of the Middle Kingdom, this fascinating and possibly critical clue to the nature of the place might have gone unnoticed. Gantries and catwalks criss-crossed the interior and provided access for personnel and staging for a dizzying array of Star League era sensors, instruments, and sampling systems (most of whose functions were lost to the ignorance of the current era), and their supporting power, control, and indication feeds. Large arc lamps dominated the overhead. It had been this way when the facility was discovered, and would likely remain so for as long as Gaido was in charge of it.

The greatest mystery of the facility, aside from its effects on unwary living things, was why it had been built. There were disturbing indications in the surviving documentation that the pools had been _transplanted_ from some other place, possibly even another star system. Why this had been done, where the pools had originally come from, and what the Star League hoped to gain by doing it were lost to antiquity. Only the original staff of the facility had those answers, and they were long dead.

What Gaido did know about the pools were their effects. Any living thing that fell in the pools suffered an immediate and radical alteration of their body structure, assuming the physical matrix of a specific organism exclusively associated with that pool. The organisms represented by the pools seemed to be almost exclusively Earth-based, lending credence to the idea that the pools had come from that planet. At least four of the organisms were considered extinct on Earth at the time the facility was constructed, which lent a possible reason for preserving the pools elsewhere. The origin of the one exception, known as the 'Monster Pool,' had left the Joketsuzoku researchers baffled for the last century.

The effects were from then on triggered by exposure to liquids that were slightly below body temperature in contact with the skin, and could be reversed with exposure to liquids at least ten degrees centigrade above body temperature. The narrow band of liquid temperatures between these two limits apparently did not trigger the transformative process - dubbed the Jusenkyo Effect by his predecessors. Organisms exposed to the Effect remained vulnerable for the duration of their lives. One of the most curious side effects of transformation (outside of the fact that mass was not conserved in the process!) was the preservation of intelligence and the self-identity of the victim in physical forms that should have precluded it, such as reptiles with their extremely primitive brain structures.

The liquid from the pools retained its properties for considerable periods of time after removal from the pool, though a thermodynamic change of state such as boiling or freezing seemed to permanently nullify the liquid's ability to alter an organism's physical matrix. A detailed examination of the liquid revealed it to be pure water, of the expected ratio of light and heavy hydrogen isotopes, and lacking any significant biological contamination whatsoever - a disturbing find for what were essentially pools of water open to the atmosphere.

Gaido had spent the first decade of his forty year tenure cataloging the pools, hence his tendency to think of himself as little more than a tour guide for the Jusenkyo Labs. Early in the process he had discovered that a few of the pools had either lost their properties (possibly by mishandling during their transplantation) or else were yet 'unassigned.' The theory of 'unassigned' pools was confirmed in at least two examples, where the physical matrices were set by the lab staff - in one case accidentally, and the other quite recently, under the deliberate orders of the Matriarch.

The scant remainder of the pools considered to be 'unassigned' represented a potential treasure to Cologne's Breeding Program, and were sealed off as carefully as possible. Given the nature of the one deliberate attempt to 'assign' a pool, Gaido had a few ideas about Cologne's plans for the rest of them. He didn't approve. At least one of the 'assigned' pools was the result of Star League fiddling, and the result was not pretty. Who could guess what half-baked idea might unfold at the machinations of his successors? It was better to leave well enough alone, as far as he was concerned.

Gaido carefully traversed the network of catwalks from the locked and guarded entrance to his office. In forty years he had managed to avoid falling in a pool and succumbing to the Effect. Perhaps it was because he knew and appreciated the danger of the place. He was loathe to assign some sinister anthropomorphic force to the pools, but he had seen staff inexplicably blunder into a pool on the first day at work. The place seemed cursed at times, and he had overheard one staff member or another state just as much over the last four decades.

There were almost a hundred documented cases of people falling into the pools, each its own tragic story. Unfortunately for him, most of them had occured during his tenure, and at least five in one night; the 11th of January 3025 - the night of the security breach. He sat down in his chair and studied the data collected from that night.

Two victims of the Effect were considered to be responsible for the breach, and were probably Furinkan Combine spies according to the Commonwealth's Intelligence apparatus. These were dispatched by Mechwarrior Shampoo shortly after their escape. Their remains had not been recovered, but owing to the damage sustained to their stolen vehicle and the testimony of Shampoo, they were listed as killed in General Herb's incident report.

Two more of the victims were known to be mercenary employees on the Starport Security Battlemech Detachment, an activity he detested, but was considered vital to Cologne's Breeding Program. These two had managed to escape off-world in the confusion that followed the security breach. It was not known which pools they had fallen into, nor their current whereabouts. It was also not known whether they were accomplices of the first two, but an analysis of the sketchy surveillance data for the facility pointed to their innocence. General Herb had nonetheless requested that a reward for their capture be offered, and Gaido agreed. They threatened the very existence of the Commonwealth with their testimony, for outsiders would never understand.

The fifth victim was not confirmed, but Gaido had a sinking feeling about who it was. He had yet to confront her in the hopes that she would seek him out instead.

No sooner had he thought of her when the chime for his door sounded and Shampoo walked into his office. Her face was wracked with worry, and Gaido knew exactly what it was that concerned her.

"Please pardon my rudeness, Doctor," she offered stiffly. "But this is something that can't wait for an appointment."

Gaido nodded. "I understand. You wish to talk about the night of the 11th of January."

Shampoo's violet eyes flashed with surprise.

"You knew?"

Gaido offered her a seat. It did not pay to be discourteous with the favored great-granddaughter of the Matriarch.

"I strongly suspected," he replied.

A brief hint of relief showed in her face. "Then you know what happened."

"Not exactly. Which pool did you fall into?"

Shampoo looked away. "I'm embarrassed to say."

"I need to know," Gaido pressed. "For the sake of the records."

"You can't!"

"The records are confidential," he assured her. "In any event, what are you so worried about? You can't possibly hide something like this indefinitely. The truth will come out when you least expect it."

"I just want a cure!" Shampoo cried. "No one has to know anything. Once I'm cured it will be as if this had never happened."

Gaido shook his head sadly. It always came down to this. Just once he would like to meet someone who didn't mind what had happened to them. Perhaps the transformation caused more psychological trauma than previously considered. Psychology had always been the Achilles Heel of his research staff.

"There is no cure," he said gently. "I thought you knew that."

Shampoo looked at him with horror.

"N-No cure?"

Gaido closed his eyes and remained firm. He did not tell her that they did not even understand what the Jusenkyo Effect did to its victims much less find any kind of way to undo it. Nor did he tell her that the surviving documents from the Star League era indicated that those great men and women were equally baffled. What chance did a scientist of the dark 31st Century have of solving a conundrum that had stymied the brightest minds of the Age of Miracles? "There is no cure. The Effect is permanent."

Actually one of his early contemporaries had proposed one for human victims, for there were in fact two pools which seemed to be linked to human gender rather than an animal species. This idea was never tested due to the existence of the so-called 'Monster Pool,' and the alternative theory that an organism already under the Effect might cross-contaminate a pool other than the one it had fallen into originally. There was also the chance that an affected organism might be forced to adopt some hideous amalgam of the two Effect species and possibly even the original organism's physical matrix. Like his two predecessors, Gaido had thought the idea of testing the proposal abhorrant and completely unethical, and so had left it to die a slow death from neglect.

Shampoo was in denial. "Isn't there something you can do?" she begged.

"Nothing, I'm afraid."

She slammed her fist on his desk, startling him.

"Then I'm tainted forever?!" she cried. "I'm to be stricken from the Program?"

Gaido at last saw the nature of her distress. Shampoo feared for her status as Favorite. He smiled for her benefit and produced a series of flimsies from his desk drawer.

"Not at all," he assured her, pointing to the data on the flimsies. "While the Effect does have some reaction with the chromosomes, it is a purely somatic anomaly. You can't pass on the traits of your Effect organism to your offspring."

Shampoo looked both relieved and puzzled.

"But what about the hybrids?" she asked.

"Ah. A different matter. Hybrids are the result of breeding a normal human to an organism whose Jusenkyo Effect has been fixed into human form through a special process." A process so special they didn't have the slightest idea how it worked. Neither did the Star League researchers who discovered it, but at least they had taken good notes.

Shampoo absorbed this information quietly. Like so many Joketsuzoku, she had never been informed of the realities of the Program. It was all taken for granted. Those few who had fallen victim to the Effect had, for reasons that were now clear to her, never been quick to talk about it openly.

"So there isn't any problem?" she asked.

"None that I can see," Gaido replied thoughtfully. "As long as your transformation doesn't interfere with your duties, and I'm sure you've managed to come up with some countermeasures since your accident."

She nodded with a guilty grin. An insulated flask of hot water was never far from her side these days.

Gaido was pleased with Shampoo's turnaround. Cologne would probably not be happy with the news, but at least there was no real harm done. Perhaps this event would provide the impetus for him to get the funding he needed to do some significant repair work to the dome and install some decent security measures.

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" he asked her.

"No, Doctor, I don't think so. I have to go now; if I hurry, I can make the starport in time to catch the next ship bound for home."

She bowed for him, and then left his office with a happy bounce and a whirl of purple hair.

Gaido sat down to fill out the incident report and then realized that she had left before telling him which pool she had fallen in. He sighed to himself and set the form aside. Like he had told her only minutes earlier, the Jusenkyo Effect could not be kept a secret for long.

Shampoo finished packing her kit bag and then sat down on the freshly stripped bed of her semi-private quarters. Her roommate, Kima, had come to Jusenkyo for a secret purpose, and Shampoo had been her escort. Now Kima was gone, having shipped for Nerima aboard a Commonwealth JumpShip to conduct Cologne's bidding, leaving Shampoo stuck on Lightoller and under Herb's thumb.

She was restless to leave this place. Her orders were to escort Kima and some classified cargo to the Jusenkyo Labs, and she had done that. Now she longed for home, wishing that she could have left weeks earlier instead of becoming the latest victim of the Labs.

She had mixed feelings regarding Gaido's pronouncement that there was no cure for her. On the one hand, he had assured her that her status in the Program was unchanged by her accident - and that was a welcome relief. Great-Grandmother was unyielding when it came to the integrity of the Program, and to be stricken from it was to assume a second-class status within the clan.

Mousse was a good example of this, for he was an excellent mechwarrior and in superb physical condition - except for his vision, and that was enough. Now he was relegated to a position in the Household Garrison on Lightoller, with no chance of command, and no future beyond what he already had. In a way, she felt sorry for him. His poor eyesight wasn't something he had any control over, and yet he was being forced to pay the consequences of it.

On the other hand, her own condition frightened her. Becoming a cat, having a small furry body, walking on four legs, the tail! Such a thing shouldn't happen, shouldn't be possible. Now she was doomed to avoid cold liquids at all times if she wanted to keep her human form. She loved to swim in the oceans of her homeworld of Jusenkyo, and now she could no longer do so. The mere sight of an icy beverage made her wary. On top of this, it now seemed to her as if circumstances were conspiring against her to get her wet. She had seen more drinks spilled around her in the last three weeks than in the last three years. Any time she went outside unprotected by her 'mech, it threatened rain.

So far, the few times she had been forced into her Jusenkyo body had been out of sight from others. Her secret was still safe, despite what Gaido had said about the inevitibility of discovery. More importantly, Herb did not know. There was no telling what damage he could do among her peers with a few carefully placed words.

All the more reason to leave Lightoller, she thought grimly. The Commonwealth JumpShip _Gathering Clouds_ was due to leave Epsilon Indi space within the week, and the last DropShip bound for it was lifting up the well tonight. Exploiting her open-ended orders for an excuse, and her natural charm and good looks as a means, she had prevailed upon the captain of the DropShip to find a place for her and her battlemech on board.

She took a last look around the room as she stood with her kit bag to leave. There were no happy memories here, only loneliness and misfortune. Only when she basked in the glow of Jusenkyo's primary and felt the warmth of the sandy beaches between her toes would she feel at home.

She left her room key on the mattress of the bed. The barracks staff could handle the check-out process without her. Her letter to General Herb expressing her intention to return to the capitol - unless otherwise directed of course - had been delivered to his staff office just before the end of normal working hours, knowing that he liked to leave his office early and ensuring that he would not see it in time to countermand her decision and keep her on Lightoller. Her departure would be sneaky and underhanded, but otherwise perfectly legal.

The door chime sounded just as she was about to leave, and her heart skipped a beat. She had made little effort to make acquaintences on the planet in the knowledge that she would be leaving as soon as possible. The only thing that ran through her mind as the door chimed again was that Herb had received her letter too soon, and that he was taking formal steps to keep her on world as one of his subordinates.

She had two choices: she could ignore the chime and hope they went away, or she could answer the door and face the music. If Herb was on to her, he would have taken steps to ensure that his men intercepted her at any point along the route from the Lab Compound to the Starport. He might even contact the DropShip captain. Hiding would solve nothing at that point.

Taking a deep breath first, she opened the door. Mousse stood before her, clutching a wet umbrella. His rain gear was also wet, and little beads of moisture trickled down the impermeable plastic to puddle at his feet in the hall.

"There isn't much time," he said to her. Or almost to her, he was speaking more to the door frame than her.

"Time for what?" Shampoo asked him.

Mousse adjusted his gaze to the sound of her voice. "General Herb is looking for you," he told her. "He seems to think that you're leaving Lightoller tonight."

Shampoo did not reply.

Mousse seemed shocked. Or disappointed. It was difficult to read his face sometimes.

"So it's true," he said quietly. Now the disappointment came through.

"It's true, Mousse," she affirmed.

"I'm supposed to escort you to his quarters," he declared. "He's going to read you your new orders detailing you to the garrison. I guess he's doing it personally so that he can gloat."

Her heart sank. In time she could get an appeal through to her great-grandmother for a transfer back to Jusenkyo, but that could mean weeks for a message to get through the military bureaucracy, and possibly weeks beyond that before a Commonwealth JumpShip passed through the system bound for the capitol. She might have been the Matriarch's favorite, but no ship would be diverted for the express purpose of returning a homesick nineteen year old girl.

"So he sent you, a mechwarrior, to fetch me?" she asked Mousse. One of the things about him that galled her was the way he let himself be treated as a second-class citizen off the battlefield.

"The General feels that I can be trusted to deliver you," he said with the slightest hint of a grin.

Shampoo's eyes widened at this. Something was up with him.

"What are you thinking, Mousse?"

He offered her the umbrella. "You should leave this place, Shampoo. You don't belong here, working for Herb."

"Mousse! Do you realize what you're saying? If Herb finds out that you helped me, you'll be disciplined."

He nodded slowly. "I can't let you stay here," he said to her, though she could hear the heartache in his voice. It should have been a dream come true for him, to have his beloved Shampoo on the same planet, together in the same unit. "If I am disciplined for it, then I accept that as the price for seeing you free."

Shampoo felt a lump form in her throat. Damn Mousse for being so sweet and selfless!

"Come on," he told her as she stood still before him and tried not to cry. "If I don't return with you soon, he'll know something is up for certain."

She followed him down the hall to the cloak room, where her foul-weather gear hung. She could see a staff car waiting beyond the barracks building. She donned her poncho and boots and sheltered under the offered umbrella as they ran for the car. The rain pelted on the umbrella, making her cringe with the thought that she would transform right in front of Mousse and have her secret revealed.

Fortunately she was spared such embarrassment. Mousse opened the door for her and sheltered her all the while with the umbrella. At first she thought he was just being his usual fawning self, but as the door closed she realized that he was acting with great care to keep the rain off her.

He settled into the driver's seat and put the car in gear. The heat was running, making the interior nice and toasty. The car pulled out of the muddy parking lot and headed down the narrow paved road that led to Lightoller's only highway - and from there, the starport.

"I called ahead to the DropShip," he said to her as she watched the rain drops glow before them in the car's headlights. "Your battlemech is already loaded and secure aboard."

She wanted to hit him, he was being so thoughtful. And stupid. If he got caught, he was facing serious disciplinary action, perhaps even the stripping of his mechwarrior status. At least she had an out with her nebulous orders. Until Herb actually presented new orders to her, whether in written or verbal format, she was still acting under her old ones and safe.

"Thank you, Mousse," she managed. There was no sense in leading him on with anything more than that.

The rest of the drive went on in silence. It was clear that Mousse was unhappy to see her go, but he either lacked the courage to say something heartfelt to her, or else had the sense to realize that it would do him no good. Finally, it was Shampoo who spoke.

"You know what happened to me, don't you?" she asked him.

He turned his eyes off the road for a moment. The thick glasses that were necessary for him to see the road distorted his sad blue eyes as he regarded her.

"About your accident? Yes."

"How?"

"Doctor Gaido told me. I went there first to see if I could find you, and when he realized what I was up to, he warned me about what had happened. I think he meant for me to use your Jusenkyo body as a way of sneaking you on board. You know he has no love for the General, either."

Shampoo hadn't thought about the advantages of her new body. If things went sour at the starport, she might still be able to use that trick. Lots of DropShips had Ship's Cats after all...

"It doesn't bother you?"

Mousse smiled, almost to himself. "Why should it bother me?"

"Do you even know what I turn into?"

"No. Doctor Gaido said that you left his office before he could get it from you. Anyway, does it matter?"

Shampoo turned her gaze back to the rain and the lonely road.

"I guess it doesn't."

The starport was shrouded in rainy gloom. The great sodium and mercury vapor arc-lamps of the landing pads suffused that gloom with a yellow and blue-white haze. Two spotlights shone upon the egg-shaped hull of an Overlord Class DropShip, a massive military transport/assault ship capable of carrying an entire battalion of thirty-six battlemechs plus the unit's aerospace fighter squadron and support assets. The Overlord had arrived earlier in the week to deliver a 'mech battalion for training maneuvers on world prior to a campaign in the periphery against a world similar in climate and terrain, but would not be used in the actual attack. It was essentially empty for its return trip.

Mousse pulled off the highway and onto the starport express. They would have to pass through the security checkpoint even though they were military traffic. He shut off his headlights in preparation for nearing the gate, leaving the running lights on to cast their amber glow in the rain.

"If Herb is on to me, he'll have someone waiting for me at the checkpoint," Shampoo pointed out. There was no sense in having Mousse take the blame for this. Why couldn't he see that?

"I'll take that chance," Mousse replied. "Like I said, he trusts me to deliver you."

"That will only make it worse for you when he finds out what you've done!" she protested.

They were almost to the gate. Mousse closed his eyes for a moment and let out a deep breath.

"Do you think I really want to see you go?" he asked her, his tone one of exasperation. "I'm in love with you, Shampoo! I always have been! Having you stay here might be the best thing that ever happened to me."

They rolled to a stop at the gate. A man in battledress with a slung double-barreled laser carbine - known as a blazer - came out of the armored gatehouse to challenge them. Mousse continued, ignoring him.

"But it wouldn't be the best thing for you," he said sadly. "I'm willing to let you go, and I'm willing to pay the price for disobeying orders - so let me!"

The sentry tapped on the driver's side window with his flashlight. Mousse rolled it down and looked impatiently at him.

"Orders?" the guard asked him.

Mousse flashed his mechwarrior's tattoo on the back of his left hand, earning a hasty salute from the common born soldier.

"I'm taking her to the starport," he said to the guard, nudging his thumb in Shampoo's direction. "If she doesn't make her DropShip before it lifts, I'll see to it that General Herb knows your name..."

The guard saw that the car was from the Household General Staff, and that was enough for him. He stepped back into the gatehouse long enough to lower the armored barricade, and then stepped back out to wave them through. Mousse wasted no time returning the man's salute, and sped through the gate.

"You're an idiot," Shampoo spat softly. "Now Herb will find out for certain that you helped me."

"We've just been through this," he replied. There was bitterness in his voice. "Don't treat me like I'm some child. I know what I'm doing, and I'm man enough to face the consequences."

He pulled the car around a tank farm for liquid hydrogen storage and past concrete blast shields to the DropShip gantry. The hundred meter tall DropShip steamed in the rain from the heat of its warming plasma drives, contrasting with the rime of frost from the fuel loading umbilical. Orange-suited ground crew scurried about making last minute preparation for gantry separation and lift off. As far as the rare Overlord Class was concerned, nothing was left to chance wherever possible.

The ship's First Officer was waiting for them when the car came to a stop. There was a sense of impatience on her face, but nothing to denote concern.

"You almost didn't make it," First Officer Wu said to them as they got out of the car. The gantry sheltered them from the rain, but there were enough drops of runoff to keep Shampoo under the umbrella. "Follow me, and I'll show you to your bunk. You don't have much baggage other than the battlemech, do you?"

"Just this," Shampoo replied, holding up her kit bag.

Wu nodded with a knowing smile. "Just like a mechwarrior to travel light. Walk this way, please."

She started for the gantry elevator.

"Wait just a moment," Shampoo called to her. "I'd like a moment, if I may."

Wu looked past her to the solidly built Mousse and grinned.

"I'll wait in the elevator," she told her.

Shampoo turned back to Mousse, who looked absolutely miserable.

"This is good-bye, Mousse. Good-bye and thank you," she said over the rumble of the ship's idling plasma drive.

A cloud of steam occluded his face for a moment, fogging his glasses so she couldn't see the eyes behind them.

"Good-bye, Shampoo," he returned, his voice carefully lacking any emotion.

She couldn't bear to look at him any longer, so she gave him a smart salute and turned on her heels for the elevator. The doors closed behind her without her ever looking back.

The ride up the elevator seemed unterminably long. Wu asked her a few standard questions about her health and DropShip experience, as Shampoo was a bit of a cypher to the ship's crew, and lacking a unit, had no medical officer to forward the necessary information. She answered them in a perfunctory fashion, and filled the gaps with silence.

The elevator came to a stop only halfway up the massive vessel, just above where the battlemech bay doors opened to the primary hold.

"The main access brow has already been withdrawn for departure," Wu told her. "We'll have to take the rest of the way up from the inside."

Shampoo nodded and let Wu lead the way. The secondary brow was still a good forty meters off the ground. She looked over the edge of the rail to see Mousse's car pulling away from the pad to a safe spot opposite the concrete blast shields. He was going to see her off whether she wanted him to or not.

The interior of the Overlord was spartan and cramped despite the fact that it was one of the largest military transports in the Inner Sphere. It was clean smelling at least, something that wouldn't last had the ship been filled to its normal capacity with troops and war machines. Wu lead the way down a short passageway and through an airtight door to one of the secondary holds above the primary battlemech hold.

As they were walking towards the core of the ship and the elevator bank that would take them up to the living compartment, Shampoo spied a curious sight. Two men in medical garb were carrying a stretcher, and on that stretcher lay a clear plastic body bag. There was a corpse inside the body bag, a naked young woman about her age with long blue-black hair. Her lips were blue and her skin pale and blotched with livor mortis.

Shampoo shivered at the sight. She was a mechwarrior, and for her death was usually seen through the protective filter of an instrument cluster, impersonal, and something from which she could distance herself. While she was prepared to kill in single combat as expected of one of the Joketsuzoku, it was something she had never done.

Wu seemed to take it in stride. Or at least didn't show her discomfort as easily. She ordered the two medics to finish up in the hold and get to their launch stations.

As Shampoo watched the doors of the elevator close, she saw the medics load the body into a bulkhead mounted drawer of the ship's morgue; a facility common to warships that carried troops, and seal it shut. It wasn't until the doors had shut that she realized the medics wore badges identifying them as part of the Jusenkyo Labs staff. Shampoo crinkled her nose in thought. There had been no mention of any deaths in the Compound. Something like that did not happen without the word being spread, at least as a reminder for caution and dilligent safety practices in the Plan of the Day orders.

Who was that girl?

Mousse watched as the Overlord rumbled skyward on a brilliant white column of flame. Shampoo was safe. Even Herb didn't have the authority to recall a DropShip once it had lifted off, and it certainly wouldn't turn around if he did. The Commonwealth Navy might have been the junior partner in the Armed Forces, but absolute command of the Fleet's vessels would never be in the hands of a general like Herb.

The car's phone was ringing, but he ignored it. He knew who it was.

A tap at the window took his eyes off the ascending DropShip. Mint was looking at him through the rainstreaked glass. His burly shadow, Lime, stood on the opposite side of the car.

Mousse closed his eyes and sighed to himself. Then he opened the passenger door. Lime got in and looked sternly at him. Mint took the seat behind Mousse.

"She got aboard before I could stop her," Mousse offered them. "I was too late."

"Save your breath," Mint replied. "The General knows the whole story."

Mousse doubted that, but it was likely that he would soon enough.

"We would prefer it if you didn't drive," Lime rumbled. "It would look bad to be chauffered by a prisoner."

"Which reminds me," Mint added with glee from the back seat. "You're under arrest."

Mousse nodded slowly and handed the keys over to Lime. The DropShip was only a tiny speck in the dark sky, its blazing plasma drive shining through even the heavy rain clouds. Shampoo was free.

"Let's go," he told them. "The General's waited long enough."

Auxilary Machinery Room #1, aboard

the Merchant DropShip _Belle Marle_,

transitting interplanetary space in

the Capella System, Nerima Confederation.

11 February 3025

A hydraulic valve block cycled open and then shut with a hiss and a clunk, an indication that the DropShip's trim was being adjusted by the pilot. Water from the ship's potable and grey-water tanks sloshed around through their respective headers, and the spacecraft wobbled slightly with the impulse of so many tons of shifting mass. It was a welcome sound to Ranma Saotome, even more welcome than the Jump Alarm, for it was an indication that the _Belle Marle_ was approaching a piece of space-time where such housekeeping measures were necessary. In other words, they were within hours of atmospheric interface with the planet Nerima.

Ranma looked to his father in the dim light near the overhead of the Machinery Room. Genma had heard the sound of the pumps and the moving water, and knew well what it meant. He nodded sagely to his son and went back to sleep.

They had spent much of their weeks-long transit aboard the _Belle Marle_ cooped up in the tangle of piping, cable runs, and ventilation ducting of the Machinery Room. It hadn't been as bad as some of their previous journeys, though, for their hiding place was close to the outlet of the air-scrubbers, which was the cleanest and freshest air to be found on otherwise dank and foul DropShips. AMR#1 also opened up to a passageway only a few steps from the ship's pantry, which was convenient if you wanted a quick bite to eat on the sly.

Such was the life of a stowaway. In the last three years since they had become Dispossessed, Ranma and his father had travelled throughout the Inner Sphere, and they had never paid a single C-bill for passage. It was a mark of pride, Genma often reminded him in those few good times when they actually had a little money to book an honest passage. They were part of a vast star-hopping fraternity; unchecked by borders, laws, or the taxes levied by the authorities. Ranma thought it was a bunch of hogwash, but agreed that at least it kept their edges nicely honed.

In keeping with the ancient laws of space and the often remarkably vicious demeanors of DropShip crews, discovered stowaways unable to talk their way out of trouble usually found themselves hastily introduced to an automatic rapid-cycling airlock without the pleasure of donning a pressure suit beforehand.

It had certainly been educational. Through his father he had learned the arts of stealth and graft; how to get past starport security, how to slip on board a ship without being noticed, where to hide aboard ship to avoid being discovered, and when simple bribery failed, how to tap-dance your way out of taking that last doozy of a step out an airlock when you eventually got caught - even if it meant washing dishes, scrubbing bulkheads, and waxing decks for the duration of the trip.

Ranma still didn't know what his father's great idea was for coming to the Nerima Confederation. It had taken five jumps on two separate DropShips to get here, and that was almost too much risk at one time for a stowaway with aspirations of living to see his twentieth year. If it was work they needed, there were places in the Federated Shiratori near the Sol Neutrality Zone that didn't ask too many questions and paid cash up-front to a man with good paper.

Genma had been mum on the subject since their escape from Shampoo on the planet Lightoller. It was kind of strange to see his father, a man for whom the soldier's slang phrase 'Semper Gumby' (Always Flexible) was created, become so resolute and unyielding in his course of action. Ranma had been willing to charge right back into the Joketsuzoku labs to get a cure for what had happened to them, but not his father, and for once it seemed more than his usual instinct for self-preservation.

What were the odds of his father actually knowing someone important on Nerima? Better still, what were the odds of them helping two of the hated Dispossessed?

"Almost there, Pop," Ranma said to his father. He was bored, and with Nerima so close, he was anxious to see why they had risked so much to get here. The white noise of the atmosphere control machinery made it impossible to be heard by a passing crewman, so there was no need to whisper.

Genma opened his eyes slightly, but only long enough to nod in agreement and then go back to sleep.

The urge to pop his old man in the jaw came upon Ranma, but the sudden announcement from the pilot admonishing the _Belle Marle's_ crew to prepare for atmospheric insertion and landing operations quelled it. The crew would be stirring from the rancid animal kennels some long-dead naval architect had dubbed 'Crew's Berthing,' and they would be moving throughout the ship to check on all the systems and machinery necessary to get the _Belle Marle_ down on Nerima soil in one piece. A brawl with his father, while cathartic after so many weeks of being cooped up, would not do in such a dangerous situation.

Within the hour the _Belle Marle_ began to vibrate. At first it was barely noticeable, but within five minutes the DropShip's oscillations became almost violent. The thin scream of superheated air passed over the ship on the other side of the pressure hull, punctuated by sudden blasts of deafening attitude thruster fire. Ranma held on to a stanchion, knowing that the crew were securely strapped into acceleration chairs while he gutted it out against pipes and structural supports. At least on the aerodyne style DropShips there was some semblance of horizontal flight prior to landing. The _Belle Marle_ was little more than a dropped rock.

After falling for about fifteen minutes there came an enormous rush of power from the main drives, and the _Belle Marle_ settled atop a column of superheated air upon the number eighteen landing pad. The landing gear gave a great groan that slammed hydraulic check valves all the way to the Bridge, and then the DropShip fell silent and still.

Ranma pried himself from the stanchion and shook the circulation back into his limbs. Genma did the same. They would have to lay low for a little while longer before they could make good on their escape, but if they were caught now, at least they wouldn't face an airlock.

The announcement they had been waiting for had come. The bribes had been paid, the Customs officials were satisfied, the cargo off-loaded, and now it was time to grant liberty to the crew. The Captain was only too glad to get off the ship for awhile, and quickly passed the word. Within twenty minutes there would only be a small Duty Section left aboard, and those unlucky few would be too preoccupied with thoughts of their liberty the following morning to be much of a threat. If past experience was any judge of what would come, they would probably all sit in the tiny crew's lounge and tune in the local television stations for the rest of the night.

Ranma and Genma slipped out of their hiding spots and down the ladder to the Engine Room. It was still fairly noisy as the machinery that ran the ship's fusion reactor and the cooling systems for the plasma drive required a long post-landing runtime before they could be secured. The single man on watch sat in a closet sized control room trying not to drool as a dizzying array of meters and displays stared at him. Slipping past the control room brought them to the ladderwell that led down into the Ship's Service Locker, a cylindrical chamber with a large hatch through the pressure hull where shore power, telephone and Cable-TV links, potable water, and sewage lines entered from the Service Bunker at the end of the landing pad and connected into the DropShip.

Ranma poked his head out from the lower hatch and surveyed the landing pad. It was early morning judging from the chill in the air. Most of the starport was still waking up. The nearest occupied pad was one hundred meters away, where an ancient Lion Class DropShip sat on unsteady legs. It was mostly scrub grass and asphalt between pads, which would make moving difficult if your aim was to avoid attention.

"Well, boy?" Genma asked him.

"It figures that it'd be daylight when we got here," Ranma replied. "Moving's gonna be hard unless we can come up with some wheels. From the look of things, I'd say that it's about two klicks to the freight terminal, and three and a half to the passenger terminal."

"Nobody ever told you that the path of a true mechwarrior would be easy, boy," Genma admonished him.

"Least of all you," Ranma muttered.

Trying to look like they belonged, Genma and his son stepped off the running board of a truck belonging to one of the three Stevedore companies servicing the starport. The truck continued on to the company warehouse, leaving the two mechwarriors close enough to the Passenger Terminal to blend in when the time came. They took up a vantage point behind a dumpster as a bus load of travellers came in from one of the closer pads.

Interstellar space travel was something that most humans would never experience - in fact the vast majority of the human race would spend their entire lives on the world where they had been born, never leaving it even to go into orbit. It was too expensive for most people, and the centuries of conflict had taken their toll on the number of privately-owned starships in existence. Consequently the only legitimate people who travelled the starways belonged to three distinct types: Merchants and their crews, the military, and the very very rich.

The two Saotomes weren't rich. They couldn't even look the part after spending weeks locked up in the machinery spaces of less than hygenic spacecraft, much less smell it. While they were Dispossessed mechwarriors, the military usually had their own terminals at starports and wouldn't need or desire to use a civilian point of entry. That left only one option available to them, and one they had used many times in the past.

They waited until the powdered and perfumed elite had disembarked from the bus and entered the terminal, then joined the mass of ship's crew that followed once the paying passengers were safely upwind. Those members of the crew who actually cared to notice them offered questioning looks, but Genma and Ranma knew enough to act like they could care less about what anyone might think. Most spacers were smart enough not to ask too many questions on worlds where they were strangers, and they left it at that.

They straggled through the door just ahead of a group of officers, which was a lucky break. Customs and Immigration people knew where the money was to be found, and didn't like to wait. Genma produced passports for himself and his son, declared nothing, and submitted their packs for x-ray scan.

The C&I man thumbed through the two Federated Shiratori passports, noting the many stamps they bore. He also noted the fifty C-bills tucked neatly inside in such a way as to suggest that their presence was in some way accidental. The Customs man was an old hand at port of entry routine, and slipped the grease casually into his pocket even as he stamped their passports. He didn't even look at the two mechwarriors as he waved them to the metal detectors, directing his smile towards the approaching ship's officers instead.

The metal detectors were no problem, as Ranma and his father weren't the type who bothered to carry weapons. As far as they were concerned, anyone with a gun and an attitude problem who stood within three meters of them was going to end up in the Hurt Locker just as fast as someone without one. The Saotome School of Indiscriminate Grappling prided itself on its in-fighting moves.

Genma stopped briefly to change some of their precious store of C-bills into Confederation currency. The exchange rate never seemed to favor them coming or going, but flashing a lot of C-bills was a dangerous habit for an off-worlder. Ranma noted that despite his father's muted grumblings about the money-changers, the Confederation currency was fairly strong. At least any jobs they took here would pay in cash that wasn't worthless somewhere else. Local currency in hand, they left the terminal in search of the fastrail depot that would take them into the city.

Ranma grabbed a newspage with some of their cash on their way out the terminal doors. He selected an edition dating back several weeks, as the time they had spent in space had left them without any news since they left Lightoller. The leading news stories detailed the recent victory against the Combine forces at Port Said. Stereographs of Akane Tendo and her battered Warhammer were prominently featured.

"Hey, check this chick out," Ranma said, grabbing his father's sleeve. "Says here she took on the Black Rose's personal guard almost single-handed and sent 'em all packing."

Genma noted the stereographs with a thin smile.

"Yes, she's quite remarkable, isn't she?" he replied.

"More like macho if you ask me," Ranma returned. "Any chick gung-ho enough to take on a company of the Black Rose's heavies is some kinda psycho. I mean what does she think she's gotta prove?"

Genma's smile became a concerned frown. "But at least she's cute, eh, boy?" he managed.

Ranma took a second look, as if somehow missing it the first time. "Sort of," he offered in reply.

Genma rolled his eyes. "My son, you've got a lot to learn about women."

"Yeah, whatever."

Several minutes passed between them in a silence punctuated only by the distant screams of fusion heated scramjets from the pads. Genma appeared to have let the matter of the Tendo girl drop, and Ranma was content to thumb through the want-ads for something interesting to pay the bills.

"You know, Pop. Nerima ain't so bad, so far," Ranma noted as they waited for the next train. The sun was shining and the sky was a clear and clean blue, with fat white clouds gathering over a range of mountains to the north.

"It's a very beautiful place," Genma agreed. "Why I remember the last time I was here. It was..." His voice then trailed off to silence.

Ranma waited for him to continue. After several moments it became clear to him that his father was deliberately clamming up. The train pulled in quietly, and they both got on board.

"Yeah?" he prompted as they took their seats. "It was how long ago?"

Genma pushed his glasses up his nose.

"Never mind that, boy," he said sternly. "We've got quite a day ahead of us. We must prepare."

With that he lowered his head in apparent meditation, but Ranma knew better. His father was pretending to be asleep.

"Hey, Pop, ya mind telling me what I'm supposed to prepare for?"

Genma remained silent.

"You gotta be kidding me!"

Genma ignored his son's outburst. Azure Cloud Castle sat perched atop a gleaming white spur of solid granite halfway up the side of Mount Aeglos. The capitol city of Gondolin lay in a half circle around the southern foothills of the mountain, itself encircled by a wall of cunningly dressed limestone blocks twelve meters high and each massing close to two hundred tons known as the Girdle of Melian. A wide paved-flagstone road wound its way from a small gatehouse fortress near where they stood up an almost endless zig-zag path to the castle.

"We're going _there_?" Ranma continued. The look on his face conveyed the opinion that his father had completely cracked.

Genma nodded with a grunt.

"That old friend of mine..." he said to his son. "Happens to be the Grand Duke of the Confederation."

"You're puttin' me on," Ranma replied, absolutely unconvinced. "...The Grand Duke..."

His father shrugged. "Well, he wasn't at the time I knew him," he admitted. "It _has_ been awhile. Before you were even born. Before either of us were married. We were training together to be mechwarriors..." Genma's stern face softened. "Ah, those were the days... Life was simpler then, let me tell you. More carefree."

"I'll bet," Ranma grunted.

Genma clapped his son on the back.

"Just you see, boy. I know I've been waiting for this moment for a long time, and I'm sure he has too."

There was something in Genma's voice that bothered Ranma. He turned his blue-grey eyes upon him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Let's go, boy. Why, I wonder if he'll even recognize me after so many years?"

Ranma rolled his eyes.

"That's what I'm wondering."

Two Crusaders stood at attention guarding the approaches to the small gatehouse fortress, their shadows providing some respite from the now hot afternoon sunshine. Curiously enough, the flags of the Furinkan Combine, the League of Five Nails, the Jusenkyo Commonwealth, and Comstar were displayed with the Confederation flag.

"What's going on?" Ranma asked his father.

"Don't ask me, son. Why don't you look at that newspage you bought earlier."

Ranma noted that there were only four minutes left on his newspage and quickly requested today's edition.

"Aha," Ranma said, scanning as fast as he could. "There's some big summit meeting going on today and the rest of the week. The government ain't saying exactly what it's about, but everyone here seems to think that the end of the war could be coming soon."

"Hmmmm," Genma murmured. "Could be bad for the mercenary business."

"They're probably real busy, Pop," Ranma said, gesturing up to the mountain castle. "Let's go find someplace to eat and then check out the guilds for some work."

"He'll see me, boy," Genma said, voice firm and full of confidence.

"Jeez, Pop, what is with you? You're acting really weird all of a sudden."

Azure Cloud Castle,

Ancestral Home of House Tendo

Planet Nerima, Capella System,

The Nerima Confederation

11 February 3025

Grand Duke Soun Tendo, middle-aged patriarch of the Great House of Tendo, sat in his audience chamber with a troubled look upon his brow. The Confederation was crumbling before his eyes, and there was little he could do to stop it. Though he had inherited the Confederation from his father, it seemed now unlikely that it would be passed on to his own children.

The ambassadors for House Kuno and House Gosunkugi were both present to represent their respective lords, as was an observer for the enigmatic Jusenkyo Commonwealth, and one from Comstar. Only the Federated Shiratori hadn't sent a representative, and Soun judged that this oversight was probably due to Azusa's complete disregard for politics in the Inner Sphere.

It was in his power to send them all away, but the fate of the Confederation lay in their hands. Both the Furinkan Combine and the League of Five Nails had encroached steadily upon Confederation territory over the last hundred years. The very purpose of the summit was to determine whether the Combine or the League would receive the lion's share of the Nerima Confederation, and how they would get it.

Soun was aware that he had enough military strength remaining to hold them off for another ten, perhaps fifteen years, and he could probably keep the core of the Confederation for another five beyond that if he was willing to make a suicidal stand on every remaining world. All this was possible, his second daughter Nabiki assured him, but the end result would be a Confederation reduced to ashes, its surviving population starving and slowly dying. The destruction of the Confederation and the stripping of the Tendo Clan's claim to the Star League were inevitable, she declared, and it was hard to argue with her assessment of the situation.

It was Nabiki who had proposed a deal between the Combine or the League. Rather than continue the fight and see the Confederation utterly destroyed, she proposed that the Combine and the League bid for possession. Her proposal garnered immediate attention from those two countries, for any tenders of wealth paled in comparison to the tremendous loss of life and (even more precious) battlemechs that would be incurred in continuing the war to its ultimate conclusion. The Tendos could then retire to a life of peace and luxury, free at last from the intrigues and the strife of the Succession Wars.

Soun was a warrior, and his pride ran deep, but her plan made sense. If the Confederation was doomed in ten years no matter what he did, how could he possibly send his soldiers and his people to such a hopeless end? If it were simply a matter of selling the rights to his Confederation in exchange for wealth and a promise of safety and hospitality from his new overlords, he would abdicate on the spot.

Unfortunately, he knew that both Prince Tatewaki of the Furinkan Combine, and Hikaru Gosunkugi of the League of Five Nails wanted his youngest daughter Akane for a bride, and that her hand in marriage would be a non-negotiable item in the deal. He did not want to see his little Akane, the apple of his eye, married off to either man.

He sighed sadly and wished that his good friend Genma Saotome were there by his side. Genma could always find ways out of unpleasant situations.

A gentle throat clearing in front of him seized his attention. At a respectful distance from the raised dais where his throne sat was the Combine Ambassador, who looked distinctly impatient to begin.

"Your Grace," the Combine Ambassador addressed him. "May we formally convene this summit?" He waved a hand towards the sunken eyed Tetsuo Gosunkugi, cousin of Hikaru, and Ambassador Plenipotentiary for the League. "Even my counterpart in the League reluctantly agrees that the Federated Shiratori delegation won't be coming."

A sultry and slightly mocking woman's voice answered him from behind the Grand Duke. "Really, Domitian, I would have thought patience a virtue for someone in your line of work."

Nabiki Tendo stepped from behind Soun's throne, clad in a dark green shimmersilk bolero jacket and high waisted slacks. Her clothes were cut to show off her narrow waist and long coltish legs, which they did quite admirably. The various male delegates to the summit were instantly hushed and turned their eyes in her direction. Basking in their attention, she continued.

"The purpose of this summit was to hammer out a deal. No matter what is said in these chambers over the next few days, nothing is final until the principals of each of the five Great Houses, and I mean _all_ of the Great Houses, are on hand to witness the Dissolution of the Confederation and Forfeiture of Claim. Until then, House Tendo remains a valid claimant to the Star League, and the Nerima Confederation a sovereign nation."

She turned her sharp walnut-brown eyes to Domitian, the Combine Ambassador, with a flick of her mahogany bob of hair.

"So a little patience would be in order, ne?"

Domitian bowed his head in deference to the Grand Duke, and returned to the table reserved for the Combine. His bitter reply regarding the Federated Shiratori's political apathy was cut far short of being voiced.

Looking smug, Nabiki turned to her father and patted him on the head."Don't worry, Daddy. I've got everything under control."

Soun nodded absently in agreement. There was a time when he had been a formidable administrator, diplomat, and general, but that was years ago, before his beloved wife died. He had been wandering through life in a kind of shell-shock ever since, forcing his three daughters to assume his reign.

His eldest daughter Kasumi had become the administrator. She was Lady Castellan, Steward, and Chamberlain, keeping the household solvent and everything in working order. Nabiki bargained with the banks for the capital to run the Confederation, but Kasumi determined how it was to be spent.

Nabiki had become the diplomat and bargainer of the three. She was shrewd and ruthless, there was no doubt about that. If Soun had been capable of looking at his children with less than an adoring eye, he would have noted her dangerously self-centered nature. The Tendos might be saved from destruction with this summit, but Nabiki would come out of it richer and more powerful than ever.

Finally there was Akane, his youngest daughter, and the one who most resembled his wife. She had become a mechwarrior, taking Kasumi's place as Captain of the Household Guard at fourteen. Her red Warhammer had turned the tide of many a battle against the Combine and League forces, and was in part responsible for their willingness to bargain for the Confederation rather than fight for it. Akane was the Heir Apparent to the throne; Kasumi politely declining, and Nabiki being too smart to want such a dubious honor.

He lowered his head and sighed. It would all be over soon enough.

The crash of masonry filled the air of the family dojo. Akane stepped back from the shattered bricks to survey her handiwork, and called it good. She then noted that her oldest sister was standing against the wall, giving her a concerned look.

"What is it, Kasumi?" she asked.

Kasumi gave her a weak smile.

"Are you feeling all right, Akane?"

Akane frowned. "Why shouldn't I be?"

"Because I've never seen you spend so much time in the dojo before," Kasumi replied. "You've always been enthusiastic about your training, but the last two weeks you've been home from the front have been disconcerting. Are you upset?"

"No."

Akane's reply came much sharper than she had intended. Was she really that much on edge after all her work breaking bricks?

"Are you sure?" Kasumi pressed. "I'm worried about you, Akane."

"Don't be," her youngest sister shot back. "I'm fine. I just need some time alone."

Kasumi nodded ruefully. It wasn't easy staring defeat in the face.

"If you want to talk about it, I'm always willing to lend an ear," she offered to Akane.

Akane's face softened. "It's okay, big sister. I'll be all right. I just need to work this through. But alone."

"As you wish."

Kasumi left the dojo soundlessly. Akane felt bad about the way she had dismissed her, as Kasumi was nothing if not completely supportive of her. Kasumi was trying so hard to replace Mom that it hurt sometimes to treat her as simply a sister, but she had to maintain her perspective. Kasumi would never be Mom. Not to her, not to Nabiki, and not to Dad.

Besides, Kasumi had enough to worry about just tending to the country. That was enough for any dozen people, and she was trying to play the supportive parent figure on top of that.

Akane lined up another set of bricks.

"Don't worry, big sister. Nabiki will take care of everything. You'll never have to worry about running the Confederation again when she's done. There won't BE a Confederation anymore!"

She brought her fist down with an angry cry, shattering the bricks and breaking the supportive plank of wood beneath them. It didn't seem to give her any comfort. Maybe Kasumi was right, and she did need to talk to someone. There was only one person she felt she could talk to, and hopefully he would be there.

"Hello, Doctor," Akane said hopefully as she stepped through the door of Doctor Tofu Ono's office. Tofu was the personal physician of the Tendo family, and a handsome friendly-faced man in his early thirties who typically wore a dark colored gi instead of more traditional physician's attire. This was because Tofu was also a practicing martial artist and at one time had been a mechwarrior in service to the Confederation.

His fighting skills rarely showed through his gentle demeanor. Looking up from his desk with a smile, he greeted Akane.

"Hello, Akane. Did you hurt yourself again?"

Akane blushed in embarrassment.

"No, Doctor. I'm fine."

Tofu nodded. Akane was such an energetic girl, and had always been so. It seemed like she was constantly getting a skinned knee or a sprained ankle or something of that nature. Now that she was a mechwarrior out on the front lines, Tofu tried not to imagine more serious injuries befalling her.

"What brings you down here, then?"

She lowered her eyes.

"I'm depressed."

Tofu cocked his head. "Really? It doesn't show."

"I'm doing my best not to let it," she replied. "Kasumi keeps telling me to keep my chin up."

He regarded her for a moment. To Akane, his dark eyes seemed so penetrating and mysterious, and it was all she could do to keep from blushing again.

"It's about the surrender, isn't it?" he asked at length.

She nodded meekly. "There's no hiding it, I guess."

Tofu offered her a chair. "Would you like to talk about it?"

She stood paralyzed with indecision for a moment before accepting the offered seat. Tofu produced a teacup from his pocket and placed it before her. Freshly brewed pekoe from Alshain soon filled the cup.

"Thank you, Doctor," she demurred.

"Now tell me what's really bothering you," Tofu said. He was one of the few citizens of the Confederation outside the Tendo family and the primary nobility who knew that the peace summit was really a meeting to discuss the Confederation's surrender, and so he had a good idea what was getting to Akane. He also knew that it was better for a person to face a problem themselves rather than have it spelled out for them.

"I don't know," Akane began. "I guess I just feel like everything I've been doing is for nothing. I just won a victory over the Combine in my first battle ever as commander of the 1st Nerima, and if this surrender goes through it won't mean a thing. A lot of people died protecting the Confederation in that raid, and now their sacrifice is going to be in vain."

Tofu nodded. He felt the same way. He knew, as did almost everyone who called the Confederation home, that the writing was on the wall, but they had been beating the odds for years now. As he looked at Akane, he realized that it went much deeper than the idea of disappointing all those honored dead.

"It's more than that, isn't it," he said to her. "You're mad at Nabiki."

Akane looked up at him, eyes blazing with guilt.

"I know why she's doing it, and a part of me understands that in the end it's all for the best," she said defensively.

"But you're still mad at her," Tofu prompted.

"Wouldn't you be!?" Akane cried. She set her teacup down. "I'm sorry, Doctor Tofu. I shouldn't have yelled at you."

Tofu shook his head. "Don't worry about it, Akane. You have strong feelings about your duty to your people, and I think that's good for any leader. This is a difficult time for us as a nation, but for you and your family most of all."

Akane nodded in thoughtful silence.

"Do you think Nabiki is wrong for doing this?" she asked him at length.

Now Tofu was on the spot. He took a sip of his own tea while he tried to compose a reply.

"I really don't know," he said after failing to come up with anything he could believe in. "Deep down inside I think that she really does believe that what she's doing is the right thing."

"B-But how can she think that?" Akane spluttered. "She's never been a mechwarrior. She's never put her life on the line for her people. Even Kasumi fought the Combine once, before Mom died." Akane began to turn red faced with anger. "How can Nabiki really know what she's doing to us by giving up? What right does she have to be the one to make us surrender?!"

"Akane!" Tofu barked, startling her. "That's enough of that kind of talk," he continued firmly. "Nabiki is not the one who is _making_ us surrender. She does not have the power to do anything of the kind. Your father is the one who will ultimately make that decision, not her. You need to give him your full support, because I know that this can't be easy for him."

Akane sat in her seat, ashamed of herself. As usual, Tofu had seen straight through to the heart of the matter. Was she actually mad at Nabiki, or was she just using her as a scapegoat instead of facing the fact that her father was no longer the man she had looked up to since childhood? She didn't know. All she really knew was the pain and hopelessness she felt deep in her heart. "I wish Mom were still here," she whispered. "Dad was so much different back then..."

Tears began welling in her eyes, and she wiped at them aggressively. Doctor Tofu stepped from around his desk and offered her his hand. She took it and rose to throw her arms around him. Only then, with his strong arms holding her, did the tears come with abandon.

"Oh, Doctor Tofu..." she whimpered between sobs.

Doctor Tofu held her for some time in silence, finally giving her a squeeze and releasing her when it seemed like she had at last cried herself out.

Akane looked up at him with red eyes and felt both utterly ashamed and sincerely grateful for his kindness. She had acknowledged her crush on him from the time she was fifteen for what it was; a simple crush, with no hope of being requited. She was the Heir to the Confederation, and as such all she could look forward to was a political marriage. Nabiki had sworn up and down that she would never allow the likes of Tatewaki Kuno or Hikaru Gosunkugi to get their hands on her in that regard, but how could you really trust someone who was even now upstairs in the Grand Hall preparing to sell out her entire country?

But that wasn't the worst pain from her crush on the doctor. The worst pain was that he was in love with someone else; her oldest sister Kasumi. It was as plain as day to everyone in the castle that Tofu was head over heels for the eldest Tendo daughter. Plain to everyone but Kasumi herself, and that was what made it so painful for Akane to bear.

"Feeling better now?" Tofu asked, startling her out of her reverie.

"I-I guess so," she said softly. She took a deep breath and let it out with a rush. "Yep. Much better after a good cry."

She turned for the door, stopping just short of the threshold.

"I'm sorry I bothered you with this," she said.

"Nonsense," Tofu replied cheerfully. "My door is always open for you, Akane."

Akane nodded her head and stepped through the door.

_If only your heart was, too..._

Kima, the representative for the Jusenkyo Commonwealth, excused herself from the table, leaving the dubious honor of leading the delegation to one of her aides. The summit was only a few hours old and it was already clear where Nabiki's sympathies lay. The Combine would surely triumph when all was said and done.

Unless of course someone interfered.

Tetsuo Gosunkugi was putting on a pretty good show, managing to look sincere in his negotiations while putting up stumbling blocks to the process wherever he could. She wondered what he was trying to gain by stalling. It was clear that the League was every bit as interested in the Confederation's surprising offer, but was hampered by their inability to match the enormous resources of the Combine - to say nothing of Tatewaki Kuno's hunger for Akane Tendo's hand in marriage. If anything could bring the summit to a grinding halt, it would be the final disposition of Akane after the surrender.

The palace had clearly designated areas for the visiting diplomatic staff, and it was these boundaries that Kima now violated. She ducked into the first lavatory she could find, and locked the door. Her wings ached for release from the confines of her heavy cloak, as did her taloned feet from their boots.

There wasn't time to treat them the way they needed; she would have to make them go away. The process was still taking some getting used to, but she was far more comfortable now with her alter ego than she was a few weeks ago. This was something for which she had been training for over a year, and despite the fact that she had been activated far earlier than originally intended, she knew she could pull it off.

She stripped off her clothes and folded them neatly next to a diplomatic pouch that she had been carrying under her cloak since she arrived on Nerima. From the pouch she drew another set of clothes; items sized for a woman somewhat smaller than her own Amazonian frame. Next, she turned the valve on the sink for cold water and took a deep breath.

Kima appeared from the lavatory slightly pale, but in control. She was getting more and more into the part with each moment, and her confidence rose as palace servants treated her with the deference expected by her new identity. She made her way up a grand staircase and turned left past armed sentries who popped to attention as she passed them without breaking stride. She was in the Tendo family wing of the palace, reserved for their private apartments. One of the sentries she passed went back to parade-rest while the other bent over a log book to make the appropriate entry.

16:19 - Akane Tendo entering the west wing.

Psychiatric Isolation Ward

Jusenkyo Laboratories Medical Center

Planet Lightoller, Epsilon Indi System

Jusenkyo Commonwealth

4 February 3025

General Herb scratched his chin thoughtfully as several thousand volts of high-frequency alternating current lanced across the moist bare back of Commonwealth Mechwarrior Mousse. The application of said current was done so as to inflict the most agony possible without the embarrassing risk of causing the subject to go into instant cardiac arrest. Mousse screamed in appreciation for the efforts made on his behalf, as he had been doing for the greater part of an hour.

"It should go without saying that I'm extremely disappointed in your conduct," Herb said after the current was secured, and his victim capable of responding to his voice.

Mousse looked up from the padded table, his eyes bloodshot and trembling. "I've already told you everything," he croaked. Blood trickled down the corner of his lips from where he had bitten through part of the hard rubber mouthpiece provided by Lime during the jolts. "What do you want to hear from me?"

The taciturn Herb actually smiled at this.

"I'm not conducting an interrogation," he told the man. "I am well aware of the details and extent of your treachery."

Mousse's eyes blazed. "There's been no trial," he gasped. "I have a right to a trial... A trial of my peers or one of ritual combat against my accuser..."

Herb motioned to Mint, who cranked up the juice.

When Mousse was finished screaming and was down to shuddering gasps of agony, Herb answered him.

"This _is_ your trial" he said with a smirk. "Though in fact you were tried by me the very moment I learned that you were at the starport instead of following my explicit orders. We now dispense with the formalities." His smirk became a beatific smile. "You must have been too busy screaming when I formally convened."

Another jolt of current shot through Mousse's body.

"Did I tell you that I was extremely disappointed in your conduct, Mousse?" Herb asked through the blast of hoarse screams. "I had plans for the lovely Shampoo, and in a misguided moment of weakness - fostered by an affection that she will never share with you - you went and ruined them. I had thought you far more intelligent than that."

He turned to Mint, and with a raised eyebrow, had the voltage and frequency increased beyond a particular threshold level. The higher the current's frequency, the greater the tendency for it to travel along a shallow path between the terminals rather than cause deep and potentially fatal wound channels. Herb found the resultant burst of flame and acrid smoke from Mousse's flesh particularly gratifying.

He brushed away the greasy blue smoke and nodded with satisfaction. A long black char mark branded Mousse from a point above his right kidney to a point between his shoulder blades and just right of his spine. Mousse was barely conscious now, twitching, and drooling facedown onto the floor to form a small puddle on the scrubbed white tile that was tinged ever so slightly with pink.

"Mint, a little speed, if you would be so kind," he said to the smaller of his two henchmen. "It isn't yet time for Mousse to go into shock."

Mint scrambled to comply, producing a prepared syrette of amphetamines and jabbing Mousse in the thigh, while Lime removed the terminal clips from the cracked and blackened skin and set them aside. Lime followed this with a perfunctory application of white antiseptic foam along the char streak, leaving the rest for a member of the medical staff that would not question such gruesome methods to finish tending to. He then lifted Mousse's head up by a length of hair to face his tormentor.

"It is the judgement of this Court that you are found guilty of willful insubordination against a flag grade officer, and guilty of disobeying his lawful orders," Herb told him. "These charges levied during the continuing state of emergency are normally punishable by death, but given the otherwise exemplary service record of the accused, this Court has decided a certain leniency is in order."

He leaned in close to Mousse.

"Your status as a Mechwarrior of the Commonwealth is provisionally stripped..."

Mousse closed his eyes. As if torture wasn't cruel enough, Herb had just taken the only mark of distinction he had enjoyed over the rank and file of the Commonwealth. The general continued the pronouncement of sentence, though anything he had to say at that point would mean nothing to Mousse.

"You are furthermore awarded thirty days confinement - to be sustained only on rice and water, given ten lashes by whip, and upon arrival of the JumpShip _Reflections of Wisdom_ you will be transferred to a Correctional Custody Battalion on the Periphery world of Dok To, where your status as a mechwarrior will be reviewed after evaluation of your conduct for a period of two years."

Dok To was a world administered indirectly by Herb, and as such, ousse knew he could expect much more of the same when he got there. His future as a mechwarrior was over no matter how well he conducted himself in the Correctional Custody unit, and he knew that he could expect no support from his family. They would receive Herb's version of events first, and the shame would be great enough for them to disown him outright.

Despite his crushing vengeance, Herb apparently wished to gloat, as he had not yet left the room.

"So, Mousse, was your gallant mission worth the trouble? Was assisting a woman who holds no affection for you and will never consider you worthy of her attention worth all of this suffering?"

Mousse was beyond caring about reprisals.

"If it meant keeping her away from the likes of you, then I'd do it again and again," he spat. "I'd die to keep her from you, even if everything you said about her was true."

Herb's face remained impassive and aloof in spite of the insult he had sustained. He turned to Lime, who prepared to deliver a backhanded blow in response to Mousse's insolence, and shook his head. With a weary sigh he steepled his fingers in sympathy for such a deluded man, then made a dismissive gesture to his henchmen.

"Take him away."

Azure Cloud Castle

Planet Nerima, Capella System

Nerima Confederation

12 February 3025

Grand Duke Soun Tendo was a man nearly broken on the wheel of fate. He sat upon the tatami of his personal chambers and tried to determine where and how he had gone astray. While it could be said that the Confederation had been threatened long before he succeeded to the throne, it would be during his reign that it would fall.

There were no easy answers for him to face. He knew that he had let his people down in the hour they needed him most. He realized at last that he had wallowed in grief after the death of his beloved wife, and that his selfish and weak indulgence was responsible for the end of his rule. His daughters had bravely bought his country time, but without his leadership they could not hope to ultimately prevail.

Hence his reluctant decision not to go into exile with the rest of his family at the end of the surrender process. Despite his shortcomings as a ruler and a father, he was a proud man. Only his death could atone for his failures. He would put his affairs in order, and then commit suicide as soon as practical.

Kima happened by the open door of Soun's chambers and paused to regard the leader of the Confederation. His face was grave, and tears streamed freely down his cheeks. She had never seen a man cry so proficiently before.

It was understandable, she thought to herself. He was facing the imminent destruction of his reign - a reign that had been passed down since before the fall of the Star League. He was also a man, and men were known to be inherently weak creatures; all bluff and bluster and no substance underneath.

Her mission was to gather intelligence, and if necessary, disrupt the summit as surreptitiously as possible - thus preserving the status quo of the Inner Sphere. Now upon seeing Soun Tendo, she realized how futile that mission was. He was a beaten man, defeated by his inner weakness more than by any force of arms. Whether she stopped the summit or not, the entire Confederation was doomed in short order with this man on the throne.

It was time to return to the delegation before she was missed. Her exploratory journey into the heart of the Tendo sanctum had proven the effectiveness of her disguise. She could enter and leave at will, without fear of challenge, all thanks to her exhaustive studies and her Jusenkyo body.

She had been reluctant to assume a form that would be obsolete as soon as the Confederation fell, as fall it must, but she was also a warrior of the Joketsuzoku. Unquestioning obedience was what the Matriarch demanded, and Kima would not shirk from that responsibility. Doctor Gaido had told her prior to the process that there was no way to reverse the effects, and that she would be forced to bear the body of Akane Tendo for the rest of her life. She was promised governorship of her own system in return for such a curse, but would the price paid come dearer than the prize gained?

As she left the west wing and was logged out by the sentries, she tried to grapple with that question. She did not notice the soldier that passed her coming the other way, so she did not see the freshly given shiner that graced his right eye.

Soun heard the respectful tapping at his chamber door. He wiped away his tears and turned to face a soldier normally posted to the gatehouse at the foot of the mountain. The man saluted smartly and presented himself before his liege.

"Your Grace, Corporal Ward reporting with an urgent dispatch."

Soun nodded gravely, apparently taking no notice of the soldier's black eye.

"Go on, Corporal."

"Your Grace, there is a man at the gatehouse who claims to have been a close friend of yours prior to your ascension. His name is Genma Saotome. We thought he was just some crackpot and tried to turn him away, but, well, he and his son overpowered the garrison, and are holding them hostage until you grant them an audience. We don't dare use the battlemechs stationed outside for fear of..."

The Grand Duke was across the room in a heartbeat to grab the soldier by his lapels.

"D-Did you say Saotome?" he demanded.

"Y-Yes, your Grace! Saotome!" the corporal replied fearfully.

"Send a car at once!" Soun demanded. "No harm is to come to him and... his SON did you say?"

"Yes, your Grace!"

"They are to be treated with the greatest courtesy and respect," Soun gushed happily. "See to it at once!"

"Y-Y-Yes, your Grace! At once, your Grace!"

Soun released the man, who saluted again and tore out of the room at a full gallop. The Grand Duke's face beamed with delight, and tears of joy streamed down his face. From a man facing his imminent suicide, he had become a man reborn with hope.

"Oh, how I've waited for this day!" he cried.

"Pop, this is without a doubt the dumbest thing you have ever done."

Genma ignored his son in favor of keeping an eye on the two heavy battlemechs that stood outside with their missile launcher caps open and red-tipped Magna-Longbow missiles glinting dreadfully in the sun. They were followed by several Infantry Fighting Vehicles that disgorged troops into protected positions uphill, and by two more IFVs that covered the escape route back into the city. They were effectively bottled up inside the gatehouse.

"What are you afraid of, boy?"

Ranma looked around to the battered huddle of hastily secured soldiers and shrugged. "Oh, I don't know; death by firing squad, getting stepped on or blown to bits by one of those Crusaders out there, maybe a slow and thorough torture session followed by life in prison. You know, things like that."

"Don't be so spineless, Ranma," Genma chastised him. "If you were so concerned about that, why did you bother to help me?"

"It was either that or get shot!" Ranma protested. "You think any of these bozos were going to discriminate between the guilty and the innocent once you started bonking heads?"

Genma rolled his eyes. "Always thinking of yourself, eh boy? Where did I go wrong in raising you? You've turned into such an ingrate!"

Ranma popped his knuckles in reply.

"Don't even get me started, old man. You didn't have to attack them."

"They were trying to throw us out!" Genma shot back. "They didn't even bother to telephone the palace and tell them that we were here!"

Ranma swept his arm out angrily at his father.

"Can you blame them!? _I_ don't even believe your crazy story! You and the Grand Duke of the Confederation are bosom buddies... What a bunch of crap!"

Genma clenched his fists.

"Boy, you've got a lot to learn about respect for your elders."

"Well I had such a great teacher!" Ranma sneered. He dropped into a fighting stance. "You want to throw down, Pop? Come and get some!"

Genma was about to take his son up on the offer when the soldier they had released to notify the Grand Duke returned in an open-topped car. The IFVs parted for the car as it drove up to the gatehouse. He jerked his thumb out the barred window and grinned with triumph.

"You see, boy? Our transportation has arrived."

Ranma looked out the window and frowned. There were dozens of men armed with assault rifles and blazers pointed at his face from the cover of their positions. The car was there, but it was too far into the open to reach it without becoming an easy target.

"Looks like they're just trying to draw us out, if you ask me."

The soldier exited the car and approached the rear gatehouse door.

"Not too close, man!" Ranma warned him.

"Quiet, boy!" Genma returned. "Let's hear what he has to say."

The soldier held his hands out to show that he was unarmed, then opened the armored door. Ranma tensed for action, which did not come.

"His Grace, Grand Duke Tendo, has asked me to convey his best wishes and welcome you to Azure Cloud Castle. This car has been put at your disposal," the soldier declared. "If you'll please accompany me..."

"How do we know this ain't some kind of trick?" Ranma asked him. "Once you get us into the open you could just gun us down."

The soldier wasn't prepared for the question, and stood slackjawed.

"I knew it," Ranma growled. "It's just a trick."

"No!" the corporal protested. "The word has already been passed. No one is to harm you. You are to be treated with the greatest courtesy and respect, honest! The Grand Duke told me himself!"

"Yeah, well we ain't leaving until all those troops back off, and back _way_ off," Ranma returned.

"I have to agree with the boy," Genma rumbled.

The soldier nodded wearily. "Just a moment, please."

He might have only been a corporal, but with a quick confirmation from the castle to back him up, the troops piled back into their IFVs and the two battlemechs withdrew to a distance of a hundred meters. Genma decided this was good enough, and stepped outside. When no snipers gunned him down, Ranma reluctantly joined him.

The ride up the mountain also came without incident. Ranma almost preferred a fight, as the sudden cooperation was pointing dangerously towards the chance that Genma and the Grand Duke really _did_ know each other. That was too weird to even think about.

They were escorted through the upper donjon and into the inner keep. From there an honor guard of four soldiers of the Household Guard escorted them to a lush garden terrace with a blue marble fountain and a stunning view of the city below. Ranma kept waiting for that white hot flash of a laser beam between his shoulders, but it never came. Instead, they were offered refreshments of tea and small cakes from golden trays.

"This is totally whacked," he said to himself as he nibbled on a cake. A small part of him still feared that they had fallen into a trap.

"What is, boy?" Genma asked smugly. "The fact that your father was right?"

Ranma turned to face his father.

"Yeah, well, that _would_ be pretty earth-shattering," he agreed. "So now that we're here eating the Duke's cakes and drinking his tea, just what was your big idea for coming here?"

Genma narrowed his eyes. "You'll know soon enough, boy."

Ranma would have none of that.

"Enough with that crap, Pop! I'm tired of your whole cryptic routine! Just tell me already!"

Genma set down his teacup.

"Boy, don't push me. My patience with your attitude problem is running out."

Ranma leaped at him.

"Daddy, I don't understand what could possibly be so important that you would drag me out of the summit meeting! Don't you understand how important this is to the future of the Confederation?"

Akane bit down on her lip as Nabiki finished. It was all she could do to keep from screaming at her mercenary sister.

"Really, Father," Kasumi agreed. "This isn't like you at all."

Soun was still beaming with happiness.

"My dear children, a moment I have been waiting for since before you were born has finally arrived."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Akane pressed.

"The son of a very dear friend of mine has come to Nerima," Soun explained. "It was agreed over twenty years ago that our two mechwarrior families be united."

"United?" Nabiki asked. "As in, one of us marries this guy's kid?"

"Precisely," Soun replied, and the color drained from Nabiki's face. "One of you will marry Genma Saotome's son."

"Who?" Nabiki asked incredulously. It was clear that she was liking this arrangement less and less by the moment. "I've never heard of the name 'Saotome.' Are they nobility?"

"Not exactly," Soun grunted.

"Are they even rich?"

Soun shrugged. "I'm not really sure. Genma wasn't exactly rolling in money the last time we were together."

"Do you even know who this son is?" Nabiki pressed. "What he's like? How old he is?"

Soun took a long drag on a cigarette.

"I've never met him."

Nabiki rolled her eyes. "Great. You can count me out."

"Really, Father," Kasumi clucked. "It sounds like such a rash decision on your part to make such an arrangement without thinking it through."

"Yeah," Akane chimed in.

Soun was undeterred by his daughters' lack of enthusiasm.

"Your mother agreed with me on this," he declared, knowing that any mention of their mother would force them to listen to him. "We were both good friends of the Saotomes, and the Saotome School of Martial Arts is one of the last of the Anything Goes Schools in the Inner Sphere. Think of it as your duty as heirs to the School."

"What about our duty as heirs to the Confederation?" Nabiki pointed out. "I would think those obligations come first."

Soun now grew impatient.

"One of you _will_ marry Genma Saotome's son," he declared, his voice having regained the stern and unyielding character of the old days. The sudden outburst of charisma momentarily cowed his children, who had grown used to the impassive and listless man of the past decade. "That is my final decision, as your father and as your liege lord."

There was a long and oppressive silence between them then, broken at last by a gentle cough from Nabiki. "Is he at least cute?" she asked meekly.

"I suppose we'll find out," Kasumi added with some apprehension as they stepped through the doors to the garden terrace.

"REALLY CUTE, OLD MAN! REALLY DAMN CUTE!"

Ranma was beside herself with rage, the water from the fountain almost steaming off her body. She faced off against her giant panda father, fists clenched and murder in her eyes. The panda snarled back at his son, now a daughter, and prepared to leap back into the fray.

Soun Tendo could not believe his eyes. He had given explicit orders that Genma and his son were to be shown to the garden terrace and made comfortable. Where had this circus act come from!?

"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded. "Who are you?"

"This is supposed to be your old friend and his son?" Nabiki quipped. "A redhead and her giant whatever-it-is pet?"

Soun shook his head vigorously in the negative.

Genma stumped over to Ranma and spun her around, his paw draped over her shoulder. He then pushed her forward and grunted that she introduce herself while trying to look dignified in the presence of his old friend.

Soun, his mind still groping for rational explanations, found himself asking "...you wouldn't happen to be...?"

Ranma stepped forward. She was blushing with shame as she cleared her throat to speak. "I'm Ranma Saotome," she declared. Nudging a thumb backwards to the panda she continued, "and this is my father, Genma." For a moment her eyes locked with Akane's, whom she recognized from the newspage as the chick who had whipped the Black Rose of the Furinkan Combine.

"Sorry about this," she added as an afterthought.

Nabiki could not believe that she had been taken from the summit meeting for this. There they were in the garden, ostensibly to meet one of Daddy's long last mechwarrior buddies and the guy's son - whom either herself or one of her sisters was going to marry - and instead what they found was a red-haired girl and a panda. The girl claimed to be Ranma Saotome, but where was her father?

Meanwhile, her own father was trying to make sense of this development himself.

"Are you really Ranma Saotome?" Soun asked.

Ranma nodded, blushing furiously with shame.

"And Genma Saotome is your father?"

Ranma turned to face the panda, who growled something in reply.

"It's true," she replied.

That was good enough for Soun in his fractured state of mind. He ran forward and embraced Ranma like a long lost child. Ranma tried not to choke as the man's arms wrapped around her like bands of iron.

"Oh, happy day!" the Grand Duke exclaimed. "At last you've come!"

Nabiki stepped forward and tapped her father on the shoulder.

"Um, Daddy? Are you sure this is what you want for us?"

Soun disengaged from Ranma enough to keep from crushing her.

"What are you talking about, Nabiki?" he asked.

Nabiki rolled her eyes and pointed to Ranma's buxom chest. "This 'son' of Genma Saotome has quite the rack, don't you think?"

"Oh dear," Kasumi clucked. "Nabiki does have a point, Father."

Soun looked down to Ranma's bulging breasts.

"I-I don't understand..." he mumbled.

"Oh come on," Nabiki cried. "Ranma's a girl!"

Soun looked again. Ranma did in fact have quite a chest. He moved his hands down her sides, confirming the narrow waist and roomy hips of a perfect hourglass figure.

"A... A girl...?"

He felt faint, but managed to keep it together.

Ranma's face was now blazing red, her eyes cast straight down to her feet.

Akane stepped forward to pull her father off Ranma. "Okay, Dad. The show's over. Give her a chance to breathe, already."

Soun stumbled backwards, reeling.

"I don't understand," he muttered. "They said a man and his son... at the gatehouse..."

"It's a long story," Ranma said at length. "One which my old man would just loooooove to explain." Suddenly clutching the kettle of hot water for tea, she turned to the panda. "Ain't that right, Pop!?"

The panda backed away from the kettle.

"Come on, Pop," Ranma growled. "This was YOUR idea, remember?" She flung the kettle at the panda, dousing him with scalding hot water. Genma yelped in pain. As the steam cleared, a man in a soaked white dogi stood before them, his glasses knocked askew on his face.

A heavy silence hung over the garden, leaving Nabiki to be the first to say something.

"Oh. My. God."

Soun, his fragile eggshell mind hanging on by a wispy thread, now looked upon the man, and at last recognition set in. Subtract about forty pounds, add some thinning hair, and it was like they had never been apart these twenty years.

"Saotome!" he cried. "It IS you!"

Genma, tears flowing down his face, nodded gravely.

Akane and Kasumi stood dumbfounded. There had to be some kind of rational explanation for this. They'd even settle for something irrational, so long as it explained what they had just seen.

"My son is correct," Genma told them. "It is a long story, and one that must be kept in the strictest secrecy."

"Of course," Soun replied. He was willing to accept just about anything so long as his old friend was really there and not just as some delusional fantasy. He gestured towards his daughters. "These are my three little girls -"

"Dad!" Akane protested. She was not a little girl!

"Right," Soun harrumphed. "This is my eldest daughter, Kasumi, who is twenty-two."

Kasumi bowed formally for them. She seemed kindly enough in Ranma's opinion, which was a relief given the discomfort of their situation.

"Next is my second daughter, Nabiki. She's twenty."

Nabiki offered a terse smile. "Charmed, I'm sure." It didn't take a genius to figure out how welcome they were with her.

Soun continued, hastily ignoring Nabiki's clipped greeting.

"And finally, my youngest daughter, Akane. She's nineteen."

Akane curtsied and offered a friendly, if cautious, smile.

"My son and I are very pleased to meet you," Genma said for the two of them.

Ranma, still a girl, looked around for more hot water, and tried to ignore the stares she was getting from the three girls at his father's reference to him as his 'son.'

"Hey, can I get some hot water?" she asked them. "I used it all on Pop."

The Grand Duke nodded. "Certainly! Akane, be a good girl and show Ranma to the kitchens."

Akane looked incredulous.

"Me? Why does it have to be me? Why couldn't one of the guards just -"

"- It's no big deal," Ranma interjected. "Just point me in the right direction and I'll get it myself. I don't need some girl to lead me around."

Akane turned back at Ranma and fumed.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"I thought it was obvious," Ranma replied.

Nabiki shook her head. "Okay. That's enough for me. I'm going back to the summit meeting. Have fun with your little friends, Daddy." She turned and quickly left the terrace before Hurricane Akane started blowing up.

"I can show you the way, Ranma," Kasumi said sweetly. She knew as well as Nabiki when her youngest sister was about to explode.

Akane's eyes darted between Kasumi and Ranma, unsure if she was being made to look bad, and unwilling to take the chance. "No, I'll do it. Come on, Ranma."

She started for the doors, not even waiting for Ranma to follow, but with a shrug and a sigh, the pig-tailed mechwarrior quickly caught up.

Soun and Genma watched the two of them go, and then turned to each other with sly smiles.

"You remember our promise, don't you, Saotome?" Soun asked him, tears of joy in his eyes.

"How could I forget?" Genma replied, equally dewy.

Soun nodded briskly, then spit into his hand. Genma followed suit. They clapped their hands together and shook.

"You don't know how happy I am to see you, Saotome."

"The same goes for me, Tendo."

Kasumi, up to now a mute witness to their secret pact, now cleared her gentle voice to speak.

"What is it, Kasumi?" Soun asked her.

"Is there anything else, Father?"

"No. Not right now. Saotome and I have a lot of catching up to do, so we'll probably retire to my study until supper."

Kasumi bowed deferentially.

"Very well, Father. I'll have the stewards send up refreshments."

"So, you're really a guy, is that it?" Akane asked Ranma as they walked down the marble halls of the palace.

"Yup," Ranma grunted.

"You want to explain that trick with the hot water?"

"Nope."

Akane grit her teeth. "Fine. As long as you do whatever it is that you came for and leave, I don't care."

"Amen, sister."

Akane stopped short. "What was that?!" she cried angrily.

Ranma halted and turned to face her.

"Look, you want the truth? Fine. Yes, I'm really a guy. Something happened to me that I really don't want to talk about, okay? As for why I'm here, your guess is as good as mine. My old man clams up every time I ask him about it, so stop asking me. Got it?"

Akane said nothing for a moment while Ranma glared.

"All right," she conceded. "I can respect that. If you don't want to talk about what happened, okay. I don't really blame you for wanting to drop the subject."

This seemed to placate Ranma, so Akane continued on her way.

"My father tells me you're one of the last students of the Anything Goes Style," Akane said as they walked.

"Yup," Ranma agreed. "Me and Pop."

"So you're both mechwarriors?"

"Of course!"

Akane smiled a little at this. "What 'mech do you pilot?"

Ranma frowned briefly and said nothing. It was obvious even to Akane what the answer to that question might be, and instead of looking down on Ranma for being one of the Dispossessed, she actually pitied her - him - a little.

"Okaaaay..." she went on. "What 'mech _did_ you pilot?"

"Phoenix Hawk LAM," Ranma muttered. Reminding one of the Dispossessed about the days when they were true mechwarriors was never very polite, but there seemed to be no malice in Akane's question.

"Really?" Akane gushed. LAM pilots had to master the intricacies and fighting tactics of operating both the humanform battlemech and the fixed-wing aerospace fighter. It was not something that most mechwarriors could manage to do well.

Her response surprised Ranma, prompting her to continue what would have been a painful subject. "Yeah, but it was pretty beat up. Eventually the thing wore out, and we didn't have the parts or the money to keep it going." A tear welled at Ranma's eye, but she quickly brushed it away. "We had to sell it for scrap, but then all our creditors swooped down to collect. We didn't have enough money left to buy another 'mech, even a salvage job."

Akane nibbled uncomfortably on her lip. As the daughter of the Grand Duke she would never have to worry about losing a battlemech to a lack of parts, and certainly not money. Ranma was a sober reminder of the many mechwarriors in the Inner Sphere whose battlemechs were their only means of wealth and status.

"But at least you didn't _lose_ it," she offered. "I mean, you didn't get your 'mech shot out from under you, so it's not like you were defeated or anything."

Ranma nodded her head. Her father had consoled her with the same words. It had been three years now, and the wounds of shame and poverty were slowly scarring over for her.

"Something like that," she replied. "Thanks."

The kitchens were huge, capable of serving the entire population of the castle plus a sizable contingent of guests. Numerous cooks, sculleries, and stewards bustled about them. Hot water was easily obtained for Ranma, but this was no place to change back into a guy.

"What is it?" Akane asked Ranma when she hesitated to do whatever it was that turned her into a man.

"Uh, could I have some, you know, privacy?"

Akane blushed.

"Um, sure. There's a storage room over there."

Ranma nodded and went over to the door. After carefully checking to see that no one was inside, she entered and closed the door. Seconds later a young man of nineteen emerged. His hair was black and tied with a pig-tail, and his eyes were the same blue-grey as Ranma's. If not for the water stains on his red mandarin blouse, Akane would not have believed that the man she now beheld was the girl she had just spoken to.

"R-Ranma?"

He nodded with a grin and stretched out his arms. "Man, I _hate_ being cooped up in that little girl body."

She looked him up and down.

"Are you sure you don't want to explain this?"

Ranma Saotome eased off on the backpressure and brought his battlemech to a halt within the cover of some coniferous trees. His sensors probed the surrounding plains for some sign of his target, but so far all he had was nothing. He decided to switch his active sensors off and continue the search passively.

He wasn't sure why he had accepted Akane's challenge to a simulator duel. It might have been boredom, or the fact that he was eager to jump into a cockpit - any cockpit - once again. The simulated battlemech he controlled was a 45 ton Vindicator, one of the Confederation's own designs. It wasn't half bad for a medium 'mech, and although it was slower than he would have preferred, at least it had jump jets.

He wasn't sure what Akane would be piloting, but from what little he had read of her tactics in the newspage, he felt that she would come looking for him when he didn't show. That was fine with him. A single throw of a control switch powered his battlemech's reactor down to idle, and brought his heat output to minimum. The tree cover would further absorb and disperse his thermal emissions to the point where Akane would have to practically run into him to notice.

It wasn't a long wait before his neutrino detector began to ping. Neutrino detectors capable of being carried aboard a battlemech weren't very accurate; they gave a fuzzy estimate of bearing and range, but as early warning systems they could be pretty useful for detecting the radiation from an operating fusion plant. Their drawback was that they had to be fine-tuned to local conditions or else they would be set off by the planet's sun and rendered useless. Fortunately, this was a simulator, where things generally worked as they were supposed to.

Akane (or at least a neutrino source) was roughly in front of him, and within a thousand meters. She was also closing on his position, having either detected him or else deciding that there was no other place he could be hiding. He decided to play it cool and let her come to him.

After a few moments he was rewarded with the tiny vibrations of his analog clinometer; the tell-tale of a large humanform 'mech stomping across the ground nearby. He couldn't quite hear the heavy metal-shod footfalls of the approaching 'mech, but he knew she was close. A quick flick of his eyes towards his engine exhaust duct temperature gauges told him what he needed to know - that his jump jets were still hot enough for a brief blast of thrust while his reactor was idle.

A bright flash of light glared through his cockpit as a laser beam rippled through the trees and set several alight. She was trying to smoke him out. He waited calmly, fingers tensed on the jump jet studs of his control yoke. He had another forty seconds of thermal reserve left in his jets before he would have to power up.

A second beam of laser fire screamed through the trees, this time to his right. She didn't know where he was, and was just trying to spook him. He wasn't going to let her. Thirty seconds.

The clinometer shook in its mount. This time he could feel the 'mech stomping closer. Trees only a few dozen meters before him began crashing down as they were pushed over. Twenty seconds.

He caught the sight of a whip antenna and goosed his jets. The turbines screamed behind and below him as the outside air was sucked in and superheated over the engine coils. His hand shot out to the reactor control panel, bringing it to life.

Akane was caught by surprise by his jump, and fanned laser fire in a frantic attempt to catch him. Ranma put on a little more thrust to his left leg jets as he eased off on his right, side-slipping in a midair evasion maneuver. The clouds of dust, steam, and tree bits from his jump would obscure her vision long enough to do what he intended.

Ranma's Vindicator was too close to use its Long Range Missile launcher or its particle cannon effectively, leaving him with a light and a medium laser. That was no good against his opponent, who faced him in an Enforcer - a 50 ton Federated Shiratori 'mech which packed an autoloading 155mm cannon and a heavy laser that had no such minimum range difficulties. The reactor's output climbed rapidly as he put greater demands for thrust on it. He was sucking every last watt of power out of the plant as his Vindicator soared over the Enforcer to touch down just behind it.

Ranma's limb controls groaned against the abuse he put them through as the Vindicator sprang up from its touchdown, pivoted on its left heel, and brought the right leg up and out in a roundhouse kick. The blow smashed into the thin rear center torso armor of the Enforcer, scattering shards of diamond-hard aligned crystal steel and brilliant yellow sparks of flame. The Enforcer staggered forward, crashing into more trees as it fought to stay upright.

He had to give Akane credit as she regained control of her 'mech and whipped out her right arm to bear on him. His fingers caressed the boost studs in time to avoid a long-rod tungsten carbide penetrator from the autocannon. His Vindicator shot airborne once again, only the upper portion of the passing shell's discarded sabot striking his armor - ineffectually.

"What the -?" Akane cried to herself as the autocannon shell sailed far downrange. "Is he reading my moves?"

Her heavy laser arm came up to bear, firing point blank at the Vindicator, and still missing as Ranma once again side-slipped in midair. Her pupils shrank to tiny dots as the 45 ton battlemech loomed overhead. Catching hold of herself, she gunned her throttles in an attempt to avoid what was surely a death from above attack aimed at her cockpit. The Enforcer scrambled forward and past the falling Vindicator.

Ranma pivoted the Vindicator in mid-air, allowing the Enforcer to flee while he steadied his 'mech for an easy landing. As he touched down, Akane had thoughtfully opened the range to ninety-three meters, and his HUD's targeting reticle glowed green for PPC release. He squeezed on the trigger, sending a bolt of blue-white lightning square into the Enforcer's heavily damaged rear center torso, and watched impassively as the battlemech burst apart into a white cloud of plasma with a fatal reactor crash.

Akane stared at her snowy instrument bank in disbelief. Her simulated battlemech had been destroyed by a direct hit to the fusion reactor. Had this duel been real, she wouldn't have even known what had happened, she would have simply ceased to be.

As a mechwarrior she had experienced death in the simulator many times. It was a part of the training process to be defeated in sim combat. But this was more than defeat, this was humiliation. She watched as the duel's statistics scrolled across the display and groaned. He had struck just two blows - one of them a kick! She hadn't hit him once, not even once! The actual combat had taken mere seconds!

She raised her cockpit canopy and stepped out into the real world. Ranma's cockpit was already open, with the guy standing impassively next to his unit, arms folded over his chest. It was clear that he hadn't even bothered reviewing the statistics.

"Wanna go again?" he asked her. "Only this time don't hold back, okay."

Akane's fists clenched tight. He couldn't be serious, could he? The impudent jerk!

"What the heck was that?" she cried angrily.

"What was what?" he replied. He seemed perplexed by her question, which only made it worse.

"You call that a duel?" she spluttered. "All you did was jump around!"

Ranma unfolded his arms and set them akimbo. "Hey, it worked. I'm alive, and you're dead. End of story."

She knew he was right, but he was so infuriating that she couldn't let it go. She just stood there trembling and fuming with rage.

"Hey, don't take it so hard," Ranma offered when he realized how angry she really was. "You did pretty good. Most mechwarriors wouldn't have been able to stay upright after that roundhouse kick, especially in the middle of all those trees." He brushed his hand absently against his red satin shirt. "Of course after reading about how you walked all over the Black Rose's personal guard, I expected a bit more of a fight..."

That was the last straw. Akane stumped over to Ranma and slapped him as hard as she could across the face. Ranma, caught off-guard by her attack, spun around and slumped to the side of the simulator unit. When he was able, he sat up and touched the bright red hand mark on his cheek gingerly.

"What was that for?!" he demanded.

"That's for being such a jerk!" she shot back, and stomped out of the room.

Ranma stood slowly and watched her go. One moment she was actually nice to him, the next moment she was slugging him.

"Man, that chick is psycho."

The Grand Duke's Personal Apartments

Azure Cloud Castle

11 February 3025

"So what do you think, Tendo?"

Soun Tendo once again looked over the tattered notebooks and scattered relics that lay before him. It was a fantastic tale, but could it really be true?

"I don't know what to say, Saotome," he hedged. "The fact that wild stories about Ryuugenzawa have been circulating for centuries makes all this very hard to take at face value."

"Ryuugenzawa exists," Genma said firmly. "I feel it with every fiber of my being. Isn't what I've shown you enough? The fact that the boy and I fell victim to the very Star League laboratory detailed in these journals practically screams their authenticity."

Soun tried to look supportive.

"But really, Saotome. Try to look at it from my perspective. I admit that you and your son's, er, accident is fairly convincing proof that the Star League had installations detailed in these journals, but -"

"- I understand, Tendo," Genma said slowly. "There's no need to go on." He stood and bowed respectfully before his friend. "The boy and I won't trouble you with this any longer. We'll be leaving first thing in the morning."

Soun's eyes bulged.

"B-But, Saotome! Our agreement!"

Genma stood motionless.

"I'll need the boy with me if I'm to continue the search," he said evenly. "I'm not as young as I used to be, and in my line of work it's necessary to have someone you can trust watching your back."

Soun was almost trembling. "Saotome! You can't mean this!"

"Don't worry, Tendo. Our agreement stands. We'll just have to wait a little longer; just until the boy and I find Ryuugenzawa. Then we'll return, and we can unite our two schools."

"But that could be years from now!" Soun protested. "If ever!" He leaned in close to his friend. "Saotome, you mustn't breathe a word of this to anyone, but this summit meeting isn't just a peace conference..."

He let that confidence hang before them for a moment before continuing.

"The Confederation is going to surrender."

Genma was aghast.

"Tendo! You can't mean that!" he hissed.

Soun closed his eyes and sighed heavily. "It's true. The Confederation is at its breaking point. We've been pushed beyond the limits of endurance. Any further struggle is pointless and would only bring great calamity to our people." He sobbed. "I can't allow that. Right now my daughter Nabiki is bargaining with the Combine and the League for the most equitable terms."

He paused for a moment as Genma looked on in disbelief.

"It won't be so much of a surrender as an orderly transfer of power, but it will mean the end of my reign and of my family's claim to the Star League."

"But what will happen to you?" Genma pressed.

"We'll go into exile," Soun replied gravely. "We'll probably keep the Capella system as a personal fief, and perhaps the title of Duke just as a sop, but in the end the Tendos will either have a Kuno or a Gosunkugi as Lord."

Genma nibbled at his lip.

"I see. There's no choice but for you to surrender then, is there."

"None, Saotome."

Genma thrust his fists to the ceiling.

"Come on, Tendo! You can't give up now! Why, this is the best reason yet for helping me in my search for Ryuugenzawa. Once its secrets are in your possession, the Combine and the League won't stand a chance against you! It'll tip the entire war in your favor!"

Soun looked up at his friend. Once again the embers of hope began to glow within his soul.

"Do you think so, Saotome?"

"Of course I think so!" Genma replied. "Trust me, Soun old friend! And besides, if what you've said is true, what have you really got to lose?!"

Soun thought hard about this. It was said that opportunity only knocked once. But Ryuugenzawa couldn't be true, could it? What should he do?

While Ryuugenzawa remained an unknown, he did know one thing: he had asked for Genma's help in an hour of need, and his friend had appeared without warning out of the vast gulf of more than twenty years to answer his plea. If that wasn't the voice of Providence speaking, there was no such thing.

"I'll do it," he intoned.

Genma perked up his ears. "Come again, Tendo?"

Soun Tendo's eyes burned.

"I said I'll do it."

The Grand Hall, Azure Cloud Castle

Nabiki Tendo couldn't have been more pleased with herself. Everything was going as she had expected, right down to Tetsuo's stonewalling on parliamentary procedures and nitpicking on every last detail. He was doing his job so well that even the Commonwealth representative, who she expected to cause trouble, felt little need to add any interference to the process.

One of her aides handed her a note from the Combine table as Tetsuo filibustered on the process of verifying Confederation troop levels for a proper muster over to the succeeding house's army. She looked over to Domitian, who sat calmly ignoring the League ambassador while appearing rapt with attention. She had a feeling about the contents of the note, and carefully opened it away from her staff.

_The Furinkan Combine agrees to all terms with the exception of article IX, section 3 - regarding final disposition of Akane Tendo. My government has instructed me to accept no final arrangement until your sister has been formally betrothed to Prince Tatewaki. I also must confess that I am impatient to end as soon a possible this diplomatic charade you've crafted, and get down to an unencumbered resolution of these issues as we have previously agreed._

_- D_

She fed the note into a paper shredder next to her at the table, blinking at the flash of light from the built-in plasma arc incinerator as it turned the confetti into ash. She had expected this as well. The entire summit was counterfeit, as she had been meeting with Domitian through cut-outs and middle men for months now on the terms of the surrender, but the show had to go on.

The details of arranging the orderly transfer of possession of over a hundred star systems and the absorption of billions of loyal citizens into the Furinkan Combine were nothing compared to the difficulty in getting Daddy to agree to offer Akane in marriage to Tatewaki Kuno. It seemed that only she understood how important the marriage would be politically. It would be an important symbol of the union of the two Successor Houses, and the one most likely to make the people accept the surrender and annexation peaceably.

She already had him on the ropes with her defeatist propaganda. Well, it wasn't entirely propaganda, but she had exaggerated a few figures here and there to get her point across. He just needed a little more prodding, and then she would be able to get from him this last provision of the agreement.

Perhaps those two freaks who showed up on the castle's doorstep would serve as an ideal distraction for him. As for this supposed promise to unite their two families, well, if Daddy was going to insist upon it then Kasumi was the only possible choice. With the surrender, her role in running the day to day operations of the Confederation was moot. It wouldn't take much effort to get her to go along with it either - she did what Daddy told her.

Nabiki sat back and stretched. It was all turning out as expected, and that was all right by her. Once she pushed the agreement through, she could relax. It had taken her five years to get to this point, and she was eager to return to a normal life. The hated Succession Wars would no longer be her concern, and soon the Inner Sphere would be united into a Star League once again - all thanks to her.

Tetsuo Gosunkugi was not a fool. He had been carefully observing the summit, even while he was speaking, and it was clear that the fix was in with the Furinkan Combine. The question now was whether to continue to stall, as he had been doing, or should he seek to expose Nabiki's back room deal with the Combine Ambassador?

Exposure would certainly test Nabiki's grip over the Confederation nobility. The masses wouldn't stand for it, and in the ensuing riots the country might collapse into civil war - with Hikaru in the ideal position to take advantage of the chaos to grab territory for the League that they wouldn't have a chance of getting at Nabiki's rigged bargaining table. The Combine would probably still be able to subdue whatever the League couldn't grab, but anti-Combine sentiment among the populace would be high enough to tie their hands dealing with insurgency movements for years.

Even if a civil war didn't happen, a coup might well depose the Tendos, and see a Confederation noble with sympathies leaning towards the League take the throne. That might prove just as effective strategically against the Combine as a civil war. He knew several Confederation nobles who would be ideal for this, but there was no way to warn them to prepare without tipping his hand.

There were so many options, and the situation was even more volatile than he and Hikaru had imagined during their talks on Viridian. Should he risk a transmission via HPG requesting instructions? There simply wasn't time to send a courier via JumpShip.

He decided that come what may, he would have to act on his own, and hope Hikaru approved. If things got ugly there was always his platoon of Special Ops people infiltrated among his diplomatic staff. Once they had Akane Tendo, there would be no risk of counterattack, and Hikaru could force his way into the Confederation through marriage to her. Wouldn't _that_ burn Tatewaki Kuno's ass!

Nabiki was calling a recess. She must have wanted to clear something up with the Combine stooge, Domitian. That was fine with him, his voice was getting tired. They wouldn't dare pull anything today anyway, as it wouldn't look right. Probably not tomorrow either. Saturday would be the fateful day.

Kima compiled her report to Cologne for HPG dispatch as Tetsuo wound down his speech in response to Nabiki's call for a recess. Unlike her League and Combine counterparts, she had nothing to fear from handing over an encrypted message to Comstar for transmission. The Third Circuit representing Comstar at this summit might have suspected Joketsuzoku infiltration of his organization, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. His predecessor had been taught a painful and ultimately fatal lesson in minding his own business.

She hoped it would be an extended recess until the morning. There was much to learn about the Tendo stronghold that her unique new perspective could give her. Especially in the family quarters. She had a mind to check in on Nabiki that evening.

It was dangerous to have a direct conversation with the woman, as there were too many unknown factors present that could compromise her. Her intelligence briefs seemed to point towards some tension between Akane and her sibling, and Kima counted on that to remain sufficiently distant from Nabiki without drawing attention.

The middle Tendo daughter clearly had her own agenda at the summit. The real question now was when she would show her true colors. Nabiki was very intelligent, but showed a carelessly positive assessment of her capabilities. It was practically arrogance, and it might well backfire with a little help from the Joketsuzoku.

Her wings continued to ache underneath her heavy cloak. She wished that she could stretch them out and get a little flying in, but that would be impossible. The Inner Sphere was not ready to know about the existence of the hybrids. Not until Saffron was ready, and Cologne would be the judge of that.

Ducal Guests' Chambers, Azure Cloud Castle

Ranma Saotome lay back in the bath and let the steaming water soak into his pores. It had taken thirty minutes of scrubbing to get the smell of the _Belle Marle_ off him, and his skin glowed pink. Across from him in the bath was his father, who dozed with a damp washcloth over his eyes.

"Hey Pop, you still awake over there?"

Genma stirred.

"More or less," he grunted. "What is it?"

"You mind telling me now why we're here?"

Genma was quiet for a moment before responding.

"You'll find out tomorrow night," he told him. "Now stop asking me about it."

Ranma splashed at the water. "Does this mean we're done looking for Ryuugenzawa?" he huffed.

Genma opened his eyes. "What if we were?" he asked.

Ranma looked hopeful.

"Well, it's just that we've been searching for three years now, and I'm gettin' kinda tired of being on the move all the time. I mean, I never really believed in any of that junk anyways, it's always been just something to do."

Genma sighed wearily and looked skyward.

"How quickly they lose heart," he lamented to the heavens. Then he faced his son. "Hasn't our time on Lightoller taught you anything, boy? We've never been so close to finding Ryuugenzawa, and now you want to go home..."

Ranma bit back a curse.

"Don't you even miss Mom?" he asked bitterly. "Or wonder how she's doing? Do you know that it's been so long since we've seen her that in dreams I can't even remember what she looks like? I wake up in the morning and I have to pull her picture out of my pack just so I can prove to myself that she's real."

"Don't get sappy on me now, boy," Genma warned.

"Or what, old man?" Ranma returned. "So what if I miss her? At least one of us does. You make me sick sometimes with this stupid quest of yours." He stood up to leave, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his waist. "I used to believe in you, you know! I used to think that you were this all-knowing and undefeatable mechwarrior, and that once we found your goddamn Ryuugenzawa we'd be heroes!"

He splashed out of the bath and stepped into his bathing slippers.

"Where do you think you're going, boy?" Genma demanded.

Ranma turned back to his father, his eyes bloodshot with betrayal.

"I'm leaving... I'll give your best to Mom when I see her."

Genma watched him go. It would do no good to fight him at this point. Ranma wasn't really going anywhere. Once his temper had cooled, he would come around.

"Damn fool boy is just like his mother," he observed. "All emotion and no sense."

The garden terrace was still and dark when Ranma stepped through the doors. The golden strings of light that made up the capitol city of Gondolin glittered silently far below, and the stars shone brightly in the heavens far above. One of those stars was Sian, his home, only twelve parsecs away. For all of its relative proximity to Capella, it might have been on the other side of the galaxy to him right then.

He could not remember the last time he had set foot upon the soil of his birth. He and his father had been on the move since he was little more than a baby. He had been learning martial arts, 'mech and aerospace fighter piloting, technical skills, and combat tactics from anyone who could offer useful instruction, and this at a time when even children of other mechwarriors were still playing in the yard.

It had been a hard life, and he had rarely complained, but now the pangs of regret knifed into his breast. What had it all been for? The family's battlemech was gone before he turned sixteen, and he and his father had been chasing a myth for the last three years. Was he just living a lie, or was he an accessory to his father's delusions, or both?

Ryuugenzawa didn't exist. It might have at one time, but the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere started searching for Star League depots and facilities to plunder just as soon as General Kerensky abandoned them, to say nothing of the hundreds of wildcat treasure hunters like themselves who searched the lonely backwater systems of space. Ryuugenzawa might have existed once, but it had probably been stripped and looted long ago, just like practically everything else belonging to the fallen Star League.

It was time to go home. He owed it to his mother, and he owed it to himself. To hell with his old man.

"Ryuugenzawa doesn't exist," he told the night sky. "I don't care what Pop says about it."

The soft footfalls on the grass alerted him, and he turned to face Akane Tendo.

"Akane?"

She halted several paces from him.

"What is it?" she asked him.

Ranma scratched his head nervously. She was really putting out bad vibes, and he decided to play it safe.

"Nothing. I was just asking if it was you or not."

Akane shrugged. "It's me."

She continued standing there, looking at him, which was unnerving.

"Look," he began. "If you want, I'll leave. It's no big deal, and this is your home, so just say so."

"Stay," she replied.

Now he was really confused. Was she still angry with him, or was she one of those girls who ran hot and cold all the time?

"Hey, uh, about this afternoon..." he said nervously.

"What about this afternoon?"

Ranma cocked his head. If that was how she wanted to play it, he was okay with that, but her reaction wasn't what he was expecting. Perhaps it was best to play it safe anyway, and apologize.

"Look, I'm sorry about this afternoon, okay?"

She shrugged again. "Okay with me."

Ranma blinked twice. "Uh, great. Cool."

A heavy moment of silence passed between them.

"Hey, uh, Akane. I was just thinking that it was getting kinda late, so I'll be turning in, okay?"

"If you insist," she replied. "I couldn't help but overhear you talking about Ryuugenzawa, though. Do you want to talk about it some more?"

Ranma blushed, a reaction that was fortunately unnoticed in the dim light of the terrace. "Oh that? It was nothing. I was just talking to myself."

Akane frowned. "Oh. My apologies."

Ranma stepped past her with a nervous bid of 'good-night,' and went back into the castle.

_That was kinda weird..._

He was making his way towards the guests' quarters when he ran into Kasumi - quite literally.

"Oh dear," she cried softly. "I'm so sorry, Ranma."

"Nah, it was my fault," he demurred. "I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going."

"It's very late," she observed. "Is there something wrong?"

Ranma shook his head. "Not really. My body's still on ship time, so normally it would take a little getting used to local time."

"Normally?" she asked.

"Well, I don't mean to sound disrespectful or nothing, 'cause its nothing against you or your family, but I'm not sticking around on Nerima for much longer. The first ship headed to Sian is gonna find me on it."

Kasumi gave him a puzzled look.

"You're leaving? So soon?"

"Like I said, it ain't nothing against you guys; this is between me and my old man."

"Are you sure?" Kasumi pressed. "I think my father and yours had something important planned, remember?"

Ranma rolled his eyes. "First I've heard about it."

Kasumi seemed even more surprised at this.

"Really? So you don't know about...?"

"Kasumi, I don't have a clue about why I'm here," Ranma returned. "Not one. My old man said I'd find out tomorrow night, but I don't plan on sticking around that long."

"Well..."

"Do me a huge favor, okay?"

Kasumi did not like where this was going.

"What is it, Ranma?"

"Pretend you didn't see me tonight, okay?"

She wrung her hands for a moment. Dishonesty did not come naturally to her.

"I'll try," she managed, not at all pleased with herself.

"Great," Ranma replied, clearly satisfied in spite of her decidedly uneasy assurance. "You've all been great, so thanks for everything, huh?"

"O-Of course, but..."

"No time," Ranma said with a wave. "Have a good night."

Kasumi watched him go and wrung her hands with concern. Father would not be pleased about this, and just at a time when he was starting to act more like himself again. She couldn't let this happen to him; it would crush him! Determination set itself within her breast and she stomped her foot on the polished marble floor for his attention.

"Ranma, I can't allow you to leave. It wouldn't be proper."

Ranma stopped short.

"Aw, come on. This really doesn't concern you."

Kasumi gave him a hard look. "It _does_ concern me, Ranma. Your presence here is very important to my father. Now please go back to your room and promise me that you won't try to run away." She set her arms akimbo. "PROMISE ME."

Ranma suddenly felt very small.

"Uh... Sure. Whatever, Kasumi."

She did not let up. "PROMISE ME."

The weight of her gaze was staggering to Ranma, who began to sweat profusely with dismay.

"Okay! Okay! I promise I won't try and leave!"

Kasumi immediately brightened.

"Thank you, Ranma. Run along back to your room now."

Ranma did so, feeling very small indeed at having been browbeaten by someone like Kasumi.

The Grand Duke's Private Apartments

Azure Cloud Castle

12 February 3025

The second day of the summit had passed much like the first, and Nabiki was ready to present the final draft of the Furinkan Combine proposal to her father. Once he had approved it, she would keep the delegates hanging on for a few more days of the same bickering before springing the decision. In case he was less than receptive to the idea of betrothing Akane to Tatewaki Kuno, she would still have those few days margin to work on him before Domitian ran out of patience.

He had called them all to his chambers after the State dinner given in honor of the delegates to the summit. She was a little concerned that it might have something to do with the two freaks that were staying in the castle as guests, but wasn't going to let it deter her from the evening's mission. He would be made to see reason, and that was that.

Kasumi was, predictably, already there when she arrived. So were the two freaks, but at least they were in their so-called 'normal' forms. She had to admit that Ranma as a man was pretty cute, but if his father was any indication of what he would look like in middle-age, she would happily decline the offer of marriage.

Only Akane was absent, and so she took the opportunity to approach her father with the draft.

"Everything is going well, Daddy," she announced to him. "We're getting a better deal than I thought we would."

Soun seemed not to hear her.

"Hello..." Nabiki said, waving her hand in front of his face.

"Oh, Nabiki," he responded. "I'm sorry, daughter. You were saying?"

"I was saying that we're getting a better deal out of the Combine than I thought we would," she said with a touch of irritation. She handed him a copy of the draft, which he breezed through distractedly.

Soun nodded. "The Combine you say?"

"Of course! You don't think those weasels in the League of Five Nails can match an offer from the Furinkan Combine, do you?"

"No," Soun replied. "No, I guess not." He looked around the room for Akane, and did not see her. "So," he went on. "I suppose they have a special condition attached to their terms, don't they?"

Nabiki frowned. "You knew this was going to happen, Daddy. I tried the best I could, but was there ever any doubt that it would come to this?"

Soun nodded again. "Not really," he said uneasily.

"Then it's settled?" Nabiki asked him hopefully. "Naturally we'll wait a few days to work out the last little snags before we announce the decision, and we'll have to begin with the betrothal to put the best diplomatic spin on it."

Soun was silent. He looked in Genma's direction, and received a supportive nod. Then he looked to Kasumi, who gave him a similar gesture.

Nabiki began to get uneasy at this. Something was up.

"So, if you'll just put your preliminary chop on this," she said, holding up the draft. "Then we'll sign the Power of Attorney granting me Plenipotentiary authority, and it will all be taken care of..."

Soun remained silent.

Nabiki's eyes drifted around the room. She felt very alone.

"You mind telling me what's going on?" she asked as an open question to everyone present. Only Ranma seemed to share her ignorance, the rest remained silent.

Akane walked into the room moments later, noting Ranma and giving him a dirty look which made him start in surprise.

"Okay, I'm here, what did I miss?" she asked them.

"That's what I'd like to know," Nabiki sniffed.

Soun cleared his throat for attention.

"I have given this a lot of thought," he began.

"Marvelous..." Nabiki snorted under her breath.

Soun disregarded his daughter's flippant remark. "And I have come to a decision," he continued. He looked at Nabiki and tore the draft of her proposal in half.

"There will be no surrender to anyone," he declared. "The Nerima Confederation is not yet defeated."

Nabiki started to protest, but was cut off by a sharply raised finger from her father bidding her be silent.

"I'm not through speaking," he told her. "Furthermore, I have decided, and my friend and fellow mechwarrior Genma Saotome agrees, that we should now fulfill our promise to unite our families and our fighting schools."

He looked at Ranma, who stood paralyzed before his father with a sudden nameless dread.

"We have decided to betroth Ranma Saotome, Heir to the Saotome School of Martial Arts, to my youngest daughter, Akane - effective immediately. Saotome and I have already signed the appropriate documents."

Ranma's jaw dropped against his chest, and his eyes bugged out of their sockets. Genma beamed with satisfaction.

"WHAT!?" Akane stormed. She had always known that an arranged marriage was in her future, but the future had always seemed so far away. Now that the future was here, she was near panic. "Dad, you can't be serious! Me and... and... HIM?"

"Daddy, you're insane!" Nabiki added. "And you're dragging your entire family - your entire country - down with you!"

"Nabiki!" Kasumi scolded.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ranma snapped at Akane, suddenly realizing that he was being insulted. "You gotta problem with me?"

"Look at you!" Akane shot back. "Even if I wanted to, how could I possibly marry a perverted freak like you?"

Ranma clenched his fists and sent Akane a heated look. "Oh, yeah? Well it's mutual! Who'd want a psycho macho chick like you anyways?"

"Psycho?!" Akane shrieked. "Macho!?" She stomped towards him with murder in her eyes, grabbing a pitcher of ice water from a nearby serving tray and dousing him. "At least I'm not some kind of sex-changing freak!"

"Hey!" Ranma spluttered. She wiped away the wetness from her face. "See what I mean? You're just like your Warhammer - I've never seen a chick get so overheated so fast!"

"You take that back!" Akane cried, lashing out with a jumping front kick that Ranma barely blocked with crossed forearms. She sidestepped the follow up roundhouse kick and continued waggling her tongue at her.

"Akane! Ranma!" Kasumi protested. "No fighting!"

"I've never seen a chick so unfeminine as you!" Ranma chortled, ignoring Kasumi and fanning the flames.

"Unfeminine?" Akane echoed. Her attacks stopped abruptly as Ranma's declaration stunned her. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh come on," Ranma said, rolling her eyes. She struck a cheesecake pose. "Even _I'm_ more feminine than a crazy uncute chick like you!"

Akane grabbed the back of a leather upholstered divan, and in one fluid motion she lifted it and threw it over her shoulder to land squarely on Ranma's head.

Genma observed his dazed son dispassionately as Akane fumed and sputtered with rage over the wrecked divan. "I hate to admit it," he remarked. "But even _I_ wouldn't have said something like that."

Soun seemed terribly pleased with himself - all the while ignoring Nabiki's attempts to get his attention. "I agree, Saotome. But it seems as if the remark has received redress."

"They fight like cats and dogs," Genma added. "Still think this was the best choice, Tendo?"

Soun nodded confidently. "At least it will be entertaining."

Nabiki was steaming mad. Her protests to her father had gone unheard over the din generated by Ranma and Akane. This was not how things were supposed to happen. Her father had quite obviously lost his mind, and she knew who to blame for pushing him into this.

"IS ANYBODY LISTENING TO ME!?" she screamed in frustration.

Those occupants of the chamber who were still coherent turned calmly to face her. Once she had their undivided attention, she displayed her intact copy of the Furinkan Combine's proposal.

"In case any of you had forgotten, we are still in the middle of fighting a losing war with the Combine and the League. This document is the only way we can end that war honorably, and without any further bloodshed and destruction!" She bored her eyes into her father. "But instead of doing the right and just thing, even if it was distasteful, you've decided instead to indulge in some facile delusion!"

She gave them severe looks. They were all idiots. Even Kasumi, for all her misguided loyalty to Daddy.

Soun turned to Akane and Kasumi. "Perhaps you should take Ranma to the clinic. Nabiki and I need to talk."

Akane looked down at the senseless, half-concious Ranma. She felt bad about what she had done to him, but the jerk had asked for it!

"Honestly, Akane," Kasumi asked her. "Was it really necessary to do that to poor Ranma?"

"He had it coming," she muttered, but Kasumi gave her a thoroughly disappointed look, shaming her into complying. Two of the palace guards entered to assist them with Ranma, leaving Nabiki to face Soun and Genma.

"Well?" she said to them.

"We can save the Confederation," Genma said to her.

"You?" Nabiki snorted. "A fat old freak? You and your transsexual son are going to save the Confederation? Don't make me laugh!"

Genma was unbowed by her insults.

"The boy and I have the secrets to Ryuugenzawa," he said flatly. "We've been on the trail for three years, and now we've come to the end of the search. It's within our grasp."

Nabiki was floored by his naivete. Ryuugenzawa? This was the secret hope of her father, by which the Confederation would be saved? He was throwing away their only chance of escaping with their lives and their fortunes on a fantasy like Ryuugenzawa?

"Do you hear what your saying?" she returned, her voice trembling with disbelief. "Ryuugenzawa is a fairy tale, a myth! It's part Shangri-La, part Brigadoon, and part Lost Dutchman Mine! There isn't a single planet on any chart in the Inner Sphere with the name Ryuugenzawa on it! There is no such place!"

She approached her father, holding the remaining copy of the draft before her like a spirit ward.

"Get ahold of yourself, Daddy," she pleaded with her father. "I don't know what this fat fraud told you, but it doesn't matter. You're still in charge here. You can say no to his delusions and send him away. No one has to know about this; we can continue as if nothing happened."

Soun looked very tired. He shook his head slowly at her, and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"It's clear that you've been working too hard on this," he said gently to her. "I'm sorry that the burden fell so heavily upon you. The blame is all mine."

"Wha-What are you saying?" she managed.

"You need rest, Nabiki. The stress has been too much."

"You need your head examined!" Nabiki retorted.

Soun shook his head. "I'm asking you to retire for the evening," he told her. "If you don't, I will be forced to ask Doctor Ono to give you something to calm you down. The delegates will be informed tomorrow morning of my decision."

"You wouldn't," Nabiki growled.

Soun picked up a telephone and punched in a number.

"Have Doctor Ono and a nurse report to my chambers at once with a tranquilizer," he said into the receiver.

Nabiki couldn't believe this!

"All right! I'm going!" she barked angrily, and headed for the door. "You'll regret listening to this fool," she added as a parting shot. "Mark my words."

When Nabiki had left the room, Soun punched for the Sergeant at Arms of the castle.

"Yes," he said to the man. "See to it that Nabiki remains in her quarters. Use good judgement in dealing with her, but under _no_ circumstances is she to come in contact with any delegates until tomorrow morning. If that means some measure of restraint is necessary, then so be it. I can have Doctor Ono pay her a visit."

Soun nodded his head slowly.

"Yes, you should secure her telephone communications," he agreed. "Suspend her cell-phone account too... Yes, she's very tired, and needs her rest... Thank you, sergeant major."

Genma looked at his friend. He hadn't expected such a blow-up over this. Would he still feel as commited to helping him find Ryuugenzawa as he promised after this?

"Are you all right, Tendo?"

Soun lit a cigarette and sucked it down with a single drag.

"I haven't felt this much control over my life in years," he replied, blowing the smoke out in a steady blue cloud that wreathed his head. "I feel like a new man."

Doctor Tofu Ono helped Ranma to sit up.

"How do you feel?" he asked her.

"Like someone dropped a couch on my head..." she replied.

Tofu examined the small cut on the large lump, and decided that a few stitches would be in order once the swelling went down.

"Should I ask how this happened?"

Akane affected a guilty look and excused herself from the room. Kasumi hadn't accompanied her to the clinic, deciding instead to find Nabiki and calm her down. It was obvious that Kasumi had been in on the engagement - and the decision not to surrender. Was she the one who suggested Ranma for her?

Tofu turned back to Ranma as Akane excused herself. "Let me guess..." he said dryly.

Ranma said nothing at first, wincing as a nurse dabbled at her cut scalp with an icy disinfectant swab, and then left the room. Finally it dawned on her.

"You mean she's always like this?" she asked him.

"She's very high spirited," Tofu said somewhat diplomatically. "But very sweet," he added.

"More like psycho."

"I heard that, Ranma!" Akane cried from the next room.

Ranma turned to Tofu. "I can't believe I'm supposed to marry that chick..." she muttered. "No way in hell."

Tofu did a double take. "You, Ranma? Marry Akane? I don't understand."

Ranma immediately regretted saying it.

Akane stepped back into the room before she could explain. "There's something about Ranma you should know about, doctor." She stepped over to the sink and began running the water until it became nice and hot.

"What do you think you're doing?" Ranma protested. "This was supposed to be a secret, remember?"

Akane took a paper cup from the dispenser and filled it with steaming water. Tofu looked on in puzzlement as Akane flung the contents of the cup straight at Ranma's face.

She put up her hands in defense, but the splash of water affected the change nonetheless.

"Yeowtch!" he cried. "Dammit Akane, that hurt!"

"Serves you right for what you said to me," she replied.

"Yeah, well you ain't helping your cause like this!"

Tofu blinked a few times in disbelief.

"Ranma?"

The pig-tailed mechwarrior rubbed his aching head and glared at Akane.

"Yeah, it's me. Now you know my secret, no thanks to her."

"This is remarkable!" Tofu exclaimed. "Do you mind if I run some tests on you?"

"Yes, I mind," Ranma grumbled. "No tests. No one says a word about this. Duke Tendo promised to keep this a secret."

Tofu looked crestfallen. Ranma's change was incredible, and warranted further investigation, but he respected the decision of the Duke.

"Now I understand," he said to Ranma, patting his shoulder. "I'd like to offer you congratulations."

"Huh?" Ranma grunted. "What for?"

Tofu smiled. "She'll make a wonderful bride. You're very lucky."

It was Ranma's turn to blink. "Huh?"

"There's no way I'm marrying him," Akane declared. "This is all a big mistake."

"That goes double for me!" Ranma added.

They both glared at each other in silence.

Tofu looked at them both and shook his head. "I can see that this will be an interesting engagement."

The Great Hall of Azure Cloud Castle

Planet Nerima, Capella System

13 February 3025

"You look quite handsome, Ranma."

Ranma looked down at himself and shrugged. The formal outfit was borrowed, as he had no previous need for such a ridiculous get up. Kasumi was just trying to make him feel better about this whole nightmare. Easy for her to say, he thought. She's not the one getting railroaded.

"Uh, thanks," he muttered to her.

Grand Duke Soun Tendo waited nearby to step out into the hall and address the delegates. Genma Saotome, looking very sharply dressed, stood by his side. The smug looks the two gave each other were revolting. How was it possible that his father and the Grand Duke were old friends? Not only that, but they were close enough to want their kids to marry, and still did after more than twenty years of separation!

"I don't believe this is happening to me," Ranma moaned quietly.

"Now, Ranma," Kasumi said to him. "This is all for the best. Try to show a little more enthusiasm."

He arched an eyebrow at her. "That's easy for you to say; you're not the one getting hitched."

Kasumi took his rebuke placidly.

"Be that as it may, I expect the future heir of the Confederation to comport himself in a proper and fitting manner."

Ranma's mouth dropped open.

"Heir?"

Kasumi frowned. Men could be so dense at times. "Of course, Ranma. Akane is the Heir to the entire Confederation. By marrying her, you become the Grand Duke when my father steps down." She wasn't certain if he heard this, as Ranma's eyes were glazing over, and a silvery thread of saliva cascaded down his lip.

"Ranma?" she asked worriedly.

Ranma remained vacant.

"Oh dear," Kasumi clucked. "Perhaps you should sit down. Father won't be presenting you just yet."

She motioned for a servant to bring a chair, and bade Ranma to sit. He complied absently, sitting and staring into space.

"It's not as bad as you think," Kasumi offered. "Father has years and years to go before he steps down, so you'll have plenty of time to learn the job."

Ranma made a gurgling noise from deep within his throat, but continued to stare with glazed eyes straight ahead.

Kasumi shook her head slowly in pity for him. "Poor Ranma."

"What's his problem?" Akane asked, having just arrived in the small antechamber set off from the great hall to wait with the rest of them for Soun's announcement.

Kasumi turned to her youngest sister and sighed.

"I'm afraid Ranma simply isn't ready for this," she replied.

"That makes two of us," Akane agreed.

"Oh, not this again," Kasumi lamented. Akane was such a stubborn girl. "We've already been through this, Akane."

"And nothing's changed! I don't want to marry this... this _pervert_."

The word 'pervert' snapped Ranma out of his catalepsy.

"Who're you calling a pervert?" he demanded.

Akane set her arms across her chest. "Who do you think?"

Tetsuo Gosunkugi sat quietly with the League Delegation, dreading the Grand Duke's announcement and yet knowing it to be inevitable. The Combine would be declared the successor to the Confederation, and the League would be left out in the cold. The only chance for success now lay in kidnapping Akane Tendo.

He had ruled out exposing the deal between Nabiki and the Combine. There simply wasn't time to exploit the chaos that it might generate, and he didn't want to blindside his cousin Hikaru. There was also little chance of installing a League-sympathizer after a coup, as he was unable to contact the handful of Confederation nobles who met the criteria of being friendly to the League and possessing the resources to take and hold the throne.

The Special Ops group he had brought with him was ready to act, but a new factor to the game had just been introduced. Apparently Hikaru had decided to stack the deck, for the nefarious Tsubasa Kurenai was on planet, and had infiltrated the palace.

Tsubasa was an enigma, and Tetsuo did not like enigmas. Rumors placed the transvestite as originating from the Federated Shiratori, where he had been a mechwarrior and scout. There were also interesting bits of gossip stating that he and the Federated Shiratori Chief of Staff had suffered some kind of falling out, which was interesting, but in Tetsuo's opinion questionable. Mikado Sanzenin was as straight as they came, so unless he had mistaken the strikingly _bishonen_ Tsubasa for a woman, there was no chance of anything romantic between them.

What Tetsuo did know about Tsubasa Kurenai was his effectiveness as an infiltrator. The man was a master of all manner of impossible disguise, and his hastily drawn sketches of the layout of Azure Cloud Castle had been superior to the carefully crafted ones from his Special Ops group - who had more time to prepare, it must be noted. The chances of the operation's success were greatly improved by Kurenai's presense.

He considered using Tsubasa for the actual grab of Akane, and the Special Ops group for support in case things got ugly. The diplomatic fallout from a failed attempt would be bad enough, and so he didn't want to create any more of a scene than necessary. Tsubasa could work quietly, which was vital.

The palace heralds announced the entrance of the Grand Duke, stifling further reflection. He stood with his delegation and prepared to face the inevitable.

Ambassador Domitian was worried. He had been unable to contact Nabiki since dinner last night, and now the Duke had called a hasty gathering of the delegates. What was going on?

He considered the possibilities. One was that Nabiki had succeeded in getting him to sign over the power to deal in an official capacity for the Confederation, and he was going to announce this. That was fine, though it might be a bad signal to send the other delegates, who would likely suspect that something was up.

Another possibility was that he had decided on his own initiative which delegation to accept, and that Nabiki was being sequestered somewhere to keep the Combine in the dark until it was too late. Domitian couldn't imagine the League coming up with an attractive offer capable of matching the Combine, but perhaps there was some personal stake in this. He winced at the thought that the Gosunkugis were willing to give up Akane for the ability to outdeal the Combine - knowing that Tendo was reluctant to see his daughter married to Hikaru or Tatewaki, and profiting from this at the Combine's expense. Domitian's hands were tied in that matter. Prince Kuno would not accept any deal that did not include Akane as a bride.

The third possibility was that Tendo was wavering. It was a difficult matter to surrender before you had been truly beaten. He didn't like that possibility at all, but it changed little in the long run. The Combine couldn't be beaten, which was the whole point of this summit in the first place. If Tendo was having second thoughts, then perhaps a few more attacks by the Black Rose and Blue Thunder regiments were necessary to bring the Duke back to the bargaining table.

The Grand Duke was making his entrance, and Domitian stood with the rest of his entourage. There would be answers to these questions soon enough.

Kima was not eager to end the summit and return to Jusenkyo. Something very odd was occuring within the Tendo family, and all previous bets about the summit's outcome were off. She wanted to discover more about the two mechwarriors currently staying in the private guest chambers of the castle, and more importantly, what they knew about Ryuugenzawa. She faced a hard choice: leave with the rest of her small delegation and return to the Commonwealth, or stay on the planet and continue her impersonation of Akane Tendo in order to learn more. It would be dangerous to stay, but would it be more dangerous to the Commonwealth to leave?

The young man named Ranma had declared his disbelief in Ryuugenzawa, but when asked, had been unwilling to discuss it. Was he really hiding something? Did Ryuugenzawa exist, and did he know its secrets? If the answers were yes, then this was something the Commonwealth had to know. The Joketsuzoku must control Ryuugenzawa, or at least deny it from the Confederation, the League, and especially the Combine.

The Grand Duke entered the hall as she grappled with these questions. The look on his face was proud and stern, and not at all what she had seen of him previously. Something very dangerous was about to happen, she felt suddenly, and her nerves began to tingle.

"His Grace, The Grand Duke of the Nerima Confederation!"

Soun Tendo walked purposefully from the antechamber and into the Great Hall to the polite applause of the delegations. He approached the rostrum with a determined look upon his brow, mindful of what he was about to do and confident that it was the right thing. His daughters Kasumi and Akane stepped out from the antechamber to stand well off to the side from him, and they were followed by Genma and his son Ranma.

Nabiki was conspicuously absent, having chosen to remain in her apartments rather than lend any support for him. It wounded him to see her acting this way as much as it did to know that she considered him to be insane, or worse, totally incompetent. He didn't blame her for this last sentiment, knowing full well how he had failed his country for so long, but when the time had come for him to finally take decisive action on his country's behalf, she had scorned him.

He did not know what he was going to do with her after this. Perhaps a nice long vacation would clear her head and calm her down. Perhaps even a sabbatical off the planet to put some distance between them for a time. Yes, that sounded best.

He looked up from the rostrum to face the delegations, satisfied with this preliminary solution to the problem of his middle daugther. He touched a stud on the polished wooden podium and a tiny beam of laser light projected from the reading lamp and into his eyes, scanning the notes from his speech directly onto his retinas. The speech would be rebroadcast later to the public, and he wanted to look decisive and strong for his people.

"Honored delegates," he began, mindful that all eyes were upon him. "I welcome you this morning to my home and thank you for the great distances you have travelled to be here. I ask you all to please be seated."

There was murmured applause from the audience before they began to sit down. Soun continued when the hall was again silent.

"Peace in the Inner Sphere has been an elusive goal. It was hoped from this summit that we could achieve some small measure of it in our lifetimes, and I am confident that this is still possible."

He could see Domitian begin to fidget in his chair at this. The Combine Ambassador was not alone.

"However it is my duty as the Grand Duke of the Nerima Confederation, and the leader of its people, to reject the overtures made these last few days, and to continue what is a rightful claim to the Star League. The war to defend ourselves against the aggression of the Furinkan Combine and the League of Five Nails will continue until such time as these two countries have proven by their actions that they truly embrace peace."

The audience began to yammer amongst themselves at this revelation, which was clearly not expected by anyone. Soun motioned for silence, which came somewhat reluctantly.

"In the interest of promoting a just and honorable peace, I have decided to remove a bitter and divisive matter of contention between our three Great Houses."

He looked to Akane, who stepped forward hesistantly.

"I wish to announce that my youngest daughter Akane, the Heir to the Confederation, has been formally engaged to be married."

Akane blazed red and fought the urge to flee. Domitian's eyes lit up with brief hope, as did Tetsuo's. Only Kima seemed to know better, and remained stoically silent awaiting the news.

"Akane shall be married to a mechwarrior from the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts, a school that the Tendo family has been a part of for centuries, and one that has protected the Confederation for just as long."

He turned his head to Genma and Ranma. Ranma remained where he stood until a subtle shove from his father pushed him out onto the raised dias to stand next to an even more embarrassed Akane.

"I present to you Mechwarrior Ranma Saotome, Heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts."

There was a shocked silence at first as no one recognized Ranma or even had any clue as to who he was. This was followed by a rising buzz of questions amongst the delegates until a halting applause began rolling forth. Domitian turned beet red and stormed with no little fanfare out of the hall, leaving his delegation to make an awkward retreat behind him. Tetsuo remained stonefaced, and his delegation followed suit. Kima gave the Grand Duke a tiny grin of approval and then began to applaud.

What should have been an embarrassing political blunder made Soun smile with delight. He had humiliated the Combine and taken the control of his country back into his own hands. Better still, he had placed his beloved daughter out of his enemies' reach.

Ranma and Akane turned briefly to each other as the applause grew in strength. Akane still couldn't believe her father had gone and told the entire planet about the engagement. What was worse was that news of this would be spread throughout the Confederation, even the entire Inner Sphere. What was he thinking?

It was bad enough that she was now engaged to a thoughtless, arrogant jerk, but one who was afflicted with some weird sex-changing condition that happened any time he got wet? Furthermore, what did this mean for her command of the 1st Nerima Guards? Would _Ranma_ end up with command once they were married? She couldn't stand the thought of it. The 1st Nerima had been her dream since she was little. Ranma didn't deserve it, not after all she had done to fulfill that dream. He didn't!

She looked into his eyes then, and saw that this was no picnic for him either. She felt a little bad for him, seeing as how it was obvious that he had no idea about the whole mess until it had been sprung on him. The guy was a total jerk, but at least this wasn't his fault.

Ranma remained in shock at the sudden twist of fate that would catapult him one day into the throne of Nerima. It was too much for him to even think about, much less understand. Akane seemed no less affected by this turn of events. For a moment he almost saw some warmth in her eyes, but it was probably just pity for him. He didn't need her pity. He turned away and faced the audience once again.

Ambassador Domitian was through with pleasantries.

"Tendo, do you realize what you've done!?"

Soun nodded thoughtfully.

"I don't think you do!" the Combine Ambassador shot back. "The war will continue, and you will continue to lose. Do you really think Prince Tatewaki will hold back after this insult?"

Soun took a puff on his cigarette, enjoying the way the Combine stooge had come unglued. Domitian enjoyed a reputation for being unflappable.

"I expect he won't," Soun agreed.

Domitian flushed a deeper shade of red. "I'm offering you one final chance to reconsider your actions, Tendo," he said angrily. "Put me back in touch with Nabiki, stay out of our way, and let us handle this problem - you've done enough damage to the peace process!"

Soun opened his eyes briefly, smoke streaming from his nostrils like a dragon in fitful slumber.

"And if I refuse?" It was a rhetorical question, as he would certainly refuse to capitulate.

Domitian almost spluttered with exasperation. Catching hold of himself, he stabbed an accusing finger at the Grand Duke. "Then I can't guarantee any measure of security for you or your family when the Confederation is conquered. It will all hang upon your neck."

Soun closed his eyes again and nodded. "I see." He crushed out his cigarette. With a sizzle and hiss from a wooden matchstick he lit another. "Consider yourself and your diplomatic mission formally expelled," he told the Ambassador. "You have two hours to remove yourself and your entire delegation from the castle, and six hours to get off my planet. If you do not make best speed from orbit to your JumpShip, I will see to it that your ships are blasted out of the sky."

He regarded the trembling Combine Ambassador.

"Go."

Domitian stifled an obscenity and whirled out of the room, leaving Soun, Genma, and four bodyguards who knew better than to remember anything they might have accidentally seen or heard.

Soun turned to his old friend. "I'm really sticking my neck out on the chopping block, Saotome. You had better be correct about Ryuugenzawa."

Genma smiled nervously. "Of course, Tendo. Don't worry. Once we get those two kids married, we'll start provisioning for the expedition and be on our way."

Soun nodded slowly.

"Perhaps it would be best not to force the issue of marriage, Saotome," he said. He had been thinking about the two kids ever since he had told them of his plans for them, and it was clear that entertaining or not, the way they got along together was going to be very important for the future of the Confederation. "Akane is a spirited girl, and I see that your son isn't exactly fond of the idea himself."

"He'll grow into it," Genma assured. "He's a stubborn one, but he'll grow into it." He cracked his knuckles. "Even if I have to pound some sense into him."

"All the same, perhaps we should allow them some time to get to know each other first. After all, there's no hurry. We've waited this long, right Saotome?"

Genma nodded half-heartedly. Life would be much simpler for him after the wedding that he was rather impatient. All the same, even he could see the sparks that flew between those two. "You're right, Tendo."

Tetsuo was beside himself. How could Tendo do such a thing? The implications were staggering, though he should have known something like this was up when he did not see Nabiki standing with her sisters. Tendo had scored big at home with his people for canceling the summit and sticking his enemies with the blame. It was slow suicide for the Nerima Confederation, but to their credit at least they would go down swinging.

He had his intelligence staff working at a fever pitch to find out who Ranma Saotome was. If he was such a great mechwarrior, and obviously close to the family, there should be something on him. Tendo wouldn't engage his daughter to a total stranger.

Unless he was a total fraud.

Tetsuo almost struck himself for not thinking of it sooner, but with the feverish preparations for abducting Akane, he was terribly sapped for mental resources. What if this Ranma Saotome fellow was part of a scheme by Tendo to put off the League and Combine hopes for securing Akane as a bride? He couldn't think of any practical reasons for this, but it made a certain kind of sense. It would certainly explain Saotome's anonymity.

There wasn't much time to consider this, as he and his staff were living on borrowed time. The Combine had already been forcefully expelled from the castle following a private meeting with the Duke, and it seemed likely that the League would also be asked to leave with all haste. His men were still getting into position, and that included Tsubasa.

In the meantime he had to finish preparations for getting off planet.

He and his staff would leave on their own ship, while the Special Ops group would use a stealth shuttle that had landed with Tsubasa in secret about a hundred kilometers from Gondolin and safely over the horizon. He also had an aerospace fighter wing (for air support and to cover a fighting retreat) in orbit aboard a converted Behemoth Class DropShip supposedly under a merchant flag. He hoped for a quick and bloodless operation, but was prepared to deliver Akane to his cousin one way or the other.

"Our men are in position, excellency," one of his staff informed him.

Tetsuo nodded gravely. "Tell the remaining staff to head for the starport immediately. Once we are aboard our DropShip, and _only_ then will I give the order to commence."

"Yes, excellency."

Ranma Saotome was livid.

"I'm on to you, Old Man," he said tersely to his father.

Genma looked up from his lunch in their private quarters.

"Now what it is it, boy?"

"I know why you're doing this to me," Ranma continued. "You're trying to get me to marry that macho chick daughter of the Duke so you can live it up as one of the royal family!"

Genma slurped up a mouthful of noodles and regarded his son. "What are you talking about, Ranma?"

"Don't play dumb with me. Kasumi explained the whole thing. If I marry Akane, and her father retires, then that makes me Grand Duke."

Genma gave his son an incredulous look.

"And you have a problem with this, boy?"

"You're damn right I do!" Ranma yelled. "You're just using me so you can live fat, dumb, and happy here on Nerima. You don't even care what I think about all this - hell, you didn't even tell me about it first 'cause you knew I wouldn't play along!"

Genma set down his chopsticks.

"That's right, boy. I knew you wouldn't, but that doesn't matter anymore. The matter is settled."

"How'd you do it, Pop?" Ranma asked angrily. "How'd you get Duke Tendo to agree to this? Even _he_ has to realize what he's doing by this."

Genma took off his glasses and wiped at them with the front of his dogi. "I thought it was obvious, boy. We made a pact when we were young to do this. In fact, it was Tendo's idea in the first place. So yes, boy, Tendo _does_ know what he's doing."

"I'm not marrying that girl," Ranma replied, secretly stunned that Duke Tendo could have done such a thing. "You can't make me."

Genma began to redden. "Ranma, I'm tired of your selfish attitude. Just for once try to think about someone else."

"You mean someone like you?" Ranma sneered.

"I expected such a snotty remark from you," Genma said sadly. "But I suppose it couldn't be helped, trying to raise you on my own..."

"Let's talk about that," Ranma retorted. "Let's talk about Mom."

"Yes, let's," Genma agreed. "Think about how happy your mother will be, how _proud_ of you, as you step up to rule the Confederation." His eyes narrowed and his voice took on a low reproachful tone. "Then think about how disappointed and embarrassed she'll be when you rebel against me and leave poor Akane at the altar."

Ranma cringed. "W-What are you talking about?"

Genma, sensing his son's sudden weakness, struck for the opening. "You know what I'm talking about, boy. Think it over very carefully. Do you want to make your mother proud, or ashamed?"

Ranma fought for a reply. "Well, I, uh... That is..."

Realizing his son was on the ropes, Genma stepped in with the final blow. "Face it, boy. This is bigger than you. Much bigger. Accept it before it destroys you."

Ranma's will almost crumbled. "But how the hell can I marry a girl who hates my guts?" It was a last desperate grasp, and he took it.

Genma was unfazed. "Is that all?" he laughed heartlessly. "Boy, if _that's_ the best you can come up with, you might as well just give up."

Ranma had lost the fire of his convictions, but he wasn't yet ready to capitulate. "I thought you were supposed to be in love with the person you marry. Isn't that how it was with you and Mom?"

Genma nodded. "Of course your mother and I loved each other," he agreed. "But this is different. This is more than just a marriage, this is a formal matter of state. With this marriage, Duke Tendo is making a statement to the entire Inner Sphere that the Confederation won't give up the fight, and _you're_ it."

"Now that you put it that way..." Ranma said slowly. Genma moved to put a reassuring arm around his son, only to get a punch in the jaw. "Now I really hate it! You're _both_ using me! Hell, you're even using Akane! The last time I checked, she wasn't too thrilled about this either!"

"She knows the responsibility of a Tendo daughter," Genma retorted, rubbing his chin. "She's lived with the prospect of an arranged marriage all her life. She might complain, but she'll do her duty. Will you do your duty to your family, your school of martial arts, your very country? Or will you just run away?"

There had to be a way out of this, Ranma thought desperately. He could not marry a girl who hated him, even if it was his duty.

"Let me think about it," he replied. He stood from the table and walked out of the room.

"Don't take too long, boy."

Ranma found himself once again at the garden terrace. He supposed it was natural, considering that the garden had been intended as a place of peace and quiet, removed from the hustle and bustle of the castle. It was a good place to think, and he needed to do a lot of that.

Thoughts of Akane, and their sudden engagement, were foremost. He knew that he didn't hate her, but he wasn't all that fond of her either. She was the most violent-tempered girl he had ever seen, exploding in his face if he so much as breathed funny around her. He was just like her in that he wasn't happy with the engagement, so why couldn't she see that and cut him some slack?

He was definitely not ready to get married. If marriage was so great, then why did his dad leave the house as soon as possible, never to return? - and this from a man who supposedly _loved_ his wife! No, there was no way he could marry a girl who hated him, and Akane apparently hated him a great deal.

The thought occured to him that he should ask her about it, and maybe she could convince the Duke to change his mind. Then he thought better of it. The Duke was pretty set on fulfilling this stupid pact, and if a marriage to Akane wasn't going to work out, he'd just pick a different daughter, and that wouldn't be any better.

Nabiki made his skin crawl. He admitted to himself that he wasn't the most socially adept of people, but even he could feel the contempt from her. Akane's temper was nothing compared to the cold and mocking hatred that Nabiki nursed for him. No way in hell was he going to marry her.

That left Kasumi, who was actually nice to him, and was also pretty cute. Unfortunately, she was physically three years older than him, and acted about twenty years older than him. He didn't have a whole lot of experience with mothers, but he figured Kasumi for a pretty good one. He didn't want a wife, and he really didn't want a wife that acted more like a mother.

He shook his head in frustration. He had just run through all of his marriage prospects, and they weren't comforting. That could only mean one thing: he had to somehow talk his way out of marriage altogether. Perhaps his cursed Jusenkyo body would help.

"What are you doing here?" a voice asked. Ranma quickly registered it as belonging to Akane.

He turned around. She stood in the doorway to the castle dressed in a yellow floral print dress that she had apparently changed into after the Duke's announcement.

"Nothing," he replied quietly. "I was just thinking. This is a good place for that sort of thing."

She gave him a strange look, as if never expecting in a million years that he was capable of rational thought, then offered a weak smile.

"Funny, I was coming here to do the same thing."

Ranma rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

"If you want, I'll go. This being your place and all..."

Her expression softened. "No, that's all right. Stay." As she said this, Ranma was gripped with an intense feeling of deja-vu. They had played a variation on this theme just last night.

She noticed his reaction and frowned.

"Are you feeling okay?" she asked archly.

He shook it off. "Fine. I'm fine. Really. Just a little deja-vu. It's nothing."

"What are you talking about? Deja-vu?"

Now he was really confused.

"You know. Last night?"

Her frown deepened. "I didn't even see you last night, Ranma."

He laughed nervously. What kind of game was she playing with him? "Oh come on, Akane. Remember? You asked me about Ryuugenzawa?"

"Why in the world would I ask you about some mechwarrior's fairy tale?"

Ranma turned pale.

"You're kidding, right?"

Akane set her hands on her hips. "Of course I'm not kidding. I never saw you after dinner, and I never talked to you about something dumb like Ryuugenzawa." She looked at him with surprising concern. "Are you sure you feel okay? I think maybe I hit you harder than anyone thought."

Ranma did not know what to make of this. He was positive that he had spoken to Akane, but it was dark in the garden, and he could have been mistaken. But there was also the fact that he had asked the girl if it was her, and she had said yes. Was someone trying to put one over on him? If he was delusional, was his encounter with Kasumi last night also just fantasy?

"Ranma?"

His eyes shifted back into focus to regard Akane.

"Yeah?"

"I think we should go see Doctor Tofu," she told him. "You don't seem well."

"No, I think we need to find Kasumi," he replied. If Kasumi didn't remember bumping into him, _then_ he would go see the doctor.

"What does Kasumi have to do with this?"

"I'll explain in a minute."

Before Akane could protest, a distant flash of light caught their eyes, drawing their attention to the horizon. Several DropShips could be seen lifting into orbit on their plasma drives. Presumably they were the League of Five Nails ships leaving the planet, as the Combine had been forced out an hour earlier.

"Well, two down, one to go," Akane announced. Until the Jusenkyo Commonwealth delegation left, she would not feel entirely at ease.

Ranma nodded once in agreement.

"So, any idea where Kasumi is?" he asked her.

"She's probably with my father," Akane replied. "You can try in the library or maybe the study."

He gave her a puzzled look. "You're not coming?"

"Why should I? You don't seem to need my help."

Ranma frowned. _This chick was impossible. One minute she's concerned about me, the next she could care less..._

"Uh, okaaaay... See ya."

He gave her a jaunty wave and started out the door.

Akane watched him go. What was with him, anyway? Expecting her to tag along with him wherever he went... What a conceited jerk!

She walked to the edge of the fountain and gazed into the rippling water. The spray of droplets was cool and soothing on her face. Her mother used to come here often, so for Akane, the garden and its fountain was a special place.

What was she going to do? Having to marry Ranma was almost as bad as having to marry Tatewaki Kuno or Hikaru Gosunkugi. Why did her father have to make such a stupid promise, and why had Mom let him?

She felt like dropping to her knees and crying. Her life was coming apart around her. All her hopes and dreams were being crushed by this ridiculous promise. Nabiki threatened to tear apart the family over it.

She needed someone to turn to for support, or at least a shoulder to cry on. Kasumi usually filled that role, as did Doctor Tofu, but now Kasumi was just as impossible as Dad, and going to Tofu would only hurt her more. Nabiki was never close to begin with, and now she was hostile to everyone. She had no one. No one at all.

She looked down into the waters of the pool in search of answers and found instead the reflection of a tree that should not have been so close behind her.

"What -?" she cried, spinning around.

Tsubasa, disguised as a tree, hit her in the face with a blast of narcotic mist. Akane staggered backwards, half-blinded by the numbing mist, and stumbled into the pool with a shriek and a splash. Realizing that she was going to drown if he didn't do something quickly, Tsubasa found himself hampered by the rubberized material of his disguise and unable to pull her free of the water.

Akane felt the icy water squeezing at her chest, threatening to force the air from her lungs. Her heart trip-hammered in her ears as she gasped and spluttered half-paralyzed by the numbing fog of the drug. She was going to drown, and she was powerless to stop it. All she could manage was a thin scream of panic.

Tsubasa ripped frantically at the seals of his disguise. This wasn't supposed to happen! If he let her die he would never collect for the job. He managed to strip the tree disguise down to his waist when a man in a red mandarin blouse and black draw-string trousers walked into the garden.

"Hey Akane, where exactly _is_ the librar- urk!"

Ranma Saotome saw a woman _who was dressed as a tree_ shirking her disguise as Akane spluttered and splashed weakly in the fountain. From her lethargic attempts at getting out of the fountain, it was clear that she was somehow incapacitated. It did not take a genius to realize that This Was Not Good.

"What the hell's going on?" he demanded, rushing the tree chick.

In response to his question the girl in the tree suit whipped out a small handheld device rather like a flashlight, only Ranma could tell by the tinny whine of a millimeter wavelength radar array that it was in fact a laser pistol. The radar beam tickled like pins and needles across his chest, giving the weapon a precise range for the focusing optics.

He threw himself to the right as a burst of light rather like a camera flash filled his field of vision, and by the time the nearly silent sizzle of ionized air reached his ears, his left arm was already burning. A jolt of pain shot up his arm and hammered in the back of skull behind his ear as the laser beam went wide of cutting him down. He tumbled into a roll and sprang for the cover of a nearby marble statue.

As he rolled upright and threw himself against the statue, the sweet smell of his own cooked flesh assailed his nostrils. His left arm was badly burned from the elbow to the wrist, and where it was not burned, tiny steam explosions had left the tissue lacerated and bleeding freely. The sleeve of his blouse was melted in spots to the charred skin. The beam must have grazed him in passing, or else he would have had a stump instead of a barbecued arm.

He grit his teeth and tried to focus beyond the pain. The statue wasn't very good cover, so he couldn't stay there long. He needed to take this assassin out and fast - without getting burned down in the process.

A laser as small as that one would only have a few shots worth of juice before it ran dry. That was in his favor, but it only took one good shot to cut him in half. The other problem was that Akane was flailing in the fountain and did not have long before she drowned, and so he really couldn't afford to play around with this assassin chick in order to get her to use up all her ammo.

As if to make a point, a beam sizzled into the statue, cracking the hard stone as it expanded with sudden heat and peppered him with tiny slivers. He sprang to his feet and sprinted for another statue. A third beam crackled just in front of him, its fading tenth-of-a-second pulse of light registering in his eyes far too late for him to react. All he could do was throw himself into another somersault and roll clear before beam number four found him.

The next beam churned up the grass behind him in an explosion of moist sod and steam that pelted his back. Ranma sprang to his feet in time to see the assassin fumbling through her disguise for another powercell. He charged, knowing that this might be his only chance.

Tsubasa bit back a curse as the grip of his laser pistol tingled with the low energy warning. This character in the red and black was some kind of greased lightning, evading his shots at every turn. Even the beam that should have cut him in half managed only to graze his arm.

He ejected the powercell with a flick of his thumb and reached for another one on his belt. He needed to kill this guy now, before Akane drowned and before someone heard the commotion and sounded the alarm. The only things going for him at the moment were an Akane too drug disabled to make much noise, a nearly silent weapon, and an opponent who wasn't smart enough to yell for help.

Ranma's foot was practically in his face a moment later, as the pig-tailed mechwarrior flew at him in a jump kick. Tsubasa twisted clear of the blow, sending Ranma over and past him to crash into the fountain. The laser pistol fell from his hand as he tried to steady himself in the clumsy half-donned disguise.

Ranma slammed into the fountain and bounced off with a yelp to land in the pool next to Akane. Tsubasa loomed over him, bent double to retrieve his laser pistol, which made for an easy target. As the would-be kidnapper popped up with the weapon, Ranma grabbed onto the pillar of the fountain for leverage and wrenched her legs up into a double kick to Tsubasa's midsection.

He saw the assassin stagger over with a grunt of pain, giving him enough time to get Akane's head out of the water. She was coughing and choking, her eyes bloodshot and wild with fright, and Ranma's heart nearly seized at the thought of how close she had come to dying. As Tsubasa struggled with his disguise, Ranma took Akane up into her arms and made a break for the door.

She didn't quite make it before one of the League's Special Ops men burst through the door with a suppressed submachinegun under his stolen Confederation Army uniform cloak. Over a dozen more were right behind him. Ranma stopped short, relief evident on her face upon beholding the men she thought were on her side.

At least until the soldier put the fat black muzzle of his weapon against the tip of her nose.

She jerked her head hard enough to the side to give herself a case of whiplash, which was a small price to pay for not getting it blown off. A dozen rounds of subsonic 10mm hydrashok sailed millimeters past her ear and the burning powder from the muzzle flash singed her hair. As she dodged the burst she planted her left foot, held tight to the girl in her arms, and pivoted into a savage roundhouse kick that hammered unchecked through a full circle, and with the knife-edge of her foot coming squarely into contact with a point just behind the soldier's ear. The sound of crunching bone went unnoticed as Ranma hopped clear of the doorway in search of another exit.

Unfortunately, it didn't look like there were any other exits, except the edge of the garden wall, which was a precipitous drop of about four hundred meters to a hard and jagged spur of mountain rock, and therefore right out.

To make matters worse, the assassin had reloaded her laser pistol, and a strobing flash of light cut into the stone wall by Ranma's head. More splinters of rock stung her face as she finally got it through her head to scream for help. The rest of the League commandos poured through the door as she hollered for somebody, anybody, to help. The only thing that kept them from cutting her down in a hail of bullets right then and there was the fact that she was carrying Akane in her arms.

"Give it up," Tsubasa replied coldly. "We've got you outnumbered and outgunned."

"Bite me!" Ranma shot back. "Any second now this place is gonna be crawling with troops."

Tsubasa grimaced, knowing this to be true. He also knew that whoever Akane's protector was, he suddenly seemed shorter than before. His voice seemed surprisingly feminine, and wasn't his hair black just a minute ago?

It was more important to resolve this as quickly as possible, for the extraction ship was already on its way, and save the analysis for later. "Hand her over and we won't hurt you," he said soothingly. He motioned for his men to lower their weapons even as he dropped his laser into his belt pouch.

He started towards Ranma and Akane slowly, and in as unthreatening a manner as possible. While he had ditched the laser, he still had the narcotic mist sprayer in his fingertip. One good shot would drop his pig-tailed nemesis in his tracks.

"Stay back," Ranma growled.

"Make it easy on yourself," Tsubasa countered. He was almost within sprayer range. The remaining commandos kept watch both on Ranma and on the only exit from the garden. "You would already be dead by now if I wanted it."

"You can't have her," Ranma retorted, coiling to strike before the tree chick could do something sneaky. Her left arm was about to give out from bearing Akane's weight in its wounded condition, and her knees were shaky. She had to do something before she ran out of gas.

It was looking fairly hopeless for them until the low wail of an air raid siren began to echo across the mountain top castle. Tsubasa cursed bitterly. Their extraction ship was on schedule, but they weren't, and its arrival had tipped off the Confederation garrison before they had Akane. The garden began to throb as Rifleman and Crusader battlemechs stomped from hangars to their reinforced air-defense positions high on the castle walls above them.

"Time's up, ya crazy broad!" Ranma cackled triumphantly. If you're lucky, you might be able to bag ass out of here before you get captured."

Tsubasa's blood began to boil. He couldn't believe that pig-tailed bastard had just called him a broad!

"How dare you call me that!" he cried, and charged the last few meters to get within sprayer range.

Ranma saw the outstretched finger and knew no good could come from it. With a desperate groan of exertion she tossed the unconscious body of Akane Tendo straight into the air and out of immediate danger even as she threw a high front kick that struck Tsubasa's hand and knocked it aside. The narcotic spray burst forth into a shimmering cloud of droplets that missed the mark completely. Tsubasa screamed with pain at his broken wrist and crumpled to the ground as Akane fell back into Ranma's arms.

The battlemechs began to open fire above them as the small and fast stealth shuttle screamed over the garden. Two turrets on the spacecraft belched deafening bolts particle beam fire at the 'mechs, suppressing them long enough to hover above the garden on four tongues of thruster flame that sprayed out at angles to keep them from incinerating the garden below. Despite the shuttle pilot's precautions, the air burned with the heat of the particle beams and the shuttle's fusion drives.

A hatch opened in the bottom of the shuttle and twenty long nylon shock cords fell from inside. Tsubasa knew when he was beaten, and took hold of one of the cords with his good hand to latch the carabiner hook to his belt. The commandos followed his lead, spraying suppressing fire of their own at the doorway to keep the real Confederation soldiers from getting through.

Ranma watched them spring into the air as the shuttle pitched up, right, and down the mountain to get below the castle battlemech weapons. It then took off straight for Gondolin, knowing that the Confederation 'mechs would be loathe to fire at them for fear of stray shots landing in the city. The League agents were just tiny specks in the distance when they were finally pulled inside and the shuttle screamed aloft for orbit.

"Ranma! You risked your life to save my little girl! I'm so proud of you!"

Ranma Saotome gasped for breath under the crushing and tearful embrace of her future father-in-law, Grand Duke Tendo. She was seated on a litter in the garden as several paramedics under the supervision of Doctor Tofu examined her. Akane sat nearby, weak and dazed from the drugs, but otherwise suffering no serious injury. Numerous soldiers and medical staff clustered around them, as did Genma and Kasumi.

"That's quite a laser wound," Tofu remarked as the Duke unlatched himself from Ranma. "You're lucky to still have an arm."

Ranma looked down at the charred and bloody arm. The pain was deadened somewhat by the nerve blocking acupressure points Tofu had stimulated. She could still move her fingers, but the lack of strength concerned her.

"How bad is it?" she asked. It looked pretty bad.

Tofu moved a sterile gloved finger along the arm at various points.

"I'm afraid we're looking at a few hours of minor surgery to debride the arm before we can attempt any skin grafts. It might be a few days before we get any indication of permanent nerve damage, but I think the wound was shallow enough to preclude anything serious. It also looks like a few quality hours will be spent picking tiny bits of stone shrapnel out of your skin, but I can get a nurse to do that."

"So I'll be okay?"

Tofu smiled and patted her on the back.

"In a few weeks you'll be just fine. Once we get your arm bandaged up I'll take a look at that neck of yours. A little acupuncture should probably do the trick." He looked towards Akane. "I'm going to see to Akane now."

Ranma followed the doctor's glance over to her. She seemed pretty out of it.

"Is she gonna be all right?"

Tofu smiled again. "She'll be fine as well, don't you worry."

"Who's worried?" Ranma asked nervously.

Tears continued to stream down Soun Tendo's face as he looked upon Ranma. "I can't thank you enough for what you've done for Akane, son," he blubbered. "Oh, I can almost feel the love between you two..."

"What?!" Ranma squawked. "Now wait just a second here..."

Genma stepped in before his son said something stupid. "I don't think there was any doubt where the boy's priorities lie, Tendo. The real question here is who was responsible for this?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Ranma agreed.

Soun frowned with contempt. "It was the Combine," he intoned. "It had to be. They couldn't get my little girl one way, so they tried another." He clenched his fists tight and the tears began to flow even swifter. "I have a mind to order the System Defense units to destroy them before they can reach their JumpShip and escape."

"That might be a bit hasty," Genma hedged. "After all, we can't prove anything yet." He looked down at Ranma. "Well, boy, who do you think was responsible for this?"

"Didn't I just say that I'd like to know?" Ranma groused.

Tofu had completed his preliminary examination of Akane and turned to the Duke. "These two are safe to move," he declared. "I would recommend taking them down to the infirmary at once."

Soun agreed. He felt vulnerable in the garden, and there was no reason not to believe that other hostile agents might still be within the castle. The Jusenkyo Commonwealth delegation had been about to depart when the air defense units went on the alert and the castle was sealed. They could have easily infiltrated spies or assassins in the confusion.

He gave orders to his troop commanders to allow the Commonwealth delegation to depart, followed by a thorough inspection of the castle and its grounds. This would not happen a second time.

Kima was commited to leaving now. Whoever had pulled the stunt with Akane had loused up her chances of staying on as a spy. Tendo would most certainly tighten security around the castle in the wake of the attack and attempted kidnapping of Akane.

She suspected that the League was responsible, as kidnapping really wasn't Tatewaki Kuno's style, and certainly not something a career diplomat like Ambassador Domitian would do. It did however fit Hikaru Gosunkugi's usual _modus operandi_ She wondered how long it would take the Nerima Confederation's espionage network to find out. Probably a while if Nabiki continued to remain on the outs with her father.

The last of her staff had already departed down the mountain under heavy security, and it was just the primary diplomats that remained. She wanted one last look at the castle, under the pretext of seeing the Grand Duke a final time and paying her respects. Surprisingly, the Duke had been willing, if somewhat reluctant, to see her.

She was under escort of course, and they came to a long hallway adjacent to the garden and the scene of the incident. Duke Tendo appeared shortly, along with his own entourage of bodyguards and staff types. Akane and her new fiance followed next with various medical people and the family doctor. Tendo and his bodyguards stopped for her as the rest of the group continued on.

"I apologize for the less than hospitable farewell," Soun offered her.

"I understand, your Grace," Kima returned. "This has been a disgraceful moment in Inner Sphere relations. I would like to state for the record that the Commonwealth categorically denounces this incident and those responsible for it."

Soun nodded solemnly.

"Perhaps our two countries can come to a better understanding through this."

"Perhaps. Time will tell," she replied. Ranma and Akane were passing behind the Duke on litters as she said this, and she found herself more than a little distracted. Particularly by Ranma, who seemed much smaller than when she had seen him in the grand hall. His hair was also a different color now, and...

Kima turned pale. Ranma had very obvious breasts. Unless she was seeing things, which she doubted, it could only mean one thing.

Ranma was a woman.

But Ranma had been very much a man that morning. It made no sense. Unless... She felt her own body begin to tingle at the thought. Unless Ranma had a second body just like Kima did. A Jusenkyo body... The thought would never have occured to her if she hadn't already been exposed to the Jusenkyo Effect.

The only way that was even remotely possible was if Ranma had been to the Jusenkyo Labs. She knew of no outsider participant in the Breeding Program who had been exposed to the Jusenkyo Effect. Only Doctor Gaido would know for certain, though.

"Is there something wrong?" Tendo asked her. Her reaction to seeing Ranma must have been more telling than she imagined.

"Oh. Nothing at all," she managed. "I was simply overcome by what had befallen your daughter's fiance." She bowed for him. "By your leave, your Grace?"

Soun nodded. "Of course. I wish you a safe and speedy journey."

Kima thanked him and left as quickly as she dared. This was probably the most important piece of information she had to offer the Matriarch regarding the summit.

"How do you feel, Akane?"

Akane shrugged half-heartedly. She was in her own room again, now dressed in a yukata, her dress folded neatly at her side on the bed. Kasumi continued to hover over her since her release from the infirmary, and it was getting annoying.

"I'm okay. A little nauseous, but that's because of whatever it was they hit me with."

Kasumi nibbled at her fingertips. She always worried about Akane, but this was one of the few times that she had felt completely powerless over matters. Now she felt guilty for somehow letting her baby sister down. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

Akane gave her a wan smile. "I'm okay, Kasumi. I just need a little rest."

"Are you sure?" Kasumi pressed. "It's no trouble."

"I'm fine."

Kasumi didn't look convinced. "Well, if something comes up, just let me know."

Akane smiled. "I will."

"And you know there's always two guards outside your door," Kasumi added.

"I know." She hated it, but she knew enough about her father and eldest sister to know that keeping guards close by was the only way they were going to be able to sleep nights for the next few weeks.

"All right," Kasumi conceded. "You rest now, and I'll have dinner sent up to your room."

Akane nodded again somewhat despairingly, and Kasumi finally took the hint. She left without another word, leaving Akane alone at last. She fell back onto her bed and let the anti-tox drugs work their way through her system to clean out whatever it was the spy had used on her.

She couldn't sleep, despite her fatigue. It ate at her self-confidence to have been taken so easily by an enemy agent. She was better than that, and smarter than that. If it hadn't been for Ranma, why she'd...

Ranma.

She didn't remember much of anything after the spy had drugged her, only hazy nightmares of drowning and gunfire. She certainly didn't remember Ranma coming to her rescue, or of getting shot in the process. Once the narcotic agent had started to wear off in the infirmary, Ranma was already in a separate room, so she had to take other people at their word for what had happened.

The idea of Ranma risking his life for her didn't click. It didn't seem like something he would do. Why should he even care?

She sat up in bed once more, and unfolded the dress she had been wearing that day. Ranma's blood stained the fabric in wide, messy, and slowly browning streaks along the back panel, left shoulder, and below the bodice. There was far more blood than she was expecting.

A lump formed in her throat, and her eyes began to water as she realized that it was all true, but her biggest question remained as yet unanswered.

Why did he even care?

Furinkan Combine JumpShip _Imperator_,

within four light-seconds of the

Alpha Centauri-A Zenith Jump Point,

Alpha Centauri System, Furinkan Combine

17 February 3025

FCJS _Imperator_ hung high above the yellow sun of Alpha Centauri-A awaiting news from the Nerima Confederation. Pacing the Executive Bridge of the JumpShip in his dark blue hakama was Tatewaki Kuno, Prince of the Furinkan Combine, Heir Apparent, and General of their Battlemech Forces. The prince, known throughout the Inner Sphere as the Blue Thunder of Furinkan, was not in an agreeable mood.

"Communications," he barked. "What news?"

The Communications Officer, long accustomed to his prince's temper, managed to keep his voice fresh and free of irritation at this sixth query in the last thirty minutes.

"The Ambassador's ship has not yet appeared from Jump, Highness."

Kuno nodded coolly, though it was clear that he was anything but. Had that fool Domitian failed, or would that vision of beauty known as Akane Tendo finally be his? If Domitian had succeeded in bargaining with the treacherous Nabiki, the price he would pay for Akane's hand would be dear, but worth every last C-bill. He would gladly hand over a dozen worlds if it would mean that Akane was his.

So lost was he in his rapture for Akane that he did not hear his sister, Princess Kodachi, enter the Executive Bridge.

"Ah, brother dear," she simpered for him, making him start in surprise. "Do you really believe even that horrid Nabiki Tendo would be so callous as to sell her own sister to you?"

"Be silent," he admonished her.

"What then of your declaration to the entire Inner Sphere that no man shall marry Akane Tendo without having defeated her in battle?" Kodachi continued with a malicious grin. "It seems to me that you have yet to accomplish this task."

"Hold thy tongue, sister," Kuno growled. He hated having his sister point out the glaring flaws in any of his ideas, but most of all those ideas concerning his pursuit of Akane Tendo. Her words were a cut enough to the quick that he did not think to mention his sister's own recent personal defeat at Akane's hand. "The Blue Thunder shall yet prevail over her."

Kodachi laughed heartily in her brother's face at this. Officers and crew on the bridge quickly turned away from the two and pretended that they didn't exist.

"My dear brother," she chuckled. "Ever the optimist."

Tatewaki grew weary of her impertinence. "Hath not thy regiment orders to carry out?" he demanded.

Kodachi snickered at his feeble attempt to dismiss her.

"Of course, brother dear," she affirmed with a smirk. She struck a forlorn pose with her arm across her brow. "How careless of me to forget!"

She continued to stand there, mocking him with her eyes.

"Be off with you then!" Tatewaki barked, throwing his hands up in frustration.

Satisfied with his outburst, she gave him a peck on the cheek and sauntered off the bridge with a wave of her hand.

"Farewell, brother dear," she called with her back turned to him. "Give my love to father if you see him."

Tatewaki Kuno, Crown Prince of the Furinkan Combine, clenched his fists in rage as his sister stepped through the airtight door to the Senior Officers' quarters. How dare she make sport of him in front of the crew!

"Contemptuous witch," he hissed to himself. "How I loathe thee, sister, and look to the day when I, Tatewaki Kuno, shall sit upon the Star League throne and laugh whilst thou art exiled to a convent in the Periphery! Mark me well, sister, for as the stars shine, so shall this come to pass!"

He was closing his eyes in rapture at the thought when a brief flurry of activity possessed the bridge crew.

"Conn, Sensory;" a voice called over the intercom. "New contact designated Romeo Four bearing zero-three-three plus zero-one, range three point four light-seconds. Contact appears to be a ship emerging from Jump."

"Sensory, Conn; aye," the Officer of the Deck acknowledged.

Tatewaki watched his bridge crew swing into action as the contact was probed further, and tactical displays updated with fresh data. The Battlecomp made initial recommendations. If the contact was evaluated to be hostile, four squadrons of aerospace fighters were available for rapid response, as were several Union Class dropships fitted out as gunships. The _Imperator's_ crew would be ordered to battlestations.

Because the technology to build new Kearny-Fuchida Jumpcores was lost to the antiquity of the Star League, the Articles of War forbade his forces from firing upon any enemy JumpShip that did not first open fire on them. However, any DropShips it released were fair game. Most of the remaining starships of the Inner Sphere had been stripped of all but the most basic defensive armaments in light of this convention. The _Imperator_ itself was an exception to this; being one of the few comparatively intact Star League battlewagons in service.

These precautions proved unnecessary mere moments later.

"Conn, Communications; Receiving hails from the JumpShip _Acropolis_,"the Communications Officer announced. "They request permission to depart the Quarantine Zone under normal drive."

"Conn, Sensory; Confirming Contact Romeo Four as FCJS _Acropolis_ by IFF transponder and JumpCore EMS Emissions Signature," the Sensory section added.

The Officer of the Deck turned to Prince Kuno, who gave a nod of assent.

"Inform the Ambassador's staff that I expect a full report upon docking," he told the Officer of the Deck. "I shall await them in the Salon."

"At once, your Highness."

Tatewaki Kuno was barely able to contain the excitement in his voice when his steward announced the arrival of Ambassador Domitian and his staff. He took a calming sip of hot sake before giving his permission for them to enter.

Ambassador Domitian entered the salon, his face an expressionless mask. Tatewaki Kuno knew the man was not given to much emotion, and so did not see anything amiss with his ambassador's blank countenance. His aides however could not claim poker faces half as good as their master's.It was enough to set him on edge.

"By your leave, Highness," the man offered.

Tatewaki motioned for him to begin.

Domitian collected himself before speaking. His serenity became more pronounced, which began to worry Tatewaki even more.

"It did not go well," the ambassador began at length.

Tatewaki's blood pressure rose a few points.

"Those League swine outbid us?!" he cried out in disbelief.

"No, Highness. The League's offer was spurned as well."

Tatewaki's ire became puzzlement.

"Who then?" he demanded. "Speak, man! Was it the Commonwealth? Indeed, I put no fell deed past those harlots!"

Domitian shook his head slowly.

Tatewaki became livid at the implications. "Th-The F-F-Federated Shiratori?!" he stammered in utter horror of the idea that Azusa Shiratori might take easy possession of that which he had striven so mightily for. "Say it not!"

"Nay, Highness," Domitian replied.

"Speak then!" Tatewaki raged. "With whom hath the brazen Nabiki Tendo found favor?"

"Grand Duke Tendo has withdrawn his surrender offer," Domitian replied carefully. "As the documents favoring our custody of the Confederation were being presented for his approval, he dismissed all of the representatives and announced the betrothal of his daughter Lady Akane to a Mechwarrior named Saotome."

Tatewaki Kuno's lower lip began to tremble. Veins bulged out of his forehead and neck. His skin took on a deep and distinctly unhealthy crimson hue. Not a breath escaped his lips for over three minutes, before he at last gave rise to his voice.

"HE HATH BETROTHED MY BELOVED TO ANOTHER, A MAN NOT MYSELF!?"

Domitian took a step toward the door. His aides followed his lead.

"I am afraid so, your Highness..."

Tatewaki leaped up from his chair and across the salon to strangle his ambassador.

"EXPLAIN YOURSELF, CRETIN!" he bellowed, shaking the man's head so vigorously that his neck made popping sounds. "WHY HAST THOU RETURNED WITH SUCH NEWS TO MINE EARS!? WHY HAST THOU NOT PERSUADED TENDO TO HIS BETTER REASON!? WHY ART THOU NOT EVEN NOW RIPPING THY BEATING HEART FROM THY BREAST IN SHAME AS I THROTTLE THEE!?"

Ambassador Domitian could not reply, having slipped mercifully into unconsciousness - a fact that went unnoticed by Kuno as he continued his tirade. Only after watching the man's eyes roll up into the back of his head did he release Domitian and let him drop bonelessly to the floor.

"Be gone from my sight, man!" he told his half-dead ambassador. "Until sweet Akane Tendo is my betrothed, get thee hence, and darken not the chambers of the great Tatewaki Kuno with thy feckless and timid presence!"

Tatewaki Kuno pondered matters before his personal shrine well into the ship's night cycle. Domitian had failed him. He had a mind to execute the fool, but put the notion aside. Spur of the moment executions were bad for morale, no matter how well deserved.

He looked up at his shrine, with its numerous depictions of Akane Tendo, and sighed mournfully. The photos, stereographs, paintings, and even a sculpture carved from a single block of white diorite captured the essence of her in every mood, in every delightful way, and were each masterpieces of art and craftsmanship. Yet she was not there in his arms, warm and vital, making his shrine but a hollow counterfeit of her glory.

"Long do I pine for thee, Akane Tendo," he said to the images of her.

Slowly he looked down from the shrine to the detailed report Domitian had prepared prior to his Jump to Alpha Centauri. One image captured his eye, and brought the bitter taste of bile to his throat. This cur, this oaf, this Ranma Saotome, had dared to presume himself her fiance - mocking the great Tatewaki Kuno!

He would be brought to his accounts, Tatewaki vowed. He made plans to display this cretin upon the prow of his mighty battlecruiser as a warning to the Inner Sphere. It would be a fitting gesture for the one who had stolen his goddess in the night like a common burglar to endure forever as his trophy in the cold dark reaches of space.

The Duke would have to suffer for this insult as well. Indeed, the entire Confederation existed only to keep Akane from her rightful place as the wife of the Blue Thunder, and would have to pay.

"Very well," he decided grimly. "Where diplomacy hath failed to gently persuade, so shall the might of Tatewaki Kuno prevail. We shall raze the Confederation unto the ground, and scatter its ashes unto the winds. 'Til sweet Akane be mine, let no man of the Confederation remain who doth not gibber and quake at the sound of my voice!"

A tone sounded at his door.

"Speak!" he commanded.

"I have a dispatch from the Nerima Confederation marked most urgent," the voice of his aide de camp replied.

Tatewaki thought for a moment.

"Enter."

Tatewaki looked over a sheet of paper from his Intelligence staff regarding the dispatch. It had been sent via HPG using a Combine code that the Confederation had obviously broken, and purported to be from Nabiki Tendo. She desired a meeting with him, in person, on neutral ground, and in regards to the affair with the Confederation.

He considered it. She had failed him as much as Domitian, but perhaps there was still something to be gained from entertaining her suggestion. There would have to be an accelerated military campaign against the Confederation - for honor's sake if nothing else - though he would gladly accept a brokered surrender if it meant that Akane would be his.

He decided that he had little to lose by meeting with Nabiki at this point, and gave the appropriate orders to his staff.

Eight Shining Pearls Fortress,

The Ancestral Home of House Joketsuzoku

Planet Jusenkyo, Jusenkyo System,

Jusenkyo Commonwealth

18 February 3025

Happousai allowed himself to be led by two formidable ladies of House Joketsuzoku into Cologne's presense. Being the kind of man that he was - that is, completely full of himself - he took for granted the fact that he was one of the few outsider males allowed such priviledged access to the Matriarch. Instead he took advantage of his diminutive stature to look up the two girls' uniform cheongsam minidresses.

The two either didn't notice his visual groping or else were possessed of considerable self-restraint. With martial precision they conducted him past exquisitely painted silk partitions and into the private audience chamber of the Matriarch of the Joketsuzoku. Incense burned in a corner of the octagonal chamber in accordance with the principles of Feng Shui, and the faint hum of hidden electronics confirmed his suspicions that even in this place of thoughtful introspection and quiet meditation, Cologne was never far from the instrumentality that connected her with her empire.

Cologne, wizened and shrunken beyond any practical estimates of her age, sat quietly in the center of the chamber smoking a pipe. The acidic tang of the smoke, enough to overcome the sublime blend of the incense, told Happousai that whatever the substance was that she was enjoying, it was not tobacco. She looked up briefly at them, narrowed eyes glinting in the soft golden light of scattered candles, and puffed on her pipe. For a moment Happousai tried to remember that the shriveled crone who sat before him was at one time a tall and willowy young woman of celestial beauty.

"Pink, Link, that will be all. Leave us," she said in a dry voice. The two Joketsuzoku hesitated, then retired from the chamber. They would be out of earshot, as was expected of them, but not unable to answer an urgent summons. Happousai watched them go.

Cologne cleared her throat and cast her rheumy eyes up to regard him. He wasn't certain if he detected approval or reproach in the cast of her face.

"I am informed that you have urgent news to bring me," she said in a voice of measured disinterest.

Happousai pawed at the ornate rug with his foot.

"Never mind that, Cologne," he said spryly. "How've you been? It's been, what, two years now?"

Cologne's passive face grew cold.

"I am a busy woman," she reminded him. "Because you have been useful to me in the past and because of our shared history I am perhaps overly indulgent of you, Happi, but if you don't tell me immediately of your news, I shall have you thrown out."

Happousai tried to look hurt at her reproach.

"Fine then," he pouted. "It so happens that I ran into two of your guinea pigs on Capra. It seems that's as far as they could run. I thought you might be interested in getting them back, and if so, I could make myself available to help."

Cologne closed her eyes and shook her head. Herb and Doctor Gaido still had to answer for their lack of restraint concerning those two. She then opened her eyes and put on a bland face for Happousai.

"If I were interested in having them back, they would already be in Gaido's lab," she said evenly. "You have wasted my time."

She was about to send for Pink and Link when a purple-haired vixen in a dangerously short cheongsam bounded breathlessly into the chamber. Happousai's eyes bulged out of their sockets in appreciation for her pulchritude.

"Great-grandmother!" she cried happily in Chinese. She then noticed the gnomish lump of Happousai and fell to her knees to give the Matriarch her proper due in front of outsiders.

"What is it, Shampoo?" Cologne asked gently in the Standard tongue. There was little wrong that Shampoo could do in her eyes, and she often doted on her without thinking of it.

"Is good news!" Shampoo reported. Her Standard was a little weak, since she had devoted her considerable energies toward fighting skills rather than more scholarly pursuits. "Confederation surrender talks have failed!"

Cologne nodded briskly. This was good news indeed. Such good news that she forgot that Happousai was still present.

"Was Kima successful in throwing the talks off track?"

Shampoo beamed.

"Was not necessary, Great-grandmother! Duke Tendo withdrew surrender offer at last moment."

Cologne frowned. While it was vital to the Commonwealth's interests to maintain the status quo within the Inner Sphere until her plans had come to fruition, she had not counted on Tendo to do such a rash thing. Kima's very role as Commonwealth observer was to derail the talks in such a way that an orderly transfer of power to the Combine could not happen. Cologne worried less about the League winning Tendo over, as they were weak and already unwittingly deep into her pockets, but better still to keep things as they were. Now Tendo had done something unexpected.

"Explain," she demanded of Shampoo.

"No have full details yet," Shampoo demurred. "Report came over Hyper Pulse Generator from agents in Comstar. Kima due to arrive in two weeks from Nerima to report in person."

Cologne frowned deeper. What was so important that Kima wouldn't seek to report via HPG message rather than delay for weeks to Jump back to the Joketsuzoku? She of all people knew how deeply infiltrated Comstar was with Commonwealth agents. A message could easily slip through unnoticed by the ignorant tech-priests of that misguided and self-serving organization.

What was Duke Tendo up to? Could it be that the man was taking back his throne from his manipulative daughter Nabiki? Was this merely a petty squabble between the family, or did it hint at something darker? By all reasonable estimates the Confederation was a lost cause within twenty years no matter how hard they resisted. What was Tendo doing? Had he really cracked, as some had long suspected, after the death of his wife?

Cologne thought hard as she puffed on her pipe. Fortunately, Happousai seemed too interested in Shampoo to be curious of Commonwealth affairs. She was about to dismiss him a second time when she came to a decision.

"Happi?" she asked sweetly. Her hoarse croaking voice almost pulled it off.

Happousai turned his ravenous eyes away from Shampoo long enough to regard her.

"Yes, Cologne?"

"I have a job for you. I want you to go to Nerima and find out what's going on within the Tendo family. It is my understanding that you have something of a familiarity with the Duke. Use that to get close to them, and report via HPG everything you can."

"Why me?" he whined. He always whined. Cologne usually raised her compensation rates just to get rid of him and his huge dewy eyes.

"Because you are the best man for the job," she told him. "And for reasons I have already outlined. You know that I will be generous in my compensation for your efforts."

Happousai's eyes went alight, and he spared a lascivious glance towards the oblivious Shampoo.

"You know what I want, Cologne," he said, voice quavering with hope.

Cologne's eyes darkened like roiling thunderclouds.

"While you may be a mechwarrior of considerable skill, you are far too old to be of use to my breeding program. Your potency is suspect, and furthermore, you will not enjoy such a boon with Shampoo."

Happousai's face trembled halfway between crushed and enraged, and Cologne was quick to let him off easy. The gnomish little mechwarrior could be extremely dangerous in his wrath.

"But perhaps I have someone else who could 'entertain' you in some way," she added slyly. "Think it over, Happi. Time is running short for you to reach Nerima while the situation remains sufficiently undeveloped to do any good."

Happousai nodded slowly, a wide boyish grin spreading across his face. His eyes became huge and dewy at the thought of an evening or six with one of Cologne's gorgeous Amazons.

"When do I leave?"

Fisherman's Wharf, City of San Francisco,

North American Protectorate,

Planet Earth, Sol System

24 February 3025

"What's the matter, Kuno-chan; is your espresso too strong?"

Tatewaki Kuno looked up from his demitasse and into the deep walnut colored eyes of Nabiki Tendo. There was a playful cruelty in those eyes and in her crooked smile as she sipped from her own cup.

"Thy choice for a rendezvous unsettles me," he said evenly.

Nabiki did not reply at first. Her gaze was taken by the fog that shrouded the distant towers of the Golden Gate bridge and the green expanse of the Presidio to the north, and by the crumbling ruins of Alcatraz across the icy slate colored bay. This was her first time on Earth, and she was in love with San Francisco.

"The Sol System is neutral ground, Kuno-chan," Nabiki said at length. She knew how much he despised the Earth. Only the island of Yamato meant anything to him, and that was out of respect for his ancient samurai heritage. "And if you come all the way to Sol, you might as well set foot on Earth."

"Thou wouldst do well to refrain from addressing me in such an uncouth fashion," Tatewaki sniffed. Nabiki always managed to rub him the wrong way; one of the reasons he had delegated the surrender negotiations to Domitian. Now he was pressed into dealing with her in person.

Nabiki laughed.

"What, you expect me to call you 'Your Royal Highness?' Give me a break, Kuno-chan. As the Tendo Family voting proxy in Ceres Metals Corp - which has offices in this system - I can be here without a fuss. Your presence here as Heir Apparent to a household with a claim to the Star League is patently illegal and a threat to the Sol System's neutrality. You want Comstar to shut you down - forcing you to communicate solely by JumpShip - fine, I'll address you as Prince and watch as the Combine falls apart from within."

Tatewaki seethed in silence. Comstar would indeed act to protect their interests, and a communications embargo was their most effective weapon. The Combine had a small handful of ships with HPG transceivers, but needed techs from Comstar to maintain them. With no access to the HPG network, he would be forced to use the XBoat Method, and that would create unacceptable communication delays.

Nabiki winked at him. "Or, we can keep this unofficial. I'm Nabiki, and you're my old friend Kuno-chan, both Private Citizens. Which would you prefer?"

Tatewaki continued to seethe. He had personally beheaded people for lesser offenses than those she heaped upon him, but on neutral Earth he was powerless to give Nabiki her just desserts.

"Thou didst request this meeting for our mutual benefit," he said between clenched teeth. "I suggest that you stop wasting my time and come instead unto the crux of this matter."

She flashed him a brilliant smile.

"Sure thing, Kuno-chan. Now as you know, my father, for reasons better left unmentioned, has decided to withdraw the surrender offer I had so carefully crafted..."

"And betrothed sweet Akane Tendo to a churlish cretin named Saotome," Tatewaki was quick to add.

Nabiki nodded ruefully. "I was getting to that. Why he did this is completely beyond my understanding. I hesistate to add that I fear for his mental stability." She said this last with a penetrating look, to make certain that he understood exactly where she was going with this.

It took a moment, but he nodded sagely. The word treacherous did not begin to do justice to this woman. She was ready to depose her own father on the grounds of mental incompetance, which, although it might well be true, was a betrayal most foul. It smacked of something his own sister Kodachi might do if she ever fell out of favor with their father (O joyous day!).

Nabiki continued.

"I am still prepared to hand you the entire Inner Sphere on a silver plate, Kuno-chan," she told him with utter sincerity.

Tatewaki, still reeling from the idea that he was dealing with such a treacherous woman, cocked an eyebrow at a statement that was simply absurd.

"I did not realize that the Inner Sphere was yours to give," he replied with more than a little sarcasm.

"Of course it is," she returned. "The Confederation is the lynch-pin of this entire conflict; the fulcrum upon which the Inner Sphere's balance of power shifts."

Tatewaki wasn't in the mood to draw her out one piece at a time. "Explain thyself," he said to her.

"Think about it, Kuno-chan. Why haven't you been able to utterly crush the Confederation? You have the most powerful and numerous army in the entire Inner Sphere. Is it because the Confederation mechwarriors are superior to the Combine's?"

Tatewaki was about to reply in the firm negative when Nabiki answered her own question.

"Not really," she said flatly. "So tell me why you haven't been able to do it, Kuno-chan."

"The answer must be obvious even to an untrained female such as yourself," he replied. "Because the Confederation lies opposite the neutral territory of the Sol System from the Combine, it presents the smallest possible front. Given the limited range of JumpShips, our advantage in numbers is negated by the small number of worlds which we may strike at from our bases on the frontier."

Nabiki smiled again and took a sip from her demitasse.

"I couldn't have said it any better myself. You need a broad front to take advantage of your numerical superiority. The same goes for your war with the League of Five Nails. Granted you've been focusing mostly on us, but you face the same limited front with them too, which brings me to my proposition.

"By taking over the Confederation lock, stock, and barrel, I'm _giving_ you your broad front against the League. Or the Federated Shiratori, whichever turns you on, but I'm guessing that you want the League out of the picture first so you can put the squeeze on the Combine's only true rival in the Inner Sphere."

"The Jusenkyo Commonwealth," Tatewaki muttered.

"Exactly," Nabiki said with a gleam in her eye. "With the League conquered, you have the Commonwealth boxed in on two fronts. Hell, once you break out of your primary invasion areas I'd be willing to bet that most of the League's barons will defect to your side within two weeks rather than get forced off their land, and that will let you conserve your military strength against the Commonwealth while adding the League's armies to your forces.

"That old biddy Cologne will never surrender to you of course, but I'm also going to bet that Empress Azusa aside, the real movers and shakers in the Federated Shiratori will be willing to give you very favorable terms rather than end up next on your list. That country has no stomach for war, as I'm sure you've noticed. After that, it's a _fait accompli._ Those crazy Amazons might fight to the death, but by then you'll have over seventypercent of the Inner Sphere in your back pocket. There is no way they could withstand you for long if you went all out."

She stood up and stretched out her arms.

"And voila! The Inner Sphere belongs to the Furinkan Combine! Of course it would go to your father, but what you do with him is your own business."

She leaned in close enough to him that he could smell her perfume.

"I hear from very reliable sources that he isn't exactly right in the head either, if you catch my meaning..."

In spite of himself, Tatewaki smiled. What she proposed was base and most foul, but coming from her lips sounded sweet and just. It also made a great deal of sense. Had not his own staff bemoaned their less than ideal strategic positioning time and time again?

Bases within the Confederation would mean a vast front, one potentially fifty parsecs long. The weak and fractious League of Five Nails could not possibly hold such a front, and a lightning swift strike by his massed Combine forces could break through their lines before they could even fall back to more defensible positions. A total rout would ensue, and victory would be his.

Once the League was subjugated and its forces integrated into the Combine Army, he would have the Jusenkyo Commonwealth facing two broad fronts. Their weakly garrisoned worlds on the League border would have to be reinforced, sapping their strength and leaving them vulnerable. Of course the assimilated League forces would be used as shock troops against the Commonwealth, but high casualty rates would ensure that his new vassals did not get uppity with him as they occasionally did with their House Gosunkugi masters. As for the Federated Shiratori, they would keep until after the Commonwealth was annihilated, and that would be the true _fait accompli_.

His smile broadened at a new thought. The deposed Empress Azusa could join his sister in a convent on the Periphery! Oh, how he would savor their combined misery!

Nabiki cleared her throat, abjuring him from the realm of fantasy and back to the gulls and the tourists of the Embarcadero.

"Judging by the smile on your face, I'd be led to believe that you like what I have to say," she said smugly.

Tatewaki composed himself.

"Your proposal has merits, Nabiki Tendo," he replied stiffly. "But in truth I am not convinced that thou art capable of delivering what thou hast promised."

"Kuno-chan, I'm hurt."

"Pray spare me the theatrics, Nabiki Tendo. Thou hast failed in thy endeavors thus far; what giveth you such faith that thy endeavors will yet bear fruit?"

Nabiki's eyes hardened, and her voice grew taut and cold.

"I hold the nobles of the Confederation in the palm of my hand, Kuno-chan. If I were to declare that Grand Duke Tendo was mentally unfit to rule, they would back whomever I cared to name as successor, including myself. I have nothing against my younger sister, but the only reason she was named Heir over me is because I don't need things like arranged marriages spoiling my plans. I might also add that I have already removed everyone from the capitol that give more than token support to my father."

Her thoughts flashed to her older sister as she said this, but her face remained stern and unyielding. _Everyone but Kasumi, anyway, and what can she do?_

She jabbed her finger in his chest.

"Never forget, Kuno-chan, that _I_ am the power behind Nerima. What happened two weeks ago happened because I was too soft regarding my father. I've got too much at stake to let that happen again."

She removed her finger and sat back down to her espresso.

"Now, Kuno-chan, do we have an understanding?"

Tatewaki was beside himself with fury at this insolent woman, but at the same time he was fascinated with her. The resultant expression on his handsome face was one of puzzlement.

"Of course, Nabiki Tendo," he finally managed.

"Splendid!" she exclaimed. "I'll fax your people at the Regency a copy of my terms. Assuming you still keep Domitian around, he'll verify that they remain identical to my original offer as outlined in the surrender agreement."

She finished her espresso and rose. She had a meeting with a local broker about an estate in Hyde Park coming up later, and she wanted to do some sightseeing and a little shopping on the way. After that she had to endure the semiballistic to the Lima Beanstalk, followed by a two day trip up the well to Jack's Castle. From there a passenger liner would ferry her to the Sol Zenith point and the Confederation JumpShip _Transcendant._ She wished she could spend more time on Earth, and consoled herself with the fact that once her plans had reached fruition she would be on a JumpShip bound for Sol - the only safe place remaining in the Inner Sphere until the Furinkan Combine had completed the conquest.

"The next time we meet face to face, I will assume it will be as sovereign to sovereign," she purred. "In fact I look forward to it, Kuno-chan."

Tatewaki did not take her offered hand. Instead he gave her a solemn nod and left her standing at the table. She watched him join the party of vigilant bodyguards as his black Cadillac Phaeton limousine slid up from the Embarcadero on silent hoverfans. The doors opened, the Prince and his entourage entered, and then they were gone.

Enlisted Dining Facility,

Jusenkyo Laboratories Complex

Planet Lightoller, Epsilon Indi System

25 February 3025

"PRISONER ON DECK!!!"

A sudden hush fell upon the dining facility patrons as the burly military police sergeant barked out with a distinctly sadistic glee the announcement that Mousse was coming. Soldiers and techs alike cleared a path from the doors to the chow line as the clink of leg irons rattled on the polished tile floor. The normally chatty lunch hour became silent save only for the occasional clatter of cookware from the kitchens.

None dared to look Mousse in the eye as he walked in from the foyer in the company of two military police escorts. His face betrayed no shame as he brought his manacled hands up to the registration desk and signed his name carefully on the log for that day's meal. An MP countersigned for him, and then he was led past the young and pretty recruit manning the sign-in post. She watched him go with a mixture of pity and dread.

Since the chow line had cleared out ahead, it was a straight shot to the meal that awaited him. He had a choice to make. If he openly declared to the troops in attendance at the meal that Shampoo did not, and would not ever love him, he would be fed as any other soldier of the Commonwealth. If he chose instead to cling to his so-called delusions, his usual prison fare would await.

He chose Shampoo.

The pimply-faced mess-crank behind the serving line hastily prepared a bowl of plain white rice and set it on a plastic tray. Mousse accepted it wordlessly and continued on to take a glass of ice water for himself. The troops in the dining facility muttered and shook their heads in a melange of sympathy and contempt.

There were no empty tables available at the height of the lunch hour, but a sharp glance from the MPs cleared several of their junior enlisted diners within seconds. Mousse now had a table to himself that normally seated twelve, and a one-table cordon of isolation beyond. His captors remained standing behind him.

Lacking any chopsticks with which to eat, Mousse was forced to use his fingers. This he did with as much dignity as he could manage, taking great care not to rattle his double manacle chains on the table. He ignored the stares that he drew from the others, and he ate quietly, ensuring that not a grain was missed. It would be his only meal of the day.

He had endured three weeks of this without vocal complaint, though his strength was sapped with hunger and his body wracked with pain from the abuse of his jailors. The assault on his pride that was his daily meal was merely the accidental result of a base with no dedicated facilities for housing and feeding prisoners, but was certainly within the scope of the punishment meted out to him by Herb.

He wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing him beg for mercy. Especially Herb, who was keeping a close watch over him, waiting for him to break. The torture he had endured wasn't enough for the general; Herb wanted to extinguish his spirit as the price for betrayal. Herb was going to have to get used to disappointment.

There were only nine days left to his confinement, which was nothing after the last twenty-one. What the next two years as a prisoner in the Dok To Correctional Custody Battalion would bring, he did not know, but he would survive that too. No matter what he faced he would endure. For Shampoo he would suffer anything.

He did not doubt that Shampoo would come to love him some day. She had to realize sooner or later that he loved her above all else, and come to value that love for the treasure that it was. When she finally came around, he would be there for her. To do that, he had to survive Dok To.

His rice was finished, giving him just enough time to gulp down his water before being jerked to his feet by one of the MPs. He collected his dishes quietly and proceeded to the scullery, where he placed them upon a green conveyer belt. The exit was only a few steps beyond, and soon he would be back in his tiny holding cell - a cell normally reserved for those facing their imminent execution; for the spectrum of punishment among the Joketsuzoku often ran to extremes.

The MPs shoved him through the door, tripping his shackled legs up and sending him sprawling into the mud beyond. His manacled wrists ached from the impact, as he had been forced to catch himself in an awkward manner. As he struggled to his feet and wiped the mud off his face with his hands, he looked to the hazy Lightoller sky and vowed revenge upon Herb.

To do that, he would have to survive. Survive here on Lightoller, and survive on Dok To. When Shampoo was his bride, vengeance would indeed be his.

General Herb switched off the monitor for the dining facility surveillance system and shook his head in wonderment. The contemptible fool remained unbowed. Was he actually that delusional, or was this merely a show of the same defiance that had landed him in hack?

He could have made arrangements to have Mousse served in his cell, but on the whole, he had thought this way would have been more entertaining. He had the idea that Putting Mousse on display before the troops would be good for discipline, and would allow him the pleasure of observing his daily punishment. Mousse's defiance had made it something of a disappointment.

The rest of his day didn't promise to be any more encouraging. The HPG dispatch he just received from Jusenkyo had left him in an uneasy humor. For some reason Cologne wanted additional information regarding the break-in at the Labs on the eleventh. She was sniffing for something, and he had the idea it was blood. His blood.

A sudden harrowing thought had occured to him in the wake of the message, and he had sent his henchmen, Lime and Mint, out to the map reference where Shampoo claimed to have killed the intruders. A salvage crew had recovered the wreck some time ago, without finding any remains. There were some blood stains in the driver's compartment, but nothing that would indicate a body. Even an intense fire would have left small fragments of bone, and the ATV had not suffered such a fire.

The indigenous scavengers of Lightoller were capable of hauling away the corpses. They were known to be practically fearless of humans and their technology, and they were active in the area. It was quite possible that they had struck before the salvage crew arrived. Herb did reluctantly admit to himself that he had been slow in dispatching them to the scene, though he justified this with his immediate efforts to find the holes in the Labs' security arrangements - an arguably more important affair in light of Shampoo's assurances that the intruders were dead.

Lime and Mint had reported back that there was no sign of any bodies at the scene, and that the tracks of the salvage crew plus the heavy rains of late had obscured any evidence of survivors leaving the scene. The only place the survivors could have gone was the starport, and by the time the alert had reached the security there, several ships had lifted for the long journey to the jumppoints. The trail was cold.

He should have known better than to trust Shampoo at her word! In a matter such as this, he was ultimately responsible. It did not matter that the person telling him the intruders were dead was the favorite of the Matriarch - if anything it should have made him wary.

He had expected the bad news from the moment he sent the two out on their errand. The question now was whether or not it was simply a matter of Shampoo bungling the pursuit or was it something more sinister - perhaps part of a complicated scheme designed to remove him from command.

He cast this second notion aside. Cologne did not operate that way. If she wanted him removed, she would have done so. Still, she needed a motivation for her odd demand. Perhaps she had discovered something about the two mercenaries that were known to have escaped. Why more direct action to eliminate them had not been authorized by the Council, he did not know.

What the Matriarch knew was still a mystery to him, and so he was left with a reply to her. It might prove to be quite an embarrassment to the prima donna Shampoo to have failed in such a spectacular fashion. It might even be suitable revenge for her escape from Lightoller. Of course, it would also be seen as a personal failure on his part to have let this mistake go unnoticed and unreported for so long. He would have to word his report carefully so as to shift maximum responsibilty onto Shampoo while minimizing his own exposure - and, to top it off, to keep from looking vindictive so as to avoid provoking the Matriarch. It was a tall order, but he felt he was up to it.

His only comfort for the day was knowing that Mousse was going to be departing for Dok To even sooner than expected. The starship bound for the Periphery had arrived ahead of schedule. He had to give the stubborn fool credit for his strong will, for he had not yet broken. Perhaps it would take a year or two on the cold forbidding tundra of Dok To to make him see the light, and realize that Shampoo's love was only a fantasy.

A comm tone sounded at his desk, and he sat up in his chair to answer it. Doctor Gaido appeared on the screen, his pudgy face showing signs of anxiety. That was never a good thing.

"What is it?" he demanded. Gaido could be such a pain in the ass sometimes.

"I have urgent orders from the capitol, General," he replied.

Herb frowned. What was Gaido doing getting orders that didn't pass through him first?

"Don't keep me waiting, Doctor. I'm a busy man."

Gaido was visibly sweating on the monitor display. "You're still keeping Mechwarrior Mousse under guard, aren't you, General?" he asked.

Herb began to scowl. What the hell was going on...?

"Yes I am. Only he has been provisionally stripped of his mechwarrior status, and is awaiting transfer to the Dok To Correctional Custody Unit. What's it to you, Doctor?"

Gaido cleared his throat before responding.

"I have orders from the Council of Elders to present Mechwarrior Mousse for final selection status in the Breeding Program. He needs to report to the capitol as soon as possible."

Herb nearly choked.

"HIM?" he barked. "For the Breeding Program? You must be joking! That insubordinate half-blind idiot was disqualified when he was a child!"

Gaido shrugged. "I have been informed by the primary breeding computers tracking the Program that Mechwarrior Mousse represents a vital genetic addition to the next generation of mechwarriors," he replied. "I dutifully reported this to the capitol, and they have made their wishes for Mechwarrior Mousse known."

Herb could not believe this. "Does Cologne want a generation of witless nearsighted fools commanding her battlemech forces?" he asked incredulously. "Are you certain that Mousse was named by the Program computers? There has to be a mistake."

Gaido nodded. "It's all very clear, General. I will send you copies of the computer determination and the Council's orders at once."

Herb continued to reel at this news, but he was not through protesting. "Why wasn't this routed through me as Mousse's commanding officer?"

"Breeding Program concerns are part of the Jusenkyo Laboratory research," Gaido offered. "As head of the Research Department, it would go through me."

Herb rolled his eyes in disgust. The Breeding Program's chain of command was a nuisance to field-oriented commanders like himself. He slammed his desk in anger.

He did not want to let Mousse go. He wasn't finished with him for one thing, and for another the man could prove to be an embarrassment so close to the Council's ears. Though his maneuver with Shampoo was perfectly legal, it was a bit underhanded, and he did not need vengeful corroboration of whatever story she might have cooked up for Cologne.

"General Herb?" Gaido asked when Herb did not respond.

"I'll have it taken care of," Herb replied with a scowl.

"Thank you, General. I would like to examine Mechwarrior Mousse prior to his departure, and as soon as possible would be best."

I'll just bet, Herb thought darkly, and disconnected.

Doctor Gaido switched off the phone and sat back in his chair. Beads of sweat trickled down his brow. He was not cut out for subterfuge. He doubted that Herb was capable of detecting the subtle trickery required to jigger the computers into thinking Mousse was a highly desired addition to the Breeding Program, but there were other ways to detect treachery.

At least Herb's hands were tied with a computer investigation. Even if he made an effort to look - which Gaido doubted since most Joketsuzoku, Herb included, tended to view the Breeding Program as an unimpeachable work of science - he lacked techs with the skills and familiarity with the ancient computers to succeed.

Gaido was the only person left alive who knew how the system really worked, and he had been careful to let Herb know this at every opportunity. As additional insurance, he had never bothered to train a replacement. It was risky to the Commonwealth's future, as he was getting on in years, but it beat finding a poisoned dagger in his back one night.

All this being true, he did not like being Cologne's pawn against Herb. He owed his entire career to her of course, but crossing the hybrid general was extremely dangerous - as Mousse had learned the hard way. Why Cologne wanted Mousse out of Herb's clutches, Gaido could only guess, but it was even money that he was eventually going to be used against the general. He hoped the final showdown would happen somewhere other than Lightoller.

He realized a power struggle that would shake the very foundations of their culture was inevitable. The Commonwealth's radical Breeding Program had created two distinct classes within the Joketsuzoku. The matriarchal hierarchy of the clan was rooted in four thousand years of tradition, and though it was rigid and unyielding, it had endured through ages of empires, foreign domination, the brief flirtation with communism, and ultimately the perils of interstellar colonization. Those obstacles had all been external threats, something the insular Joketsuzoku had been able to fend off. Their undoing could come only from within, and they had been breeding and nurturing it for a century.

Herb was not the first of the new second class, the hybrids, to dare challenge even peripherally the authority of the Matriarchy, but he was the first one to have risen so far in the ranks. Perhaps it was because most of the hybrids were male that they chafed under the yoke of the Elders. Their loyalties naturally tended towards their own kind, rather than towards the exclusive sisterhood of the Joketsuzoku. He had even heard whispers of a 'Musk Dynasty' among them, a seditious organization that couldn't possibly have escaped the notice of the Council, yet still went unexposed and unpunished.

Cologne and the rest of the Council of Elders thought the answer lay in the hands of a hybrid they felt they could control. Gaido wasn't as certain. When Saffron was mature, he would be an order of magnitude more powerful than Herb, the current pinnacle of the Program's hybrids, and one who was capable of almost casual projection of lethal chi-abilities. Saffron in comparison would be almost a god by any reasonable index of human potential.

How do you control a god?

Army Group 'B' Headquarters, The Hotel Lyonne

Planet Viridian, Alpha Canaris System

The League of Five Nails

25 February 3025

Hikaru Gosunkugi was a nervous wreck, and even more sunken-eyed than usual. Grand Duke Tendo had surprised them all with his declaration, and to Hikaru's horror, had engaged his beautiful daughter to an unknown mechwarrior named Ranma Saotome! To make matters worse, Tsubasa had failed spectacularly in his mission to kidnap Akane, and had probably stirred up a massive political hornet's nest in the process.

Had all his prayers and sacrifices been for naught? Would his parents discover his plottings and step in against him? Was he damned to spend the next six months grounded to his room for this failure?

His cousin could see the play of horror, sorrow, and regret across his face and cleared his throat to speak.

"The responsibility is mine, cousin," Tetsuo declared solemnly.

Hikaru looked up from his astrological charts and frowned.

"If anyone failed us, it was that fool Tsubasa," he returned. His blood boiled with rage at the bumbling transvestite. There would be more than a few hexes cast tonight... "But still, we should have read the horoscope with more than half an eye. Our failure was in fact foretold. It's in here somewhere, but somehow we missed it."

Tetsuo cocked his head. "I still don't believe that this Ranma Saotome fellow is anything more than a clever fraud meant to throw us off-balance."

"You see!" Hikaru cried, at last understanding exactly how they had failed. "The Equus Nebula! We see and yet we are blind!"

"Say again, cousin?"

Hikaru pointed to the horoscope they had cast before answering Nabiki's summons to Nerima. "Ran-Ma... 'Wild Horse.' The Equus or 'Horse' Nebula." He looked up for a moment before turning upon Tetsuo. "What did you say Ranma's father's name was?"

"Genma," Testuo replied, at last understanding. "'Dark Horse'... Yes, I see it now. The conflict provided by the Equus Nebula-Capella-Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy triad was a direct warning to us and we missed it." He hung his head in shame.

"It couldn't be helped," Hikaru returned, steadying his cousin. "Who could have known that the gods would be so literal?" He looked down at the horoscope again. "And yet we can draw hope from this."

"How, cousin?"

"By this horoscope it is clear that the gods are speaking to us. We'll just have to pay closer attention in order to divine the correct message."

Hikaru's proposal seemed most reasonable, and the matter was tabled until further study and meditation revealed answers. They had more immediate problems to face, and they concerned the Furinkan Combine.

"There's no question of a force buildup on the Combine border," he told his cousin. He shuffled through a huge stack of reports from his J-2, or Army Group Intelligence section. "Message traffic has tripled in the last ten days, and independent shipping as far as St. Ives has been pulled in on contract with the Combine for transport of supplies."

"Leaving the Combine's JumpShips free to haul troops," Testuo observed dryly.

"The real question is where are they going to hit?" Hikaru went on.

"Tatewaki's got to be angry with the Duke over this Saotome fellow getting Akane," Tetsuo pointed out. "A massive attack on the Confederation worlds he can reach in one Jump would seem to be the likely answer. You know how single-minded he can be."

Hikaru wasn't so sure. The Confederation knew their defense rested on these One-Jump systems, and had almost eighty percent of their armed forces garrisoned there. It was the only reason Tatewaki Kuno hadn't conquered the Confederation. Even a single-minded blowhard like him had to realize that after five years of trying.

He picked up one of his namesake nails and fiddled with it in his hands. It helped him to relax, and it opened his mind to possibilities.

"Let's say Kuno is really pissed," he broached.

"Okay," Tetsuo agreed. "Let's."

"He wants to pay the Duke back for engaging Akane to this Saotome creep."

Tetsuo nodded. "I'm with you so far, cousin."

Hikaru rolled the nail around in his fingers, clumsily dropping it several times, but not letting it get to him. He was on to something.

"What's the fastest way to get a large force within range of the Capella system?"

Tetsuo studied the starchart before them. As the thickness of the Orion spiral arm in the vicinity of Sol was less than thirty parsecs, a two-dimensional map was sufficient for the task of representing the Inner Sphere. There were several systems at the end of Kuno's potential One-Jump range that would put him within one jump of Capella.

"I see at least three places where he can hit and be within range to strike Capella at will."

Hikaru shook his head. "And the Confederation knows that. Those three systems are armed to the teeth and garrisoned with highly motivated troops. He could try for them, but it would be a meat-grinder. They might even break with convention and go for his JumpShips if it looked like he was going to succeed."

"Then I don't understand what you're getting at, cousin," Tetsuo replied.

"What if he tried for an end-run around these heavily protected systems?" Hikaru proposed. His sunken eyes seemed to flash with inspiration.

Tetsuo looked at the chart again.

"But that would mean attacking into either the Federated Shiratori at Merkesh, or hitting us at Capra..."

Hikaru nodded. "There are advantages to both places. The Federated Shiratori forces won't be expecting an attack from the Combine, but Capra is lightly garrisoned."

"Assuming you're correct, which one will he hit?"

Hikaru closed his eyes and lifted his hand over the chart. He let the nail drop onto the table, where it embedded itself firmly in the heartland of the League of Five Nails. The gods had spoken.

"We're going to Capra," he announced. "I want to give Kuno the surprise of his life."

Azure Cloud Castle

Planet Nerima, Capella System

Nerima Confederation

25 February 3025

Akane didn't spend more than a night in her room before being removed to the lonely South Tower for her 'safety.' The South Tower was a stone ediface of hard and skillfully-dressed granite that perched well above the castle upon the mountain, and was accessable only by a long and winding passageway, carved within the living rock, that linked it to the keep. For protection against airborne assault, the stone walls and sharply sloping tile of the tower's roof were lined with battlemech armor, and an array of point defense laser and autocannon weapons could be deployed within moments of an attack warning.

Spending time in the South Tower meant that anyone who wanted to get close to Akane would have to pass the guards and maglocked gates placed at the bottom of the passageway - and the entire garrison of the castle keep - traverse the narrow and winding stone stairs, and then face the guards and a further maglocked gate at the top of the passageway. It was either that or scale the three hundred meters of nearly sheer rock face from the castle. This was a place the Tendos of old had used as a prison or as an asylum for their estranged relatives from time to time, and its heritage was not lost upon Akane.

For obvious reasons, she did not receive many visitors. Somehow Kasumi managed to climb those thousands of lonely steps twice a day to visit, though Akane sensed that her sister's devotion was driven by more than a little guilt. Dad had decided to move her to the Tower while the castle was being swept for more spies, and Kasumi had not objected.

She understood her father's concerns, but that did not make her stay in such a creepy place any easier. Though the Tower was spacious and well appointed for her, it also had a musty smell that no amount of fresh air from the tall French-style windows could displace. It was the smell of murder and madness from the early days of the Confederation, when her ancestors had collectively gone insane and turned upon each other at the beginning of the First Succession War. The current gloomy future of the Confederation was in no small part due to their fratricidal and self-destructive power struggles. This while the other Great Houses were busy consolidating their territories and seizing Star League assets.

She did not know how much longer she would have to stay a prisoner of the Tower, and she did not like it one bit. If anyone deserved to be locked up, it was Nabiki. Instead, Dad had sent her away to tour the Tendo family holdings - mostly in the Ceres Metals Corporation, an industrial conglomerate that dated back to the pre-Jump era. It served as the backbone for Tendo wealth that made them a Great House so many centuries ago - and had kept them great to the present day.

So while she played solitaire and practiced her katas in the dreaded South Tower, Nabiki got to tour the Confederation aboard the family's private JumpShip! Where was the justice in that? She had played along with the stupid engagement, even if she didn't like it. Nabiki had all but mutinied against Dad, and she got to spend a few choice months as a privileged tourist!

Akane sank back into her chair facing the window and sighed. There was no justice in the world. If there were, she would be out in the field once again commanding the 1st Nerima Guards to victory over the Kunos and their Furinkan Combine, instead of sitting here playing cards. Her red Warhammer was probably fully restored by now, and sitting idle and useless in the family's Armory.

Further depressing thoughts were stifled by an insistant tapping at her window - which was impossible considering that it looked out over a sheer drop of over three hundred meters.

She turned and looked with utter astonishment at Ranma Saotome, who was hanging off of the stone sill of her window with one hand, while the other gave her a casual wave.

"Ranma?" she gasped.

He motioned to the window latch. It was apparent from the urgency in his eyes that he needed her to do something about it fairly quickly.

She leaned over and threw open the window, and Ranma pulled himself through with a grunt to sprawl across the table and ruin her latest boring game of solitaire.

"Thanks," Ranma panted from the table. "It was getting a little rough out there."

Akane looked at him with wide unbelieving eyes.

"How on earth did you get here?" she demanded.

He pulled himself upright on the table and swung his legs over to dangle before her. "I climbed," he said, still panting for breath. He motioned with his chin to his bandaged left arm. "It was pretty rough going with one arm at only fifty percent, but what the heck, training is training, as Pop always says."

Akane's eyes bugged out.

"You _free-climbed_ a three-hundred meter cliff? With only one good arm?"

Ranma rubbed at his left bicep. The bandages on his forearm were starting to bleed through in places with serum and other fluids.

"It's no big deal," he replied casually. "I've done bigger, and in higher gravity fields than Nerima. The rock out there is actually pretty good for this sort of thing. It's fissured enough for a straightforward ascent, but stable enough to hold weight."

"But weren't you afraid of falling?"

He shrugged. "A little," he admitted grudgingly. "But it's not something you think about, or else you'll never make the climb."

She gave him an incredulous look. He was totally nuts. Certifiable.

"Just what possessed you to risk your neck coming up here, anyway?"

"I dunno," he said with a shrug. "I heard you were locked up in this tower, and I was getting bored down in the infirmary, so I thought I'd come up here and see how you were doing."

"It's just as boring up here," Akane replied sullenly. She looked at his left arm again, and the bloodstains that were starting to spread on the bandages. "Aren't you supposed to be taking care of that?" she asked, pointing at the arm.

Ranma looked down. He _had_ overdone it a little. Hopefully he hadn't screwed up the skin grafts. "Just got a little carried away," he replied sheepishly.

"What an idiot," she spat.

Ranma looked up at her as if he had been struck. "Hey!" he protested. "Maybe you'd prefer it if I just left you then?" He pulled a playing card out from under his thigh and showed it to her. "That way you could get back to your exciting game of cards."

Akane felt her anger rising. Just who did this jerk think he was? Coming and going whenever he pleased - even if it meant reinjuring himself just so he could show off!

"Go then!" she cried. "I didn't want to see you anyway."

There was a hurt look in his eyes for just a moment, and then it was gone. Ranma rose from the table, causing her to step back uneasily from him, and he stretched out his arms and rotated them at the shoulders. It was clear from his exercises that he intended to leave the way he had come.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" she demanded as he turned for the window.

He looked over his shoulder at her. "What's it look like? You told me to leave, so I'm doing what your royal worshipfulness says. I'm outta here."

He climbed back up on the table and started through the window, only to be pulled back inside by Akane.

"You idiot!" she yelled worriedly. "Do you want to get yourself killed? There's no way you can make it with your arm in that condition."

Ranma's brow furrowed at this, and he gave her a puzzled look.

"So what do you care?" he asked her defensively. "If I fall and get creamed on the rocks, then at least YOUR problems are solved."

Her eyes flashed with ire.

"What are you talking about - 'my problems'?"

"Oh, come on, Akane," Ranma scolded. "Think about it. If I die right now, then you don't have to worry about marrying me. End of problems."

She balled her hands up into fists and nearly shook with emotion.

"That's not fair, Ranma!" she retorted. "Just because I don't want to marry you, doesn't mean I want to see you get yourself killed!"

Ranma cocked his head to the side and smirked. "So don't watch, okay?" He started back towards the window.

"You are such an unbelievable jerk!" she cried, and pulled him back once again. "Get away from that window, and come down off that table right now!"

He was torn for a moment with the desire to throw her off and continue on, but the truth of the matter was that his arm was really starting to hurt. With only a token effort of resistance, he allowed himself to be pulled back inside the room.

"Have it your way," he said to her. "Just point the way to the door and I'll take the stairs."

Akane was only mildly relieved to see that he had given up his ridiculous quest for suicide. "How did you ever manage to become so rude and obnoxious?" she asked him. "Didn't your mother teach you anything?"

Ranma, who had been cocksure and full of himself until then, now looked as if he had been hit below the belt. His ego deflated in an instant, and for a brief moment he looked like a five-year-old on the verge of tears. He sank down onto the table and stared into his lap.

The reaction did not go unnoticed by Akane, who found herself strangely moved. Could this arrogant jerk actually have a side of him that wasn't ruled by the 'Y' chromosome?

"What is it, Ranma?" she asked softly.

"No," he growled sullenly. "No, my mother _didn't_ teach me anything." His face fell into a scowl. "I haven't seen my mother since I was really little."

So that was it, Akane thought to herself. His behavior made a lot of sense when she considered that he must have been raised solely by his oafish, lazy, and shiftless father.

"I know the feeling," she said to him gently. "My mother died when I was little."

A heavy silence hung between them for a moment.

"At least it's easier for you that way," he muttered at length.

She lost all pity for him at that remark.

"What!? How can you say that?"

Ranma looked up at her with his wounded blue-grey eyes. "All I'm sayin' is that at least you know she's gone. You can learn to cope with it and go on with life. I'm sorry your mom died, Akane, but at least you have that finality. I don't even have that."

Akane was struck silent by that. She didn't agree with his assessment, but she was starting to see what made him tick. Taken from that perspective, he wasn't nearly as bad as she had first thought. He was still a jerk, but maybe not completely hopeless as a human being.

"Can we start over?" she asked him quietly.

He gave her a puzzled look.

"Huh?"

"Can we start over," she repeated. "I mean, before we started arguing."

He thought about what she was asking for a moment and then nodded slowly.

"Sure. Where do you want to begin?"

She leaned forward and touched his shoulder gently with her fingertips.

"Thank you, Ranma," she whispered.

His body stiffened in surprise at her touch and he nearly jumped from his seat on the table.

"Huh? Th-Thanks for what?" he stammered.

She stepped back and tried to smile. "For what you did in the garden. For saving my life. I never got the chance to thank you until now, so I was thinking that this would be the best place to start over."

He flushed red and looked down into his lap again. "It was nothing."

"It was more than nothing," she protested. "You risked your life to help me - and you almost lost your arm because of it."

Ranma looked over at his injured arm and shrugged. "I don't know what to say, Akane. I mean, I didn't stop to think about it or nothin'. There wasn't time for that. I just did what I felt I had to do."

"Well thank you for doing what you felt you had to do," she replied. She looked away for a moment before turning her soft brown eyes upon him. "And thank you for coming up here to visit me. It was a stupid, crazy way to do it, but I guess you're the kind of guy who doesn't stop to think about it." She offered him a smile. "You just do what you feel you have to do."

Ranma Saotome met Akane's gaze with his own and fought back the sudden flush of heat in his face. It wasn't possible, was it? That this girl was actually... Was actually... Somehow... Cute?

Akane gave him a thump on the right shoulder that nearly bowled him over. "Now get out of here and go see Doctor Tofu, all right? You're starting to bleed on the carpet."

Ranma grimaced. Nope. Not cute at all.

Well, maybe just a teeny tiny little bit...

Soun Tendo looked over Genma's proposal carefully. He had quite a request list. A JumpShip plus at least one DropShip, battlemechs, some aerospace fighters, an experienced crew, supplies, cash, and a line of credit that wouldn't trace directly back to the Tendo family or the Confederation government. Plus one other important item.

"I agree with you that there is an urgent need to continue the search, Saotome, but really, why bring Akane with you?"

Genma regarded his old friend with a grave look.

"Two reasons," he began. "One is that she'll be safe with us. No one will even know she's gone from the Tower."

Soun nodded slowly. There was a twisted logic to it, even if he felt the risks were just as great, if not greater, as having her stay on Nerima.There was no reason why the Combine, or the League, perhaps both, wouldn't try again to kidnap Akane if they were able, but the risks she would face on the expedition...

"So what's the other reason?" he pressed, having a dire need to be convinced before he sent his little girl away for what might be a very long time.

Genma raised an eyebrow. "Isn't it obvious, Tendo? We've got to get Akane and the boy to know each other better - otherwise they'll fight this engagement with their dying breaths."

Soun nodded again. "I see your point. They do seem to have a certain, shall we say, _antagonism_ towards each other."

"That's putting it mildly, I think," Genma agreed. "But the hardships and the thrills of a life of adventure can only draw them closer, right?"

"I suppose so," Soun replied confidently. "I remember the times we spent training together, and we're friends to this very day."

"And those weren't easy times," Genma added with a shudder. No sir.

Soun looked back over the proposal. "This is quite a list, Saotome. It can be done, but why do you want everything procured from sources other than the Confederation military?"

"We need to move without drawing a lot of attention. A small mercenary force can move around throughout the Inner Sphere without raising too many eyebrows. All we need to do is fix Ryuugenzawa's location. Once we do that, we can return to Nerima and gather up a transport fleet big enough to haul everything away."

Soun puffed on a cigarette as he looked over the search notebooks Genma had been using for the last three years of his quest.

"You make it sound so simple, Saotome."

"It is, Tendo," Genma assured him. He pointed to one of the notebooks. A photograph of a man with an enigmatic face and an oddly styled beard was taped to the cover, for reasons lost to Soun. He bore an uncanny resemblence to a figure on a playing card... "Why, this guy had almost all of the pieces of the puzzle when he died," he continued. "He just didn't put them all together."

"And how exactly did he die, Saotome?" Soun asked archly.

"Tendo!" Genma protested. "It wasn't like that at all! As far as I could tell, he had Nevermore Fever."

Soun shuddered at the thought. Nevermore Fever was one of the more insidious diseases to ever make its way through the Inner Sphere. You could carry it for years without knowing, before it suddenly flared up and killed you within hours with a massive fever spike that fried your central nervous system.

"You _did_ get tested afterwards, didn't you?" he asked Genma.

"The boy and I are clean," he replied. "It's not contagious in the terminal stages. It's not that contagious at all, or else the entire Inner Sphere would have been wiped out centuries ago."

"I see," Tendo intoned, clearly uncomfortable with the subject. "Well, enough of that. We've got work to do."

Headquarters Company, Blue Thunder Regiment

Planet Calypso, Proteus System

Nerima Confederation

1 March 3025

"Faster, men!" Tatewaki Kuno exhorted his troops. "Let not these cowards flee the field!"

He was having a very good day for himself, on this the first day of his renewed campaign against the hated Nerima Confederation. Their Air Force had put up a stiff fight in orbit over Calypso, but had been crushed by sheer Combine numbers. Now it was the famed Blue Thunder Regiment's turn to make the Grand Duke regret his foolhardy decision to spurn the great Tatewaki Kuno!

His mint condition Thunderbolt battlemech led the charge against the retreating Confederation 'mechs. With a simple thought he made the squat 65 ton juggernaut raise its glittering forged tungsten-carbide steel katana aloft so that his enemies could see him and know that they faced the Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine. They answered with hasty pulses of laser fire and streams of autocannon shells, which he ignored for the feeble attempts they were.

The Confederation 'mechs were clearly trying to draw his forces into an ambush with their retreat, but he was the great Tatewaki Kuno, and would not be so easily trapped. Even now his 3rd Battalion was closing off their withdrawal that he might fix them against the anvil and drive home his mighty hammer. Once they were crushed, he would have his beachhead secured, and the subjugation of the planet could begin.

He would not be around to see it however, as he had plans elsewhere in the Inner Sphere. He laughed with haughty pride at his cunning as his battlemech ranged over the gently rolling farmland of Calypso. The simple-minded Confederation forces would be allowed to see him in battle just long enough for them to send word of his presence to their rear-areas. They would surely send reinforcements to Calypso to dare the impossible and defeat him, but little would they know that by then he would be in position to strike the fatal blow against Capella!

A sudden flurry of voices over his tactical net let him know that the trap was sprung, and the Confederation forces cut off. He could see thin lines of black smoke rising on the horizon, punctuated by bright flashes of light. They would not be able to break through his blocking force, which would give them only one option: to face him in battle in the hopes of escaping the way they had come.

"Let them come," he muttered over the command channel. His battlemech's RCA Instatrac Mk X sensor array began to seek out targets. He was rewarded with a lance of 'mechs cutting a diagonal course to the right across his projected line of advance, obviously hoping to slip through the net before it was drawn tight.

His eyes flicked to either side of his cockpit and the visual reference displays. The rest of his company was arrayed in a skirmish line to his left and right, centered upon him. He ordered them into an Echelon-Right formation, and noted with pride that they executed it flawlessly.

Long Range Missiles were coming into range, and though his Thunderbolt had a 15-tube launcher, he held his fire. He prefered close-combat to a sterile artillery duel. The other 'mechs in his company began to soften up the enemy with extreme range salvos meant to throw them off-balance and to loosen up their formation.

His threat-indicator board lit up with the warning that a Mk XII Instatrac array was locked on to his 'mech. Its distinctive high-low-high frequency tonals sounded in his headset; the sign that an Archer was preparing to launch a huge spread of missiles. It was often the last thing an inexperienced or unlucky mechwarrior ever heard.

Tatewaki Kuno was neither. He caught the flash of orange flame and the twin puffs of smoke from the green painted Archer in plenty of time to fix the missiles' incoming trajectory. There was no cover to be found on the broad expanse of wheatland surrounding him, but that was of little concern.

As the forty-missile volley reached the top of its ballistic arc, he tightened his stomach and squeezed twin thrust studs on his control yokes. The rare jump-capable Thunderbolt variant surged aloft on two plumes of superheated air. The stubby battlemech soared up and to the right, clearing the impact point of the missiles and keeping him on track with his Archer adversary.

Kuno's Thunderbolt touched down as the missiles exploded well behind him in a cataclysmic burst of fire, smoke, and clods of earth. His 'mech was silhouetted in the flames for an instant, its gleaming katana shining blood red on high. He hoped the effect was suitably intimidating.

Lines of laser light criss-crossed the battlefield now as his company and the fleeing lance became fully engaged. The range was still as far as four hundred meters, though that would change within moments. Whether it would turn into a brawl depended on the skill, or perhaps nerve, of his opponents.

Kuno observed one of the Confederation 'mechs explode to his right as his fire lance bracketed it with missiles. His target Archer was still moving out in front of him, its radar painting him, though his surprise jump capability had obviously given the enemy mechwarrior pause. Let him regret that the remainder of his short life, he mused, and triggered his heavy laser.

The cobalt blue beam of light lanced into the Archer's midsection, burning a long streak that reached from the torso to the shoulder joint. He fired a second time as the Confederation pilot got up the nerve to shoot back. The beam tore into the shoulder armor with a spray of sparks, and then the twin Doombud launchers released their lethal cargo of high explosives.

The range for this volley was much shorter than the first volley, and the trajectory flatter. He jumped again, keeping his altitude low and his motion vector forward. The missiles dropped around his 'mech with tooth-rattling _whomps_, spanging off his pristine armor and gouging small craters. Only a handful had struck him, and nothing had penetrated his Thunderbolt's excellent armor, but the attack had wounded his pride.

"Cur!" he swore to the Archer pilot. "Thou shalt pay in kind for such effrontery!"

The triple medium laser array on his mech's left torso and the heavy laser outboard the right arm blazed forth a salvo of coherent death. The brilliant pulses of light slashed through the Archer's exposed right hip and knee joints, and engulfed the limb in a nimbus of flame. Tatewaki fired off another salvo, heedless of his rising waste heat status, and noted with grim satisfaction as the beams shattered what little remained of the armor and bit into vital components.

The Archer staggered as its right leg was immobilized, slewing suddenly to the right and face on with Kuno's Thunderbolt. A twin salvo of medium laser fire answered his barrage, but Kuno was wroth and did not heed the beams that crazed his Thunderbolt's torso. Instead, he lit his jump jets for the killing blow.

The Thunderbolt again lurched skyward, its katana raised overhead to strike. Though the sky was cloudless, a bolt of blue lightning seared the heavens above and behind his battlemech.

"Feel the wrath of the Hundred Blows!" he cried out over the enemy tactical frequency.

The Thunderbolt fell upon the Archer, its katana cleaving again and again with mind-numbing speed into the crippled battlemech. Kuno punctuated each blow with a shout, and the flurry of strikes came at an impossible rate. The superhard blade bit deep into armor, severed vital linkages, and cut apart critical systemry.

The attack ended as swiftly as it had begun. The Thunderbolt stood proudly over the mutilated Archer as it crumbled into a pile of smoking scrap metal. Flames licked up from the ruins, glinting off the katana.

Tatewaki Kuno looked over his handiwork and saw that it was good. There was only one enemy battlemech remaining; a Valkyrie missing an arm and trailing smoke from the destroyed missile launcher.

"Let yonder Valkyrie flee unhindered!" he ordered his troops. There had to be a survivor to tell the tale of his mighty victory this day. His men complied unquestioningly. The Valkyrie pilot did not question his good fortune either, and sped from the fray with all haste.

"Get thee hence to thy commanders," he said to the fleeing 'mech over the Confederation frequencies. "Tell them that they face the Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine! Let them come forth upon their knees and beg for mercy! The Blue Thunder will hear their pleas for clemency!"

Tatewaki Kuno stood through the open hatch of his Thunderbolt to watch the regiment load into its DropShips. Repairs and rearming would have to take place in space, as there was not time to dawdle if he wished to spring his trap. He did not expect a significant battle at his next destination anyway.

The battles for Calypso, however, had only begun. He intended to allow the Confederation to put up a good fight in order to draw off reinforcements from deeper within their territory. By the time they realized that they had fallen for his ruse, he would be in position for the fatal blow.

Grand Duke Tendo would be brought to heel, Akane would be his bride, and the Confederation ceded to him without Nabiki's treacherous assistance. Her honeyed words had left him feeling ill at ease during the trip from Sol, and he had decided upon a more honorable course of action. It was fitting and noble for the future First Lord of the Star League to conquer his foes by force of arms, not black-handed treachery.

Nabiki would have to be dealt with. He had a mind to have her quietly strangled after the conquest, though he would have to let events take their natural course and determine later whether this was necessary. Doubtless she would try to ingratiate herself with her new lord, but now he was justly wary of her.

Perhaps eliminating her would be best after all.

Tendo Family Armory, Azure Cloud Castle

Planet Nerima, Capella System

Nerima Confederation

1 March 3025

Ranma Saotome followed after his father, the Grand Duke, Kasumi, and Akane as they toured the family's armory. He had never seen so much hardware in one place before, and was more than a little envious. It did not help that Akane was so eager to point out the abundance of spare parts and 'mech stores. She didn't seem like she was trying to rub it in, but part of him tensed up any time she mentioned how quickly the family's techs could rebuild a battlemech.

He also tensed up when they passed the Tendo family's stockpile of nuclear weapons. They were securely entombed within a meter thick case-hardened steel vault, guarded at all hours of the day, and electronically locked down by a code sequence that only the Duke and Kasumi knew, but they still gave him the creeps. The use of nuclear weapons, even in deep space, had been outlawed by the Ares Conventions, but the Great Houses had held on to their stockpiles as insurance against any state unscrupulous enough to use them in spite of the ban.

He risked a quick look at Akane when they passed the nuke storage. If he ended up marrying her - which was unlikely, but a disturbing possibility - then some day all of those hydrogen bombs would become his to command. It was a frightening thought, but most uncomfortable of all was his sudden realization that he did not know if he possessed the nerve to dispose of them for good.

Akane must have noticed his unease, for she gave him a sympathetic look. What was with her anyway? Always running hot and cold. Angry and then friendly. It made him wonder if she needed medication for her condition, or if girls in general were like that. A life on the move, spent mostly as a DropShip stowaway, or training in the martial arts, or getting shot at by some local security force, had not been very helpful in regards to understanding girls.

His father hadn't been very helpful either. A strip joint was no place to break your son to the news that girls and boys were different, and definitely not when the son was only eight years old. The most Ranma had been able to get from his father was that women were okay when you needed a little attention (whatever that meant), but in general were just whiney, hypersensitive, overly emotional, and more trouble than they were worth.

He looked at Akane again. She was definitely hypersensitive. Decomposed Semtex charges were more stable than her. Overly emotional - check. She wasn't all that whiney, preferring instead to scream and shout. More trouble than she was worth?

She smiled at him, making him turn away in a rush, and earning a snicker from her.

The jury was still out on that one...

They stopped before a series of 'mech hangars cut deep into the living rock of the mountain. The Grand Duke turned to regard the two Saotomes.

"Genma, my old friend. You don't know how sorry I am to hear that you had to scrap your family's battlemech."

Genma made an uninspired grunt, though his eyes sparkled with greed.

Soun continued. "I happen to have a Griffin in good condition that was passed down from my mother's side of the family. I would be honored if you would take it into battle once again."

Genma nodded casually, as if he had been expecting this.

"I'd be honored to accept it, Tendo."

"Splendid!"

Soun turned to Kasumi, who would take care of the particulars of transfer. Then he gestured to one of the hangar bay doors, which began to roll up into the ceiling at his cue.

"And for my future son-in-law..."

Ranma froze up. His own battlemech? His heart raced at the possibility, but wouldn't that commit him to marrying Akane? The idea suddenly started losing its appeal. He was not going to get bribed into marrying her. No way.

Then he saw what it was that waited for him within the hangar.

"It's a rare variant," Soun declared. "I must confess that these are so rare in the Confederation that this one hasn't seen much prior use. The weapons loadout sacrificed the machineguns in favor of a twin-rack SRM in the left forearm, but I'm sure that won't be a problem, will it, son?"

Ranma Saotome looked upon a PHX-HK2S Phoenix Hawk Land Air Mech. It squatted in airmech mode like a bird of prey tensed to strike. The red and black paint gleamed under the hangar lights. It was magnificent.

"Uh... No... Not at all..." he droned in awe.

"If you must know, it was Akane who suggested it to me," Soun added.

Ranma turned slowly to Akane, who blushed and looked at the ceiling with an innocent smile. He turned back to the LAM.

"You're just giving it to me?" he asked the Duke.

Soun nodded. "Of course, son. I can't have any mechwarrior son of mine going without a battlemech, can I?"

It keeps coming back to that 'son' thing, doesn't it? Ranma thought bitterly. The Phoenix Hawk cried out to him, but...

"I don't know if I can accept it," he said quietly. He wanted to kick himself. He would never get a chance at a 'mech like this ever again.

"Nonsense, Ranma," Soun replied. "I insist."

"Don't embarrass me, boy," Genma added in a warning tone.

"Ranma!" Akane protested.

He gave them all uneasy looks.

"I haven't said that I was going to marry Akane," he began. A harsh look at his father cut him off before he could protest. "And I don't want it to look like I'm being bribed into doing it. If you want to let me pilot a 'mech, how about lending it to me instead?"

Soun's brow furrowed. Ranma's resistance to the engagement was irritating, but he saw the boy's point. There was no harm in humoring him, he supposed.

"Very well, then," he said genially. "I would be happy to let you borrow the 'mech for the duration of your expedition, with no strings attached. Accept it with my compliments."

Ranma felt a wave of relief wash over him. They weren't going to hold it over his head. He stepped forward and shook the Duke's hand.

Genma chuckled at this.

"Well, now that that's settled, we can get down to some serious business."

"You mean lunch, Saotome?" Soun asked with a grin.

"You got it, Tendo!"

Kasumi rolled her eyes in amusement. "I'll call up to the pantry, Father."

The three started for the elevators, leaving Ranma and Akane alone before the Phoenix Hawk.

"So," Akane began. "You like it?"

Ranma gave her a sidelong glance. "It ain't half-bad," he replied. "So what's the big idea with you telling your father about this?"

Akane crossed her eyes in ire.

"Does everything have to have an ulterior motive for you?" she asked him tersely. "I was just trying to be nice. Is that a problem, Ranma?"

Her response stung him.

"Well?" she pressed.

He didn't know what to say, so he changed the subject.

"So, what do I have to do to take this thing out for a test flight?"

He heard her knuckles crack as she squeezed her hands into fists.

"Damn you, Ranma!" she cried. "You are the most pig-headed, egotistical jerk I have ever met! Can't you for once accept the fact that not everyone is trying to manipulate you, or out to get you? I mean, the nerve of you suggesting that this was some kind of bribe to get you to marry me?!"

He whirled on her. "You might not have meant it that way," he retorted. "But I know how my old man thinks, and I know your old man wants us to get hitched, so yeah, I do think that was what they meant!"

Fire flashed in Akane's eyes.

"How dare you accuse my father of something like that!"

He didn't know what hit him until much later, when Kasumi cheerfully suggested that he see Doctor Tofu about the prominent red hand print on his cheek.

Eight Shining Pearls Fortress

Planet Jusenkyo, Jusenkyo System

Jusenkyo Commonwealth

2 March 3025

Shampoo soaked in the steamy waters of the spa, enjoying the heat and letting it work into her tired muscles. She had been training hard ever since her return to Jusenkyo from Lightoller, mostly to get her mind off the place, and especially Herb. As for Mousse, she felt sorry for him, but tempered this with the knowledge that he was aware of the consequences of his actions.

In spite of this, she couldn't help but feel guilty about him. He wouldn't have helped her at the cost of his own career if he hadn't been in love with her. It was maddening, because at any time in her life she had never given him any indication that she loved him, or ever would.

She lay back in the waters and sipped at a restorative drink. She hadn't set out to think about Mousse, but the fool had managed to intrude into her life even here. What she needed to consider was her own career.

She did not yet have a unit to call her own. For reasons unknown, her great-grandmother was content to keep her out of the regular Commonwealth Army command structure, using her to 'fight fires' here and there, though in many cases it was simply running errands.

Her status as Cologne's errand girl wasn't for a lack of experience or of talent. She had fought in numerous small battles and raids, and had swept the Joketsuzoku fighting tournaments that she had entered, but she longed for real combat, against the real enemies of the Commonwealth. Punitive raids and skirmishes in the Periphery were for amateurs, and she was tired of her amateur status.

She wanted to tangle with the Combine.

It wasn't necessary to remind her that open war with the Combine was not currently in the Commonwealth's best interests, for she had listened well in her Strategic Assessment courses. That did not mean that small unconventional actions were not possible. She would kill for a command in a SpecWar regiment posted to the Combine border.

Though she was only a Mechwarrior, she knew in her heart that she had what it took to command. She preferred tactical level actions rather than the heavy planning and logistics of a theater level battle, and would not be upset to never command higher than a 'mech battalion. That was where a warrior of the Joketsuzoku could find glory and honor, not sitting in a command post kilometers from the lines of engagement.

The sound of splashing water and padding feet on the rough tile of the spa caught her off-guard, and a feather of purest white drifted across her nose. She looked up to see Kima standing over her. Kima's wings were folded behind her back in a manner that suggested concern.

This was the first she had seen of Kima since she had departed for Nerima and the failed summit. She had been in conference with the Council since her return to Jusenkyo. What she had told them had remained in the strictest secrecy ever since.

Shampoo was on good terms with the Joketsuzoku hybrid, mostly because their areas of expertise were so different. Shampoo was a mechwarrior, Kima an _agent provocateur_. There was little opportunity for rivalry. Shampoo's personal attitude towards hybrids was one of measured indifference. She told herself that they were blood of the Joketsuzoku, judged according to their service to the clan. Usually this worked for her, though people like General Herb and his cronies in the so-called 'Musk Dynasty' made her blood run cold.

"Mechwarrior Shampoo," Kima addressed her.

Shampoo tensed. Kima was not usually this formal with her. Something was wrong.

"What is it, sister?" she asked.

"Your presence is demanded before the Matriarch and the Council," she replied sternly. "You are to report promptly to the Council Chambers at seventeen hundred. The uniform will be full-dress black with sidearm."

Shampoo reeled. What had she done? Full-dress uniform with sidearm meant that she might be expected to defend herself and possibly die in single combat. Only the gravest of charges would bring about such an event.

"Kima, what -?"

The hybrid woman looked down at her, and her expression softened. "I cannot tell you the details," she said quietly. "But I caution you to be on your guard, and to say nothing more than the minimum expected of you."

Shampoo nodded in silence as Kima left her.

The last time Shampoo had stood inside the Council Chambers, she was thirteen years old and about to be made a Mechwarrior of the Commonwealth. She had worn her dress-blacks then, though until she had been named a mechwarrior, the right to bear a weapon before the Council was not hers.Today she wore a long curved dagger of cold blue Damascus steel upon her left shoulder; hilt down and crossing over her breasts for an easy cutting-draw with her right hand.

The dagger was not her preferred weapon; that distinction belonged to the heavy mace-like _bon bori_. Her dagger symbolized her status as a mechwarrior, and the deep red and gold bindings of the hilt her place among the Matriarch's bloodline. Her black and silver-trimmed uniform cheongsam was ankle-length and impeccable, having spent most of its service life sheathed in plastic and hanging in her closet. The precious silver and gold thread of the embroidered characters sparkled in the light, as did the eight butterflies chasing flaming pearls that symbolized her House.

Her appearance was calculated to impress upon her accusers who she was and what she stood for, but would that matter if they came from among the Council itself? She still had no idea why she had been called to the Chambers, though from the tone of Kima's voice and her admonition to be on her guard that it was not for a promotion. What had she done wrong? Was it because of General Herb?

Pink and Link approached her as she presented herself at the appointed time outside the Chambers. They were dressed in matching uniforms; their embroidery was skillfully offset to be the opposite of the other. It was the only way Shampoo could have told the twins apart.

"Mechwarrior Shampoo, we shall be your escorts to and from the Chambers," Pink said to her.

Link followed this with, "You shall be upon your honor at all other times."

Shampoo nodded in silent acknowledgement.

They did not have to wait long. A pagegirl appeared from behind a door and motioned for them to enter the Chambers. Pink and Link stood to either side of Shampoo as the trio stepped through the door.

The place was as dim and sparsely furnished as she remembered. Even the smell of the incense had not changed in the last six years. The faces that regarded her from their low couches were just as wrinkled and age-worn, and betrayed no hint of what was to come.

The Elders of the Joketsuzoku were arrayed in a half-circle facing east. Shampoo's place would be opposite them, facing west, and standing while they remained seated. The Chamber was one of the few places in the fortress illuminated by fire rather than electricity, and the sanguine glow of the lamps flickering across the Elders' faces caught in their eyes and upon their embroidered robes in tiny glittering flashes.

Pink and Link brought her to the place expected of her and stepped back a pace to fade into the shadows of the mahogany-paneled walls. The Elders remained silent and impassive, and appeared content to do so forever if necessary. Shampoo's eyes flicked about, searching in vain for her Great-Grandmother, while she remained at attention, staring straight ahead.

Cologne arrived only after an agonizing period of silence. The Matriarch appeared from behind a silk partition and sat upon her couch in the center of the half-circle. She did not look at Shampoo, contenting herself with a few whispered conversations with those on her immediate right and left.

Finally, she looked up as if only just realizing that Shampoo was standing there.

"This Council now convenes an inquest into misconduct by Mechwarrior Shampoo," she announced. Then, addressing Shampoo directly, she went on. "You have been brought before this Council on the gravest matters of Commonwealth Security," she told her. "On your oath as a Mechwarrior of the Commonwealth, and as a Sister of the Joketsuzoku, you will answer truthfully and to the best of your knowledge all questions put before you."

Shampoo cleared her throat quietly and gave the expected reply.

"On my oath, I shall."

Cologne nodded at her statement and then consulted her notes.

"Were you assigned under Classified Directive 25-06 to the planet Lightoller, Epsilon Indi System, on the 11th of January of this year?" she asked.

"I was, Elder," Shampoo responded. Her heart raced at the question. That was the date of the break-in, and the date she had fallen victim to the Jusenkyo Effect.

Cologne continued. "Were you assigned in a temporary duty status to security detail at the Laboratory Complex for the duty period of Ten through Eleven January, inclusive?"

"Yes, Elder."

"According to the incident report signed by Governor-General Herb, a breach of security occured at the Laboratory Complex shortly after midnight local time on the eleventh of January, and that you were the first member of the security detail to engage the intruders. Did this occur as specified?"

Shampoo wished her great-grandmother would get to the point.

"Yes, Elder."

"During this breach, you were to respond as part of the security detail. Were you mounted at this time?"

"No, Elder. I was dismounted at the time of the breach." This referred to the fact that she had not been piloting her battlemech.

"Were you mounted when you first engaged the intruders?"

Shampoo shook her head slowly. "No, Elder. I was not."

"Then you responded in a capacity for which you were neither trained nor qualified; nor was it in keeping with your orders," Cologne intoned. Technically, as a mechwarrior, her required response during the security breach was to secure her designated area with her battlemech. The job of rooting out intruders in the labs went to a squad of grunt infantry that had been too slow in responding that night.

Shampoo was not going to take this accusation lying down. Mustering her courage, she spoke out.

"Elder, the designated security was not on-station. I responded to the Laboratory Complex only after several calls over the intercom for the Reaction Force went unacknowledged."

Cologne raised an eyebrow at this, as did several other Elders.

"The matter of the security detachment is a local matter, and the concern of Governor-General Herb," she said formally. "It is not within the bounds of this investigation into your misconduct."

She looked down at her notes again.

"The result of your disobedience was the escape of the intruders from the Complex, and your own exposure to the Jusenkyo Effect - an exposure that you did not immediately report to higher authority, and in contravention of posted regulations and the Governor-General's standing orders. According to an affidavit signed by Doctor Gaido, you did not report your exposure until _twenty-three days_ after the incident."

Her great-grandmother's words stung. Her knees became weak, and it was all she could do to remain standing at attention.

Cologne continued. "According to the report, when you finally reported to your duty station in your designated capacity, you gave mounted pursuit to the two intruders, who had stolen an All Terrain Vehicle. Is this correct?"

Shampoo was stony faced.

"Yes, Elder."

Cologne once again consulted her notes.

"At Map Reference Delta-Six-Mike by Echo-Three-Lima, Local Time zero-six-three-nine; you reported destroying the All Terrain Vehicle and killing the intruders with a volley of short range missile fire. Is this correct?"

"Yes, Elder," she said with a thickening voice.

Cologne regarded her closely.

"Did you personally verify the deaths of the intruders?"

Shampoo cringed inwardly. This was what they were after. It could only mean that at least one of the intruders had survived her attack, and had somehow escaped off-world. The implications for Commonwealth security were staggering, and she had been responsible.

She swallowed hard and faced the Elders.

"No, Elders. I did not personally verify the deaths of the intruders. The damage to the ATV appeared severe enough for me to make the assumption that no survivors were possible."

Cologne and the other Elders whispered amongst themselves for several minutes while Shampoo perspired in her uniform. This was it, the end of a career that had not even begun. If the Elders were kind, they would simply have her put to death - perhaps even in a trial by combat, fighting until she was at last overcome. That at least would be something better than being stripped of her mechwarrior status and cast down into the ranks of the lowborn.

When the Elders had finished their brief discussion, Cologne signalled for Pink and Link, who escorted Shampoo from the Chambers. They remained with her outside, keeping to themselves, and leaving Shampoo to her own dark thoughts. Obviously the Elders were deciding on her punishment.

She was called back inside the Chamber after nearly half an hour of waiting and worrying. The Elders continued to regard her in their impassive way, leaving her with no indication of what was to come. Only Cologne's face showed any expression, and it was one of great disappointment.

"Mechwarrior Shampoo," her great-grandmother intoned. "This Council has reviewed the evidence presented to it, and finds that you are guilty of one count of disobeying orders, one count of dereliction of duty, and one count of negligence in battle during a matter that threatens the security of the Commonwealth at its highest levels."

Shampoo felt her world collapsing around her. The dereliction of duty charge alone could bring a death sentence if the Council was so inclined.

Cologne continued in a dry voice. "This Council will reconvene at a later date to determine punitive sanctions. At this time you are remanded to the authority of the Special Operations Command, effective immediately." She looked to the other Elders. "Are there any further comments or questions from the Council?" There were none. "This concludes this inquest. Mechwarrior Shampoo shall remain in chamber after the Council departs."

Shampoo stood as still as death while the old crones of the Council stood and made their shaky exits. Cologne remained behind, as did Pink and Link, her perpetual shadows.

Once the rest of the Council had departed, Cologne stepped out from behind the low table that served as her desk, and approached Shampoo.

"I am extremely disappointed in you, Great-Granddaughter" she said to her. "Your conduct on Lightoller was deplorable. I thought I had trained you better than that, but apparently I have failed. You are rash and undisciplined; these are qualities that do not become a mechwarrior, nor a future leader of mechwarriors."

Shampoo hung her head in shame. There was nothing she could say to her great-grandmother that would make any difference. All she could do was accept her fate.

"I await my punishment, Great-Grandmother."

Cologne tapped her gnarled ashwood staff on the floor. "That remains to be seen."

Shampoo looked up at this, clearly confused. Cologne answered her unspoken question.

"This incident is as much General Herb's responsibility as yours," she told her. "Normally I would have no choice but to see you answer for your failure, but circumstances have allowed me some latitude on your behalf."

A glimmer of hope welled within Shampoo's eyes. Cologne continued to speak.

"Kima's report from Nerima was quite disturbing," she said. She then produced several stereographs and showed them to Shampoo. "The Duke has thwarted Combine and League attempts to secure his youngest daughter as a bride by engaging her to a mechwarrior named Ranma Saotome."

Shampoo recognized one of the stereographs. It was taken by a button-hole camera concealed in Kima's clothing. It showed a buxom red-haired girl being carried on a litter. Her left arm was swathed in bandages. Shampoo had seen that girl before, and would never forget her.

Cologne read the look of hate on her great-granddaughter's face and had her suspicions confirmed.

"That's the girl who broke into the Lab," Shampoo said angrily.

"That also happens to be the young man engaged to Duke Tendo's daughter," Cologne added, showing her stereographs of Ranma in his normal body. "They are one and the same, thanks to the Jusenkyo Effect."

Shampoo looked at the stereograph of male Ranma. His arrogance was appalling. It made her want to wipe the smile off his smug face. "Send me to Nerima, Great-Grandmother," she pleaded. "I will kill this Ranma Saotome as atonement for my failure."

"That will become your assignment soon enough," Cologne agreed. "But there are more important matters that may well require Saotome to remain among the living for the moment. It appears that this young man and his father are engaged in a search for the legendary Ryuugenzawa."

Shampoo frowned. Ryuugenzawa was a story mechwarriors told their children at bedtime. "You don't believe they've found it, do you, Great-Grandmother?" she asked.

"I am of two minds," she replied. "However, Grand Duke Tendo is taking it seriously enough. There is no other rational explanation for why he withdrew his surrender offer, and it would also explain his haste to engage Akane Tendo to Saotome. On the off chance that Ryuugenzawa _does_ exist, the Commonwealth must possess its secrets - or else destroy Ryuugenzawa to keep it from our enemies in the Furinkan Combine."

She handed Shampoo a set of flimsies. "Your assignment is to accompany Agent Kima and a select mission team to determine the validity of the Ryuugenzawa rumors. If it exists, you are to report its location and other key information to the Commonwealth at all costs; then you will terminate Ranma Saotome and his father, and return home. If Ryuugenzawa is a hoax, you have only to terminate Ranma Saotome and his father, and then return home. Use discretion in the matter, as the Commonwealth wishes to avoid a diplomatic entanglement if at all possible."

She narrowed her eyes at Shampoo.

"Your conduct of the mission will have a direct bearing on the decision of the Council regarding possible disciplinary sanctions levied against you. Do not fail, Shampoo, or your fate will indeed be out of my hands."

Nerima Confederation Phoenix Hawk LAM #T507-1

12,000 meters above Mean Sea Level

Planet Nerima, Capella System

2 March 3025

The pressure suit inflated against Ranma Saotome's stomach and thighs with a soft hiss, constricting and keeping precious blood where it was needed. A grunt of exertion sounded over the crackle of the aircomm net. To anyone on the ground who might have looked straight up in that moment, he was a rapidly climbing black dot against the clouds.

The LAM's engine turbines shrilled above and behind him, and the low drone of the fusion plant was a rumble in the pit of his stomach. Watching his engine status with half an eye, he eased the throttles forward and into overthrust. The reaction was almost instantaneous; a kick in the seat of the pants and the sudden howl of the turbines as raw helium plasma was dumped into the thrust coils. His relative airspeed - along with his altimeter - jumped dramatically, pushing him through the sound barrier and into a zone of eerie silence.

He was riding a fusion powered comet climbing straight for the empty heavens. Twin streaks of flame streamed from the drives with blue-on-blue shock diamonds burning brightly deep within the ducts. If he continued his climb he would find himself in low orbit very soon. It was tempting, but he was not cleared for an orbital burn by the local Close Orbital and Aerospace Control, or COAC.

The aircomm crackled in his ears as if to remind him of this.

"Tango Five-Oh-Seven, Nerima COAC; please advise on your altitude excursion, over."

Ranma thumbed the radio 'talk' button on his control yoke. Killjoys...

"Nerima COAC, this is Tango Five-Oh-Seven; I thought I made it clear that I was conducting a performance test."

"Copy that, Tango Five-Oh-Seven. Nerima COAC advises that you are not clear for flight operations above Flight Level Three-Zero-Zero."

"Roger that," Ranma grumbled. A flick of his eyes across his HUD confirmed what he already knew: he wasn't even close to the 30,000 meters above Mean Sea Level limit!

He eased off on the throttle, and pushed the nose of the Phoenix Hawk down into level flight. It was time to see what this thing's wings were made of. But first he would have to ask 'Mother May I?' from his babysitters.

"Nerima COAC, this is Tango Five-Oh-Seven; request permission for unrestricted flight ops below Flight Level Three-Zero-Zero."

There was a pause, probably longer than necessary.

"Copy That, Tango Five-oh-Seven. You are clear for unrestricted flight ops below three-zero-zero and within the proscribed area. Squawk Three-Seven Hundred to confirm."

Ranma dialed his 'mech's transponder setting to '3700' as ordered, and shoved the throttle forward again. The Phoenix Hawk LAM responded with another jolt of power and an angry scream from the engines. He set his leading edge trim with a brief thought through his neurohelmet, and then pushed the control column forward. The red and black aerofighter's nose sank towards the grassy veldt far below him. The Phoenix Hawk LAM was now in a steep full power dive.

Ranma sank into a deep trance, letting the myriad inputs from the 'mech's internal sensors wash over him. He could feel the freezing bite of the rushing air over his wings as if it was his own skin, and the throbbing of the reactor coolant circulating pumps echoed the jiggling of his own insides as the ship tore straight down at the planet. Tiny stress gauges flexed and strained within the internal structure of the ship, keying him to the health of the machine. The steady drone of the inverters supplying direct-current power to the 'mech's myomer bundles told him of the integrity of the muscle groups and their power and control feeds. The faint tickling of microwave energy captured by his phased array radar receiver was clean and free of extraneous signal noise - a vital quality when his life could depend on the radar data he received in combat.

All in all, Duke Tendo's 'loaner' was in fantastic shape. It was far superior to the old clunker he used to pilot. He was going to hate to have to give it up at the end of their wild goose chase for Ryuugenzawa.

He pulled several hard banking turns, followed by a climbing inside loop that twisted into a split-S halfway through the maneuver. He gutted out the gee-forces with strangled gasps over the aircomm net, fighting for breath even as he squeezed his abdomen and thigh muscles with all his might to supplement the effects of his pressure suit. The procedure, which was as old as aerial combat, would let him take up to an additional gravity of acceleration before he risked a blackout. At the fringes of his vision lurked icy walls of darkness that threatened to swallow him. He eased off his second climbing loop slightly and felt the blood pounding in his brain with renewed vigor.

Kasumi Tendo peered through a large set of field glasses to the open blue sky. Akane stood beside her as they watched Ranma's aerobatics from the castle's garden terrace. The sound of the Phoenix Hawk's engines was a low rumble, faint and distant as a far away thunderstorm.

"He's quite a pilot," Kasumi observed.

Akane didn't reply, causing her older sister's mouth to turn down slightly at the corners.

"Akane?"

"What is it, Kasumi?" she said wearily.

"I don't understand why you are so angry at Ranma. He has always been very kind and polite to me."

"Terrific," Akane snarled. "YOU marry him."

Kasumi's eyes widened with momentary surprise. She then composed herself, and placed a friendly hand upon her baby sister's shoulder. "Akane," she began calmly. "That's no way to talk to me."

Akane's shame was evident, and she cast her eyes to the grass at her feet. "I'm sorry, Kasumi."

"Now I can understand why you are upset with the engagement," Kasumi went on. "Father has certainly outdone himself, but this promise must be kept. Our honor -"

"- I understand about how honor must be met," Akane interrupted dourly. "You don't need to remind me about it."

Kasumi tried another tack.

"This can't be any easier for Ranma," she said, gesturing up into the sky where the red and black Phoenix Hawk courted the clouds. "You can try to look at things from his point of view at the very least."

"I have," Akane replied.

"And...?"

"He's still a jerk," she concluded. "Even if this engagement isn't his fault."

Kasumi tsked to herself.

"For a jerk he certainly went out of his way to protect you."

Akane tensed up with sudden ire. Leave it Kasumi to drag _that_ old chestnut out of the fire!

"Of course," she replied tersely. "After all, I'm his meal ticket, right?"

"Akane, you know that he doesn't think of you like that," Kasumi scolded. "If he did, would he have insisted upon merely borrowing a 'mech that he knew Father was eager to _give_ to him?"

Akane bit her lip. Score another one for Kasumi.

"Now, Akane. Tell me what's really bothering you. It's not just Ranma."

Akane stepped back from her sister and sighed. "It's a lot of things, Kasumi. Ever since word of the Combine's attack on Calypso, I've been on edge. The 1st Nerima Guards are about to deploy for a counterattack. This could be the most important battle they will ever fight, and I won't be leading them! I should be with them, not getting ready to chase some stupid fairy tale!"

Kasumi nodded sympathetically. "I understand, Akane. But at the same time, if Mister Saotome is correct about Ryuugenzawa, then you will be a part of the expedition that can actually save the Confederation. Battles are won and lost, and soldiers live or die, but what matters most is the final outcome of the war."

She stepped closer to her sister, placing both hands on her shoulders now. "Your burden won't be any easier than those of the troops on the battlefield, Akane, but your success will make their struggles and their sacrifices mean something worthwhile."

Akane nodded slowly at her sister's words.

"I don't wish to weigh your spirit down any more than it is, Akane," Kasumi continued. "But the fate of our people rests in your hands, _and_ in Ranma's. Promise me that you will work together for a future we can all be proud of."

Akane looked up at her sister and saw the weariness that hung behind her eyes. No one had shouldered the burden of the war against the Furinkan Combine more than Kasumi. Though she was young and pretty looking by nearly anyone's standards, Akane could see how old and drained Kasumi felt inside.This was more than just a motherly admonition from her sister, it was an urgent plea.

Her heart clenched tight in her chest and her throat began to sting with grief. She caught Kasumi up in a fierce embrace, clinging tightly to her sister in a way she hadn't since she was very little. She felt Kasumi's arms close around her and hold her gently in response, and felt a single splash of warmth upon her arm that trickled down and was lost within the fabric of her blouse.

"I promise, Big Sister," she whispered.

"I know you'll do just fine," Kasumi responded. "You always make me proud, Akane. I know if Mother were here, she would feel the same way."

They held each other for some time in silence, the knowledgelingering in the backs of both their minds that this would be the last real time together they would have until the end of the war.

"Oh my," Kasumi exclaimed suddenly. "Ranma is diving awfully steep for being so low to the ground."

Akane turned from her sister to see the Phoenix Hawk LAM plummeting straight for the ground near the Battlemech Firing Range.

"Pull up, you idiot...!" Akane whispered to the sky.

A strident alarm tone sounded in his headset as the Phoenix Hawk LAM approached Vmax, or the maximum permissable velocity for the current atmospheric pressure and density. Ranma's hand clenched tighter on the throttle controls as his mind opened further to the cries of his stress gauges. He wanted to see right now how much punishment the fighter could really take, since the middle of battle was no time to discover your limitations.

When the alarm inputs from the stress gauges in the wings and the vertical stabilizers began to sound, he eased the throttle back to seventy percent and gingerly pulled out of his dive. To 'flat-hat' the LAM so close to the edge of the performance envelope was asking to get your wings snapped off.

He made it with an easy hundred meters to spare before he ran out of sky, and tugged at the transformation lever. The Phoenix Hawk barrel-rolled into airmech mode, a hybrid between sleek aerospace fighter and the human form Battlemech. The legs dropped down from the undercarriage and fired blue cones of braking thrust, stopping the 'mech in midair and bringing it into a hover.

The aerofighter had performed as well as expected, though Ranma was well aware of the fact that his LAM was no match for a dedicated aerospace fighter of the same displacement. For one thing they were a lot faster, and definitely better armed and armored. That meant that any dogfights he found himself in would require him to fly with as much brains as guts.

When the airmech was in a stable hover at ten meters, Ranma shifted it into Battlemech mode and dropped it to the loamy soil of the plains surrounding the mountain and the city of Gondolin. The fifty-ton war machine touched down into a crouch with a tooth-jarring impact and a groan of hydraulics, its gunpod heavy laser at the ready. Ranged on the plains before the Phoenix Hawk out to four hundred meters were numerous target silhouettes in the shape of battlemechs, tanks, and armored vehicles.

His gunsight floated in the HUD, its pipper an angry red dot haloed in green upon one of the targets. A squeeze of the trigger sent a pulse of light from the rifle-like heavy laser in the Phoenix Hawk's right hand. The beam burned into the steel target with a coruscating spray of sparks, its ten-thousand degree heat melting through the metal and bursting forth into a roiling cloud of vaporized iron.

Ranma frowned at the results of his hit. The aimpoint was off by several milliradians, an error of about a meter at the maximum range of the laser, and completely unacceptable for an energy weapon. The targeting system was badly out of alignment. He could have the armorers realign the targeting system, but that was a band-aid fix.

Part of the problem lay in the LAM's Anderson 2000 series heavy laser, which was so unreliable that on this particular 'mech, it had been replaced with the standard Phoenix Hawk Harmon series weapon. The other part of the problem was that the LAM's fire control system had been specially designed around the primary weapon - a laser whose integrity had not stood the test of time and had been replaced.

The odds of finding an Anderson 2000 laser in good working order almost two centuries after the production facilities had been bombed into rubble were practically nonexistent. The alternative was to find a Tek Tru-Trak fire control system, which was the standard Phoenix Hawk unit - but that was its own set of problems. For one thing, the engineering protocols that separated the two systems were almost two hundred years apart. Ranma didn't know of any techs who could gateway the older Tek system with the more modern Allied Aerospace technology without creating a cumbersome and unreliable mess.

A dark thought passed through him, dimming several lines of indicator lights on his neurohelmet display and bringing a chirp of protest from his main computer. If Ryuugenzawa did exist, and was still intact, then he would never have to worry about jerry-rigged fire control systems ever again. But that would also mean that his father was right about Ryuugenzawa and that he was wrong.

The thought passed, and the neurohelm indicators shot back into the green. The Phoenix Hawk sprang forward, weapons blazing, as Ranma attacked the silhouettes with gusto. Those that were not burned down with his lasers felt the double-barreled punch of his arm-mounted twin Short Range Missile rack. Anything still standing was dealt a punishing series of kicks, stomps, punches, and chops.

The Phoenix Hawk LAM drifted into the hangar bay on a column of superheated air from the leg thrusters. Genma Saotome watched Ranma guide the 50 ton airmech to a perfect touchdown in the designated revetment, and waited until the turbines began spooling down before approaching. Ground crew in heavy canvas and metal foil smocks were already connecting insulated hoses to the airmech's exterior coolant ports.

The tinted canopy rose from the fuselage, and Ranma's helmeted head became visible to him. Genma waited at the foot of the Phoenix Hawk as one of the ground crew extended the boarding ladder and climbed up to safe the ejector seat and help Ranma disconnect from the 'mech. The bundle of control and indication feeds, life support, and pressurization hoses were carefully removed and stowed in a clean plastic pouch. Only then was Ranma allowed to stand up and exit the ship, a formality that clearly irritated him.

He unlocked the neck ring seals and twisted his helmet off. His black hair was matted against his head with sweat, and he looked worn from his exertions, but his eyes were bright with excitement.

"How did it go, boy?" Genma asked his son.

Ranma flashed him a 'thumbs up.'

"Great," he replied. "Heck, it was almost worth the three year wait."

Genma nodded in reply. "I'm glad to hear it. Don't bother washing up; I've got a mind to continue some necessary training with you."

Ranma gave his father a sour look.

"You gotta be kidding me," he said to him. "We already worked out today, and I just put myself through the nine-gee wringer up there. I'm beat."

"All the more reason to train," Genma retorted. "You've got fifteen minutes to change out of your pressure suit and get to the big bore range."

Ranma cracked his knuckles in frustration. It was nothing new to see Pop get gung ho over training, but there was something else in the tone of his voice that bothered him.

"Whatever."

The castle maintained a firing range at the base of the mountain for large caliber, or 'big bore' small arms; usually heavy machineguns, grenade launchers, and light cannon. Ranma was unsure what his father had in mind for training. He had maintained his proficiency in just about every crew-served or man portable heavy weapon to be found in the Inner Sphere - in keeping with the Anything-Goes credo of being ready for anything at any time.

Genma stood impatiently at the end of the firing line with a Krey Ballistics 20mm autocannon cradled in his massive arms. At first Ranma thought he was going to have to do something stupid like field strip and reassemble the thing blindfolded - a waste of time for someone who could practically do so in his sleep.

Then he saw the boxes of Gelshok ammunition sitting on the shooter's bench. The hard gelatine projectiles were used in live-fire exercises by infantry against vehicles and battlemechs, and in more oppressive regimes they were used as less-than-lethal riot control measures. Getting hit with one in the 20mm range was the equivalent of getting popped with a 90 MPH fastball; not likely to cause a life-threatening injury, but definitely something that would knock the snot out of you. It was the sort of thing you wanted to avoid if you could help it.

Which was, of course, the object of today's training.

"How's the arm, boy?" Genma asked his son.

Ranma rubbed at the mauve film of spray-on plastic flesh that protected his skin grafts.

"It itches, but that's about it," he replied in a steely voice. He did not want to show his apprehension for the day's training, as it would be asking for trouble.

Genma slapped an eight-round magazine into the weapon.

"Good. You've obviously gotten out of practice against firearms, Ranma, and I mean to do something about that. We'll start at fifty meters for now, and work in from there."

He jacked a shell into the chamber.

"Get moving, boy."

Ranma started for the fifty meter line without a word, dreading the moment when he would face his father over the barrel of a 20mm cannon. He didn't question the fact that he was going out there without any personal protection - complaining would only make it harder for him. He had learned that lesson well enough in the sixteen years he had spent training in the Anything Goes Style. Besides, this wouldn't be the first time he had done this drill cold, and the sooner he got it over with, the better.

The fifty meter line was marked with metal target silhouettes of men and light vehicles. Ranma chose a spot between two targets that would give him a little room to manuever. His father must have paid off the Rangemaster, because he could not imagine any rational human being allowing this kind of activity on a firing range.

Genma settled into a prone position at the firing line and took aim. It was hard to see him clearly from a such a distance, but Ranma focused himself to the task. His father would hold his breath just prior to shooting, and he was supposed to detect that subtle shift in the breathing pattern and react in time to keep from getting shot. He had to move before the trigger was squeezed, for even a less-than-lethal gelshok round was still traveling faster than the speed of sound. He'd get hit before he even heard the weapon's report.

He jerked to the right as the cannon's muzzle leapt off the berm of the firing line. The shell sailed centimeters past his head, close enough to feel it zip by. His heart pounded in his ears, deafening him to the sound of the gelshok round smashing into a flat pink splatter pattern on a silhouette at the hundred meter line.

"What's the big freakin' idea of aiming at my head?!" he screamed at his father.

Genma replied with another shot.

Ranma realized this with enough time to only just throw himself clear. The passing shell clipped his tank top and ripped out one of the seams. Pink goo splattered against his skin in a stinging spray.

"You've gone soft on me, Ranma!" Genma yelled when his son tumbled through an evasive roll to pop upright and ready for number three. "Don't think for a minute that you deserve having it easy after that disgraceful performance against your poor fiancee's kidnapper!"

"Hey, I saved her, didn't I?" Ranma returned. He was angry, but also intensely focused, the adrenaline coursing through him and making time slow down.

"Twenty meter line, boy!" Genma called, taking aim again. "Move your sorry ass!"

Ranma sprinted for the twenty meter line, jinking just enough to spoil Genma's aim. His father was shooting from the kneeling position now, and fortunately for Ranma, the 20mm Krey had a hefty twelve pound trigger pull, which made it easy to see the forearm muscles flexing as Genma squeezed the trigger. The cannon fired as he stopped short, nearly catching him off-balance and out of luck, but not nearly enough.

"Have to do better than that!" Ranma chortled. He was in the groove now, and though being closer meant less time to react, at least now he was in a better position to see the shot coming.

"Don't get cocky!" Genma shouted angrily. He fired again, aiming low for an extremely painful shot to the thighs. Ranma sidestepped it easily, and anticipated the follow up shot by leaping into the air and spinning to give himself the necessary angular momentum to dodge a third shot when he landed.

The third shot didn't come. He landed on the balls of his feet, ready to break for safety, but Genma chose instead to stand.

"Always jumping, eh boy?" he said tersely to his son. "Even in a 'mech, that's your favorite tactic."

"Hey, it works," Ranma returned.

"It makes you predictable, you idiot!"

Genma fired again, but Ranma was already bending double backwards. The pig-tailed martial artist planted his hands in the sandy soil and flipped over with a smug grin on his face.

Genma raised an eyebrow at this.

"Not bad, boy. Not bad. You might make something of yourself yet."

Ranma was taken aback by this. Compliments did not come freely from the lips of his father, even ones as shallow as this one.

"Hey, you really mean that?"

"Of course not!" He fired again.

Ranma remained still, letting the shell pass harmlessly over his head. His father gave him a hard look while still sighting down the barrel of the weapon.

"Awfully sure of yourself, eh boy?"

"Come on, Pop," Ranma said in reply. "What's the big deal with all of this? What gives?"

Genma's face hardened and his eyes narrowed in distaste.

"Has it occured to you that we're about to embark on one of the most dangerous missions of our lives? On top of that, we're going to be responsible for the safety of your fiancee. Don't think for one moment that I'm going to cut you any slack where her welfare is concerned!"

"What?" Ranma cried in disbelief. "No way! _She's_ coming with us?"

"That's right, son."

"What for?" Ranma protested. "She's just gonna get in our way, and besides that, who says I even want her coming along?"

"That's not your decision to make, Ranma," Genma said evenly. "Now are you going to stand there, or are you going to do something about this cannon?"

"I'd like to shove it straight up your ass, old man."

"You're long on talk, boy."

Ranma remained where he was.

"Well?" Genma demanded of him.

"You've only got one more round left in that thing," Ranma said to him. "So go ahead, take your shot. When you miss, I'm gonna beat the living shit out of you."

Genma shook his head sadly.

"Son, you had best hope that I miss."

Ranma watched as his father drew taut, pulling the stock of the cannon hard up against the meaty spot of his shoulder to absorb the punishing recoil. His eyes noted the angle of deflection of the cannon's ribbed muzzle brake, and extrapolated an impact point. From there it was merely an exercise in getting that portion of his anatomy - the top of his head - out of the way. He ducked.

The cannon's report at twenty meters was ear-splitting, but even worse was the sound of the shell passing over him. It was not the buzzing sound of a gelshok round, but the keening zing of something far more dangerous.

The sharp _crump_ of an Armor Piercing EXplosive round sounded behind him as the shell burst against a silhouette. The ring of steel echoed in his ears as bits of shrapnel pattered to the ground. The APEX round had been too close at twenty meters to arm its explosive charge, but that wouldn't have mattered much if it had struck him in the head. He stood quaking with terror after the fact, not saying a word.

"If you're to become a great martial artist someday, you can't take anything for granted, boy," Genma said, lowering the smoking muzzle of the cannon. "Not even me."

Nothing was said between father and son as they returned to Azure Cloud Castle. Genma was satisfied with the training session - and with the effect it had on his son. Ranma was too angry with his father and too shaken by the live round that could have blown his head off to say anything.

They were a familiar sight now with the troops garrisoned at the castle, and passed without pause through the layers of security that protected the Tendos. Soun had decided to let Akane loose from the dreaded South Tower, and the castle seemed a less foreboding place than it had in the days following the attempt to kidnap her. It was even beginning to feel like home, which was an odd experience for Ranma, who had never spent much time in any one place. Two weeks in the castle had seemed like two months elsewhere.

That bothered him almost as much as his father's idea of training for the day. He was starting to get used to the idea of living in the castle and being at least a small part of the Tendos' lives. It helped that Kasumi was always there to make him feel at home. Because of the renewed offensive by the Furinkan Combine, Nabiki had just returned from wherever it was that the Duke had sent her, but she was staying in the city of Gondolin at the foot of the mountain and so wasn't around to make them feel like unwanted guests. Akane was still sore at him for gods only knew what reason, but then, what else was new?

He guessed that none of it really mattered, because they were going to be getting underway within two days on their fool's errand to find Ryuugenzawa. The last logistical hang-ups were being resolved, and the DropShip that was to be their primary transportation between jump point and planetary surface was to arrive from the service yard sometime today. It would only take a day or so to load the DropShip, and then they could leave at any time.

He had no idea when they would be returning, if ever. Should his suspicions about Ryuugenzawa prove correct, it would be a very long time before his father admitted defeat and gave up the search. Perhaps he never would, or at least not until he went to his grave.

There was the crew to consider as well. They were supposed to be covert operatives and used to long term deployments, but they were still members of the Confederation armed forces, and at least a few of them had to have family somewhere. How long could the search last before the threat of mutiny reared its ugly head?

Ranma saw that this was at the heart of his unease with his father's plan. For the last three years they had been going it alone, just the two of them, answering to nothing and no one. It was slow going without their own ships, but at least they didn't have to worry about what they would do if they had to beat a hasty retreat. Now they were going to have a whole crew of soldiers, sailors, and technicians along for the ride. The entire mission would depend on them in one way or another, and at the same time Ranma felt responsible for them, unnecessary baggage though they were in his eyes.

They reached the Salon, a common hangout for them, and the place where Genma and Grand Duke Tendo often played a game of shogi. Since the Combine's renewed offensive against the Confederation, and word of troop movements by the League on their shared border, the Duke's time had been taken up with conferences and the hasty preparations for the expedition to Ryuugenzawa. It had been a busy few days.

They did not expect to find the Grand Duke of the entire Nerima Confederation face down on the plush carpet, groveling before a wizened old man who looked less than a meter tall.

Ranma turned to his father for an explanation, but his old man was frozen in place, his face ashen with fear and dismay.

"Hey Pop, what gives?"

The geezer who stood imperiously over the Duke turned to face them upon hearing this.

"So, if it isn't Genma Saotome..." he intoned. "I never thought I'd lay eyes on your sorry carcass ever again."

Tears sprang from Genma's eyes.

"Master!" he cried, and flung himself prostrate before the old man. "Oh Master, I'm so glad you're safe and sound! We feared the worst!"

"Stuff it," Happousai replied, drawing his finger across his throat. "I didn't come here for revenge." He cast a glance towards the Duke. "You two took your best shot, but truth be known, you should have finished me off personally rather than leaving me to die at the bottom of the ocean. If you clowns had actually paid attention to the charts, you'd have known the water wasn't all that deep there to begin with. Even a Locust has more watertight integrity than what a mere two-hundred meters of sea pressure can dish out."

Ranma cocked his head in wonderment.

"Who's this old freak?" he asked his groveling father. "And what'd he do to make you want to kill him?"

Happousai's eyes went wide in disbelief.

"Freak?" he croaked. "Freak?"

"Show your Master some respect, boy!" Genma cried nervously, and reached up to pull Ranma to the carpet by his shirt.

Ranma shrugged him off. "Master? Him?"

Happousai stumped over to him. He looked him up and down as if were planning on buying some livestock.

"You must be Genma's boy," he observed. "Soun was just telling me all about you." He looked him over again. "I must confess that I'm a bit disappointed by what I see, but you'll have to do."

Ranma cracked his knuckles. "What's that supposed to mean, you old fart?"

Happousai nudged the cowering Genma with his foot. "I can see where he gets his sense of respect."

"Don't kill me, Master!"

"Aw, knock it off already!" Happousai barked. "I said I wasn't here for revenge. I hate to say it, but I'm getting on in years. And so I'm here to train my Heir to the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts." He looked at Ranma a third time, adding a reproachful shake of his head. "I can see what you two bozos have left me to work with. He's not much, but we'll see if I can still make a silk purse from a sow's ear."

Ranma grit his teeth. "Just who do you think you are, anyway?"

Genma succeeded in grabbing his son and pulling him to the carpet. "You idiot! That is the Master of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts! Don't you listen, boy?!"

Ranma looked up at the wizened Happousai.

"_That's_ the master of the Anything Goes School? You gotta be kidding me. And here I was proud to be part of the school..."

Happousai began to turn red.

"He didn't mean it!" Genma pleaded. "He's just a foolish boy! No harm done!" He turned angrily to Ranma. "Show some respect, boy! Bow before your master!"

Ranma stood and folded his arms over his chest.

"I ain't bowing an' scraping for the likes of this old fart."

"Ranma!" Soun begged. "You know not what you say! The Master -"

"- Has had enough of your lip," Happousai finished for the Duke. "Prepare yourself!"

Akane and Kasumi walked in, oblivious to what was about to happen.

"Hi, Dad," Akane called to her father. Then she realized that he was prostrate on the ground and looking up in terror at a strange old man. "Dad?"

"Not now, Akane!" Soun protested.

Happousai was distracted from Ranma, and turned to face the two Tendo daughters. His eyes lit up with delight. "Hotcha!" he cried, and leaped with a lecher's glee for them.

He made it about half a meter before being pounded senseless into the floor by Ranma's fist.

"Some master of martial arts," Ranma cracked. "Getting distracted in the middle of a fight by a couple of girls." He turned to his father, who looked on in mute horror at what his son had done. "You're actually afraid of this guy, Pop?"

"Y-You don't realize w-what you've d-done, b-b-boy," Genma gibbered quietly.

"What's going on here?" Akane demanded of them.

"That's what I'd like to know," Ranma replied.

Happousai pulled himself upright from the carpet and turned to Ranma. "Not bad," he observed. "Perhaps I misjudged you." Then he cracked his knuckles with determination, his wispy moustache trembling with loosely restrained rage. "Now... DIE!!!"

A burst of power flooded the room, and Happousai seemed to grow to ten times his normal size. Two massive hands loomed over the pig-tailed mechwarrior, poised to strike. Ranma stood stunned by Happousai's very battle aura. There was an intense flash of light, and then silence.

Ranma lay unconscious on the ground, with Happousai, now normal sized, standing victorious over him.

"Ranma!" Akane cried, loudest among the others.

"Oh dear," Kasumi added. "I hope Ranma is all right."

Happousai patted his hands as if shaking off the dust of a simple chore. "None can stand before the power of my battle aura attack," he said calmly. "I'll give him credit for landing the first blow, but it's the last blow that counts."

He reached over and grabbed a convenient pitcher of ice water from a tray, and splashed its contents on the fallen mechwarrior.

"Wakey wakey time, boy! That was your first lesson!"

Ranma screeched with surprise and sat bolt upright, her breasts bouncing in a manner that was immediately noticed by Happousai.

"What the hell was that for?" she cried angrily.

Happousai looked at the empty pitcher and then back to Ranma's chest.

"Are those what I think they are?" he asked himself in disbelief. Unlike most people outside of the Joketsuzoku, Happousai had an inkling that such things were possible.

"Oh, how shameful!" Soun wailed from the floor.

Ranma brushed away streams of water from her eyes. "Yeah, so what, you old freak! Go ahead and stare. Everyone else does!"

"You've been to the Jusenkyo Labs? SWEET-O!" Happousai cried in delight. His eyes went dewy as he glomped onto Ranma's bosom and snuggled close. "You're definitely my heir, all right! We'll have to spend extra time training together - just the two of us, of course!"

Ranma crushed Happousai once more into the carpet.

"Not now, not ever, you lech..."

"We're all here now, correct?" Grand Duke Tendo asked them as they assembled near the elevators to the hangars.

Ranma and Genma were there, both looking uneasily at Happousai, who stood next to Doctor Tofu Ono and discussed esoteric martial arts. The doctor was accompanying them as their Medical Officer, and one who could pilot a battlemech when things got ugly. Kasumi was also with them, notepad and stylus in hand to take down comments and suggestions from the final tour before departure.

No one had invited Happousai along, and aside from Ranma, no one had the courage to tell him so. Soun and Genma were disgusting in their timid fawning over the little bastard. The next thing they knew, Happousai was going to invite himself into the expedition!

Akane arrived even as they looked around to confirm that all were present, earning an immediate double take from Ranma, and distracting him from his dark thoughts of Happousai.

"Akane!" Happousai cried. "What happened to your lovely hair?" He seemed on the edge of tears.

"Uh, yeah," Ranma added, dumbfounded. "What happened?"

Her long blue-black hair was gone. Her new hairstyle fell just above her shoulders. She looked almost like a different person, and had at least to Ranma.

"I had a little extra time before we were supposed to meet, so I had it cut," she replied, walking past Ranma to stand next to her sister. Ranma could smell the lilacs and heather of the stylist's shampoo lingering in her hair as she passed. "If I'm supposed to be traveling incognito, I have to change my appearance." She cast a wistful glance towards Doctor Tofu before turning back to Ranma. "The hair was the easiest way to go. It was getting to be kind of a hassle anyway. Kasumi knows what I mean."

Kasumi nodded quietly. It had been her gentle suggestion to Akane that had prompted the haircut.

Akane twirled for them. "You like it?"

"It looks very nice," Kasumi commented.

"Sweet-O!" Happousai cackled.

"You always look beautiful, Akane," Soun observed proudly.

"Quite fetching," Genma added with a nudge to Ranma's ribs. "Eh, boy?" He refrained from comment.

"Short hair always did suit you best," Tofu agreed. Ranma caught a flash of regret in Akane's eyes as the doctor said this. Was there something between these two?

Akane looked right at Ranma, her eyes demanding from him an opinion. "Well, Ranma?"

He looked her over carefully. There was something fascinating about her with short hair, something lively, energetic, and sort of cute. Sort of. He fought off a blush. "I gotta go with the Doc on this one. Short hair looks good on you."

Akane smiled demurely for his benefit.

"Great," she said with an exagerated nod. She appeared to be satisfied with everyone's opinion. "Can we start the tour now?"

"Of course," Soun replied. He led the procession down to the castle's cavernous hangar, followed by his two daughters. Ranma and Genma followed behind them along with Doctor Tofu. Happousai brought up the rear, all eyes and ears, but mostly eyes for the ladies.

Grand Duke Tendo presented them before two ranks of officers and enlisted in their dress uniforms. Behind them was the DropShip that was to carry them into deep space. It was a Leopard Class, old and rough-looking, but reliable, and not likely to draw much attention, just as Genma wished. The Tendo livery and the giant white and purple fishcake device of the Nerima Confederation had been sandblasted from the hull.

The first person Ranma noticed among the crew was a strikingly beautiful dark-haired woman dressed in a Confederation uniform that could only charitably be considered regulation. For one thing, the hemlines he saw on the other female members of the crew terminated only just above their knees. This lady was pushing the envelope of decency with hers. She also seemed like she was about to burst from her tight fitting red wool jacket.

"Hotcha!" Happousai cried at the sight of her. He was about to spring when Ranma collared him.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked.

"Where does it look like?" Happousai returned.

"You're something else," Ranma muttered. "Don't you think about anything else besides women?"

Happousai appeared horrified with the very notion. "Of course not!" he nudged Ranma in the ribs. "You should try it some time. You might like it."

"What are you saying?"

Happousai motioned conspiratorily for Ranma to come closer.

"Like the lovely Akane, for example," he said to his new student. "You're her fiancee. Haven't you thought of... well... you know what I mean."

Ranma looked at Akane.

"You mean..." he left the idea unspoken between them.

Happousai nodded.

"With _her_?"

Happousai nodded again, a wide grin spreading over his face. "She's quite the cutie!"

Ranma made a disgusted face. "You've got to be kidding me. Do that... With her? I..."

Happousai shook his head in disbelief. "You amaze me, Ranma. How can you possibly turn down that kind of action?" He recoiled in sudden horror. "You aren't gay, are you, boy?"

Ranma shook his head in the firm negative. "No way!" he protested.

"Then you're sexually repressed something fierce," Happousai declared. "What did Genma do to you, anyway? All those lonely years on the road..."

"Don't even go there, freako! Nothing like that ever happened!"

"Then what's the matter with you, Ranma? You're nineteen years old; strong and virile. She's nineteen years old; sweet, and beautiful. You're both engaged to each other. Why, you two should be banging away like an outhouse door in a typhoon every chance you get!"

"No way!" Ranma protested louder than he should have. "She's some kind of psycho chick, and she hates my guts!"

Akane's ears twitched at the words "psycho chick."

"...Raaaannnnmaaaa..."

Ranma froze up for a moment. "See what I mean?" he hissed.

Happousai shook his head slowly. "You're hopeless..."

The Grand Duke began the introductions with the voluptuous officer, oblivious to what was going on behind him.

"This is one of my finest ship captains, Hinako Ninomiya. She will command your JumpShip." He turned towards the woman. "Captain Ninomiya, if you would please."

Captain Ninomiya snapped to attention with her crew.

"Captain Hinako Ninomiya and the crew of the Confederation JumpShip _Dragonfly_ and the DropShip _Palomino_ are at your disposal." Her voice was low and sultry, and Ranma could almost see his father drooling out of the corner of his eye, to say nothing of Happousai. What a couple of assholes! he thought angrily.

Hinako introduced the crews of the DropShip and those of the JumpShip that were not on duty at the distant jump point. Each seemed competent and full of self-confidence, which made Ranma feel a little more at ease.

Next came the Air Lance pilots, two girls named Yuka and Sayuri. Ranma couldn't speak for their skill based on appearance alone, though it helped that they had been part of the 1st Nerima Guards before their reassignment. Akane seemed to know them, judging by the friendly looks that passed between them. Happousai made cooing noises.

The techs came last, though they would be vital for any extended period of time away from Confederation resources. Captain Ninomiya started with a girl about Ranma and Akane's age. Her hair was a dark walnut, with long streaks of pink that fell from her temples. Even standing at attention, she seemed shy and demure, almost meek.

"Allow me to introduce our Chief of Technical Operations, Senior Technician Akari Unryuu."

Akari saluted smartly and dropped back to attention.

Ranma was impressed. Anyone who made Senior Tech at such a young age had to know her stuff. He was feeling better and better about the crew.

"Well I've seen more than enough," Happousai declared out of the blue. Ranma's unease became palpable.

"W-What do you mean?" Soun asked fearfully of his master.

"I've decided to join your little expedition," he declared. "I can see that you're going to need all the help you can get, and besides, look at all these lovely young maidens who need protecting!"

Several of the crew muttered protests at Happousai's remarks, Hinako chief among them. Soun, however, was loathe to provoke his master.

"Really, Master," he began tactfully. "There's no need to put yourself out on our account..."

"Nonsense, Soun, old boy. I insist."

"Daaaad..." Akane groaned in protest.

Grand Duke Tendo caved. It was clear that he was more than willing to make Happousai someone else's problem, even it was his personal savior, Genma Saotome.

"Of course, Master. After all, you have a commitment to train the boy, right?"

Happousai looked at Ranma. "Indeed I do."

Both Saotomes cringed; one out of fear, the other disgust.

Ranma found an excuse to separate from the party as soon as practical. He wanted to avoid the blow-up between his father and the Duke over letting the old bastard Happousai join the expedition, and he himself wanted to get away from the old freak. The guy was some kind of turbo-charged satyr, and he was going to cause all kinds of problems with his overactive libido among the expedition. Any idiot could see that, right?

He didn't dwell any further on it. There was one last matter to take care of, and it was one he needed to resolve quickly, and above all, anonymously.

Akane's bright red Warhammer stood silently in its bay, awaiting its mistress to take it into battle. The technicians had rebuilt the shattered torso and replaced the damaged components in the leg, and now it looked fresh off the assembly line. The war machine was scheduled to be loaded into the DropShip in sixteen hours, which was just enough time to repaint it.

When the subject of painting it had been broached by him during one of the planning sessions for the expedition, she had adamantly refused. She was willing to cut her hair short in the name of secrecy, but she wouldn't repaint her battlemech? In its bright red livery the thing was a twelve-meter-tall walking billboard proclaiming "Here Stands the Heir to the Nerima Confederation: Akane Tendo! Please attack me to the exclusion of all else!"

Which was great if you were the type who liked getting attention. It wasn't so hot if you had to travel to places outside the Confederation, like the League, or even the Furinkan Combine, where you were public enemy number one! Who knew where the hunt was going to take them?

There would be just enough time to crane the battlemech into the massive automated sprayer booth, mask all of the sensitive components like sensors and weapon ports, paint over the existing color scheme, and bake it on long enough to keep the paint from rubbing off during the loading procedure. It could cure the rest of the way on the trip to and from the Jump Points. The Duke had given his tacit approval for this aggressively underhanded mission when Ranma suggested it, and so he would have the help of the tech staff. The Duke had not been as forthcoming about shielding him from his daughter's wrath...

Ranma motioned for the rigging crew to commence. If Akane was going to be coming along with them, she had to learn that the game was played differently from the way she was used to. This was not some big invasion force or an army resisting a siege. This was a scouting mission and a treasure hunt all rolled into one, and discretion was the only thing that was going to see them home alive.

As the Warhammer was picked up by the gantry crane, Ranma hoped like hell she'd figure that out, and, most importantly, not take it personally. Otherwise it was going to be a very long trip.

Nerima Confederation DropShip Palomino

Landing Pad #1, Azure Cloud Castle

Planet Nerima, Capella System

Nerima Confederation

4 March 3025

Ranma Saotome lay strapped into his acceleration couch on the _Palomino's_ Middle Deck. The other mechwarriors and aerospace pilots, as well as the Technical Section and Doctor Tofu, were similarly restrained. It was another formality he wished the Confederation crew would dispense with. Captain Hinako was not the DropShip pilot, but as ranking naval officer she called the shots aboard ship, and was one of those martinets Ranma dreaded. Fortunately his father, who was named Commander of the Expedition by Duke Tendo, outranked her.

They had said their goodbyes at breakfast and finished the last minute loading of their remaining supplies and materiel. Happousai's Locust had taken up the fourth and last 'Mech Bay, the one they had originally planned to keep empty and use as a repair center. It was going to make Akari and her Technical Section's job much more difficult, but she took it in stride, and did not complain in the slightest. Ranma got the feeling that she was very difficult to upset.

As for hardware, they had Pop's Griffin in Bay #1, his Phoenix Hawk LAM in Bay #2, Akane's Warhammer was stowed in Bay #3, and Happousai's Locust in Bay #4. Yuka and Sayuri both flew CSR-V8 Corsairs, a fighter common in the Federated Shiratori, but available in sufficient numbers throughout the Inner Sphere to draw no undue attention. They were kept in the two fighter bays forward of the 'mech bays and below the forward crew compartment. Every additional cubic meter of available space was taken up with supplies, including the two berthing areas, which had a layer of steel food cans plus sheets of cardboard on top to serve as the deck. They would eat their way to the real floor.

"Two minutes to liftoff," the voice of the DropShip pilot said over the intercom circuit.

Ranma looked over his shoulder at Akane. She looked very different without long hair. So different, in fact, that he was having trouble recognizing her.

She had not been pleased to discover his handiwork with her Warhammer, and was currently not speaking to him. At least she hadn't hit him. A man could only take so much abuse before he forgot himself and... Well, who was he kidding - he wasn't real big on hitting girls, even if they deserved it.

Akane's silent treatment wasn't such a bad thing in and of itself. If she didn't speak to him, then he had no reason to speak to her, and thus he kept himself from putting his foot in his mouth. There was no limit to the things that set her off sometimes.

She stuck her tongue out at him, and he turned away.

"Well, boy," Genma said to him then. "This is it. We're finally back on the trail of Ryuugenzawa. It's good to be on the move again."

Ranma wasn't so sure of that. He for one was tired of wandering.

"Whatever, Pop. The sooner we get this over with, the better."

"I understand, Ranma. If I were your age and still single, and had Akane waiting to marry me at the end of the expedition, I might wish that too."

"That ain't what I meant."

The roar of the DropShip's engines sounded all around them, and the force of acceleration had them in its grip. The _Palomino_ began to rise off the landing pad and into the sky. Ranma almost smiled in spite of the three-gee force that crushed him into his chair.

For the first time in years he was riding a DropShip as a passenger, not as a stowaway.

From her penthouse suite at the Hyatt Towers of Gondolin, in the heart of the city at the foot of the mountain, Nabiki Tendo watched the Leopard Class DropShip lift from the castle on columns of blue-white flame and climb for the heavens. Her sister Akane was aboard the ship, as were the two meddling Saotomes. They were off to find the land of Oz, or Ryuugenzawa, depending on what you believed.

She took a stiff drink of her Chivas and Coke, not caring that she had only brought back a single bottle of the rare and expensive whiskey from her trip to Earth, nor that some might consider it sacrilegious to cut it with something like Coca Cola. Under other circumstances she would have toasted them to their success, but now they represented an open wound in her pride.

Tatewaki Kuno had launched a major attack against the Confederation, and that worried her. Was it merely to keep up the pressure, or had he changed his mind about their agreement? It was tough to say at the moment, and that uncertainty was what plagued her the most.

She took another belt, letting the whiskey linger in her mouth for a few moments, warming her considerably. She was already a little high, and ideas flowed through her loosened mind.

Perhaps a sign of good faith was in order. The question was how much to give Kuno. If she could only hand over the Saotomes without giving up Akane, she would. She was unsure of Kuno-chan's willingness to come to the bargaining table if her sister was already in his clutches. That might depend on the opposition he faced in battle. So far he was getting a stiff fight.

She took another drink. What to do about Akane? Those two Saotomes wouldn't dream of actually taking her with them everywhere they went, right? The smart thing to do would be to keep Akane on the JumpShip the whole time. She might not like it, but hey, it was better than getting killed on some wild goose chase.

She laughed to herself. That would be accusing Akane of far too much common sense. Of course she would come with them wherever they went. Anything not to be left behind on the JumpShip.

It would serve her right to get captured by Tatewaki Kuno.

She finished her glass and set it down on the table by her chair. The ice clinked hollowly in the glass, empty and cold like Nabiki's broken heart. Damn them all for interfering with her dreams.

She picked up the telephone and dialed an unlisted number.

Merry Christmas, Kuno-chan...

Fort Dettmering

Planet Capra, Capra System

The League of Five Nails

8 March 3025

Ryouga Hibiki wanted the hell off of Capra.

It was bad enough that he and Tarou had been held responsible for the damage done to their barracks by Happousai, but then after the Combine raid was crushed the next morning, their employers garnisheed most of their share of the salvage to pay for it. The pittance that remained was not enough to pay for passage into low orbit, much less get them to the next star system. Tarou, of course, blamed him for both Happousai's escape and for their continuing fate as virtual castaways on a desert rock in the depths of space - the Armpit of the Universe, as some on Capra called the planet. That attitude had not done wonders for their less-than-cordial relationship.

Like it was his fault that Happousai got away. If Tarou hadn't been so clumsy with his kicks, the sink wouldn't have broken and Ryouga wouldn't have gotten wet, nor would there have been any damage to the barracks to pay for. Monster-boy conveniently side-stepped that issue whenever Ryouga brought it up.

He had started calling Tarou 'Monster-boy' in retaliation for his Blame Game tactics, and also because his mechwarrior comrade had taken a sudden and decidedly unhealthy liking to his Jusenkyo body. He wasn't running around in public in his monster form - yet - but he was seeking any opportunities he could get to slip away from the city so he could transform himself. Ryouga had stopped accompanying him on these sojourns as soon as it became clear what Tarou was doing.

Why he was doing it was anyone's guess, but Ryouga was of the growing opinion that Tarou could now be officially certified as Damaged Goods in the psyche department. His obsession with Happousai and with the Jusenkyo Commonwealth was understandable before, but now it was getting worrisome. He would talk to himself about his revenge in the small hours of the morning when Ryouga was trying to sleep. He would talk to himself in the chow line, his lips moving faintly in some silent conversation that only he was privy to. Ryouga had even overheard snippets of the same hateful mantras over the tac-net when Tarou's finger's slipped on the 'talk' button of his Hunchback's radio controls.

Unfortunately, there was no form of psychiatric medicine available on Capra. The mercenary unit they worked for was too small to have that kind of medical help on tap, and the League was too cheap to provide service to a world they hadn't even bothered to garrison with their own regular troops. The only form of counseling to be had was a lady with a struggling private practice in town, but she was old and rumored to have a bad heart. The last thing they needed was for Tarou to monster-out and kill her from fright. That was assuming, of course, that Ryouga could get his roommate and comrade-in-arms to admit that he had a problem. Not bloody likely.

He looked skyward, wondering when, if ever, he could escape from this rathole planet.

Jusenkyo Laboratory Complex

Planet Lightoller, Epsilon Indi System

Jusenkyo Commonwealth

7 March 3025

Mousse did not question the orders from the capitol which freed him from the clutches of General Herb. Nor did he question the fact that his status as a Mechwarrior of the Commonwealth had been restored. It was the circumstances of those orders, namely that he had been selected for the Breeding Program, that he could not fathom.

Doctor Gaido didn't appear to be forthcoming with answers to the mystery. The portly Chief Scientist had evaded his questions, saying only that the computers had selected him, and that he was to report to the capitol. His reluctance to provide details seemed to stem from a distrust of General Herb; something Mousse could now fully appreciate, having felt the hybrid general's wrath firsthand.

There was one other aspect of his new-found fortune that Mousse did not question. As he was now qualified for the Breeding Program, he was also eligible to become Shampoo's husband. It was a dream that he had applied himself towards since he was a child; that somehow in spite of his atrocious vision, he could distinguish himself as a mechwarrior in the eyes of the Elders well enough that they would allow Shampoo to be his.

"Hey, boy," Gaido said to him. "Are you listening to a word I'm saying?"

Mousse didn't realize that he had spaced out on the good doctor.

"Uh, of course," he said quickly.

Gaido gave him a dubious look.

"Good, because I'm not going to repeat it."

Mousse nodded. Whatever it was, he had missed it. Oh well, no sense crying over it.

Gaido continued.

"As I was saying, you have been chosen for a very special assignment. The fate of the Commonwealth rests upon a successful conclusion. Now get back to your quarters and prepare yourself!"

Mousse saluted and turned smartly on his heels for the catwalk that would lead him away from Gaido's office and to the security checkpoint. He got about two steps before he heard the panicked voice of the doctor cry out for him to stop, but it was too late.

He was soaking wet just a moment later, nearly choking on the water that flooded into his mouth. When he at last scrambled for the surface and broke clear, the first thing he heard for some strange reason was the frantic quacking of a duck.

A duck?

Come to think of it, where were all those choice curses he was in the process of shouting at the top of his lungs?

He looked around to catch his bearings, and spied the copious red and white danger striping of a Jusenkyo Pit surrounding him. As were his robes, floating in the water with him. Even better, where his thrashing arms used to be were a pair of snowy white wings.

The wings of a duck.

Doctor Gaido looked down at him in utter disbelief.

"T-That is the first time I have ever seen someone walk straight into a pool," he said in a shaky voice. "Are you sure that was an accident?"

He quacked a mournful reply. His life had just been turned upside down - again.

Gaido shook his head slowly and stepped aside as a lab assistant with a pool-cleaning net fished him out. The scientist walked back into his office and produced a pot of hot water that he kept handy for just such an emergency, and poured it over him.

The water was very hot, and he cried out in pain, surprised and relieved to hear his own voice again. He now sat naked on the steel non-skid diamond deck while the assistant fished out his robes with the net. These were carefully double-bagged by another assistant wearing a waterproof overall, and set aside for recovery of the water. He was given a cheap paper pullover jumpsuit for modesty's sake.

Gaido shook his head again.

"This is turning out to be an embarrassing first quarter for the Labs," he said mostly to himself. "Don't worry about the report. I'll fill it out without you. You can sign it later. Just go, and good luck with your new body. Remember: hot water changes you back to normal. Stay away from cold water."

Mousse could not believe this. This was it? Good luck? Stay away from cold water? He knew there was no cure for what had happened to him, but there had to be something the scientist could do for him. He cursed his fate at having such a stupid accident. Why did everything bad happen to him?

Gaido motioned for one of the assistants to escort him out. The guy was clearly taking no chances on him falling in another pool. He let himself be led out of the Labs, still shaking with horror at what he had experienced.

There was supposed to be a counseling program for victims of the pools to help them adjust to their new lives, but with him due to ship back to the capitol, and Gaido less than sympathetic, there would be no help. He was on his own.

Just like Shampoo.

He found that thought comforting for some odd reason.

Doctor Gaido returned to his office and pulled out the file folder containing blank Incident Reports. He began to work on the form while the memories of the event were still fresh in his mind. Had the boy been paying attention to where he was going, or was he simply the victim of his bad eyesight? He noted that Mousse was not wearing his glasses properly at the time. Mousse rarely wore his glasses properly when he wasn't operating a battlemech.

In any case, this little disaster was not going to make him look good coming so soon on the last outbreak of exposures. It would be a wonder if he kept his job for much longer. Even what little value he possessed as Cologne's spy against Herb wouldn't be enough to help.

"The General won't be pleased about this," he muttered.

"I'm certain of that," Herb said from the open doorway, startling the doctor.

Gaido looked up from his report.

"General Herb?"

Herb's crimson eyes flashed in the light. "I was already in the neighborhood," he began coolly. "So when I was given an urgent message from the capitol concerning Mechwarrior Mousse (he seemed to almost choke on the word 'mechwarrior'), I rushed over to see that everything was in order."

He looked at the form that Gaido had reluctantly set aside.

"I can see that everything is NOT in order." he concluded coldly. "In fact, you can imagine my, shall we say, _dismay_, when I learned of Mousse's little spill..."

Gaido nodded slowly.

"Accidents happen, sir."

Herb snorted derisively. "You're getting senile, Gaido. The Lab is obviously too much responsibility for you in your advanced years. I strongly urge you to begin training your replacement. One can never tell what might happen these days."

Gaido's spine stiffened. If anyone cashiered him for this, it would not be a seditious archfiend like Herb.

"I suppose you already have one picked out," he observed.

Herb nodded indulgently, seeing exactly where Gaido stood on the matter and not minding a little insolence when the final dig would be his. "As a matter of fact I do..." he replied. He then changed the subject. "That is a discussion for another time. Soon, to be sure, but not now. In the meantime, I want to discuss Mousse's ability to perform in combat."

"I don't understand what I have to do with this," Gaido replied. "That would be a matter for the Chief Medical Officer, not the Chief Scientist."

Herb arched an eyebrow.

"Really, Doctor? I presume then that you had another reason for needing to see Mousse before he was shipped to the capitol?"

Gaido began to sweat.

"Just a matter of a questionnaire and some additional tissue samples for the record. Since he is part of the Breeding Program now."

Herb nodded slowly. Gaido wondered if the demonic hybrid could see right through him.

"I see," the general replied. "In any case, it's a moot point. Mousse will not be going directly to the capitol." Gaido gave him a questioning look, and he continued. "It seems he's been assigned to a Special Mission Team that is currently en route to Lightoller. They will arrive in a little over two days to collect him and his battlemech. Now that Mousse has had his little, _accident,_ I want you to certify that he will still be capable of performing his duties."

Gaido smelled a trap. Was Herb giving him rope to hang by?

"That's a difficult question," he hedged.

Herb smiled thinly. "Indulge me."

The doctor cleared his throat thoughtfully before speaking.

"Well, physiologically there shouldn't be anything wrong with him. There haven't been any long term side-effects observed with exposure, other than the subject remaining vulnerable to the Jusenkyou Effect for the rest of his life. As for psychological, well, every subject is different. Most learn to live with it and adapt. A few become mentally unstable, an even smaller number of these commit suicide."

Herb knew the song and dance. "But what of Mousse, Doctor?"

"I can't say. Even the figures I could give you on known cases are not necessarily reliable indicators, as there have been too few overall exposures upon which to build a decent statistical analysis."

Gaido's evasion was becoming visibly irritating to Herb. Lime and Mint poked their heads in to see what had caused their master such distress. Both hybrids gave scathing looks to Gaido.

"Best guess then, Doctor," Herb managed.

Gaido at last understood what the general was pushing for. He was looking for an ironclad excuse to keep Mousse on Lightoller, and under his thumb. If the renowned Doctor Gaido was to assert that there might be something wrong with Mousse following his exposure, something that might disqualify him from the mission, and better still, from the Breeding Program, then Cologne and her cronies on the Council could do nothing but accept it. Herb would win.

He wasn't going to let Herb win. Not like that.

"My best guess is that there will be no harm in sending Mechwarrior Mousse on this assignment," he declared.

Herb took the response in silence. It was clearly not what he had hoped for. His red eyes burned for a moment, then buried their scorn deep. Like banked coals, they would one day be reignited when they were needed.

"I see," he said at length. "I shall duly note your input in the Garrison Command Diary and in Mousse's transfer papers."

Gaido bowed deeply, expecting nothing less from him and accepting it as it came.

Herb turned angrily to go, blundering into the lurking Lime, tripping himself, and stumbling forward out of control. Mint rushed to catch hold of his general, but at the same time Lime also leaped to the rescue. It sounded like a wrecking ball striking a solid masonry wall, the net effect of which was Herb being pushed headlong into a nearby Jusenkyo Pool.

Gaido heard the splash and started out of his office in a panic. Not again. Not so soon after Mousse. Not with Herb watching!

He was relieved to hear a high pitched human voice screeching with rage and uttering black oaths too foul to find print in this narrative. Anything other than the alien bleats of some animal in distress. His relief quickly turned to dismay when he realized that General Herb was not among the throng of people looking down into the fateful pool at the latest victim of the Star League's ancient madness.

Gaido knew the pool well, for it was one of the unusual ones. That pool turned its victims not into animals but into human females. It was one of the more commonly occuring accident sites in the Labs.

General Herb was treading water in it, and she was Not Amused.

"Look, Lime," Mint gushed in wonder. "...Boobs..."

Lime cooed in awe at his general's outstanding rack.

Doctor Gaido turned slowly back to his office and locked the door behind him. If Herb wanted a reckoning with him, it would have to be over the barrel of a cone rifle. At least anyway until he was good and drunk on the five liter jug of plum wine he kept handy in the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet, and then he wouldn't care what Herb said or did.

Shampoo floated through the airtight door to the flight deck of the Union Class DropShip _Jade Lotus_, with her luxuriant mane of hair spilling behind her in long filaments of glossy purple silk. Unlike most people who had the opportunity to travel in space, she enjoyed zero gravity. It was a thrilling sensation, making each conscious moment an adventure for her.

They were in the middle of a short period of free fall prior to their two-day deceleration burn that would leave them in a stable parking orbit around the planet Lightoller. She could see it as nothing more than a fuzzy blue dot in the 50cm telescope monitor. Soon she would be far closer to it, the Jusenkyo Labs, Mousse, and especially General Herb, than she ever wished to be. The Elders had decided rather abruptly that it would be more efficient to collect Mousse on Lightoller and then proceed with the mission than to ship him back to Jusenkyo first.

She had not taken the news that Mousse would be joining the Mission Team very well at all. Kima was to handle the espionage and intelligence aspects of the assignment, leaving Shampoo free to kill the damnable Ranma Saotome and his father when the time finally came. Mousse was at best extraneous to the mission, and at worst he could be a dangerous hindrance. Why he had been selected by Cologne, Shampoo did not know. Her great-grandmother had never been warm to the idea of a union between them, so what could it be? Perhaps it was a reward for his service to her against Herb's machinations, but there were surely other ways to repay him!

"How long until we arrive?" she asked the Deck Officer.

Senior Lieutenant Li Chang consulted the astrogation boards before him.

"Fifty-one hours, nineteen minutes; plus or minus ten minutes to our parking orbit," he replied. "Depending on local weather conditions, we could complete our de-orbit burn and atmospheric entry maneuvers and have touchdown about thirty-five minutes from the moment we get our landing window."

Shampoo thanked the officer and withdrew to the far corner of the cramped flight deck. She had that long at least without Mousse. Or Herb. She wondered whether he would risk losing face by putting in an appearance, or simply ignore her and pretend she didn't exist. She hoped it would be the latter.

The _Jade Lotus_ wouldn't spend more than a few hours on Lightoller in any event; just long enough to gather up Mousse and his battlemech, take on reaction mass for the trip back to the jump point, and exchange mail and other light cargo. After that it was another four days in space before they reached their JumpShip, and then they'd jump for the contested border between the Combine and the Confederation. Only Kima knew what their next step would be, but in order to maintain the most up-to-date information on their quarry, their JumpShip was one of the precious handful in the Commonwealth fleet that carried a functional HPG array.

Their infiltration of Comstar over the last few decades was about to pay huge dividends for the Commonwealth. Information bound for Cologne and the Elders was compressed and secretly bundled within Comstar's core HPG network streams, where it could easily be routed from one compromised station to another. While the data streams instantly breached the gulf of up to fifteen parsecs of space-time (almost twice what a JumpShip could do in one hop), and converged like a Niagara of information upon Comstar headquarters on Earth, a tiny trickle would flow away undetected from the Sol system to arrive on Jusenkyo.

Any vital updates on their assignment could be sent along the Commonwealth's network of ship-mounted HPG sets. They might have been maintained by the tech priests of Comstar, but the knowledge of how to operate them was not yet lost to the technical caste of the Commonwealth. They would have access to information that was at worst two days old, and possibly less than twenty-four hours old - depending on the length of the relay chain from source to destination. It was a powerful advantage that the other Successor States did not enjoy.

The Furinkan Combine was especially vulnerable in this regard. Between Commonwealth infiltration of Comstar sowing the seeds of discontent, and the technocracy's own dim view of both Princess Kodachi's atrocities and the seizure of the once-neutral Alpha Centauri system by the Kuno Shogun for his personal pleasure as a surfing paradise, the Furinkan Combine was extremely close to a service lockout of its HPG network. That would force them to use what was called the 'XBoat Method,' which came from a term used in an ancient science fiction role-playing game from a time when fast interstellar travel was only a fantasy.

The 'XBoat Method' was essentially a network of JumpShips that travelled a prearranged route through the Combine's territory. They carried as cargo the message traffic of the Combine, both personal and governmental, and upon arrival in a system they would relay it by radio to a waiting JumpShip whose power banks were charged for a Jump. The ready JumpShip would then depart for the next system in the relay chain while the first ship recharged and awaited another set of messages. Shampoo likened it to a system of runners on the battlefield, although the usual explanation mentioned something called a 'Pony Express.'

In theory, the 'XBoat Method' could relay messages almost as fast as an HPG network, since a JumpShip's transit of hyperspace from Point-A to Point-B was instantaneous, and its ability to travel great distances was limited only by the time it took to recharge the huge amounts of energy required to fire the jumpcore for its next trip. In practice, the method was limited by the number of JumpShips available for XBoat duty. For the Combine to maintain adequate communications for its vast territory, it would have to sacrifice most of its remaining military transport fleet. The renewed offensive against the Nerima Confederation would be snuffed out in a flash from a lack of ships to support it.

She wondered if this fact was being held in reserve by the Elders as an ace-in-the-hole in order to maintain the status quo of the Inner Sphere. If she could figure out the Combine's Achilles' Heel with just a few moments of contemplation in a dark corner of a DropShip flight deck, then they certainly had after years of study and reflection on Jusenkyo.

Two days later and on schedule, the DropShip _Jade Lotus_ settled in on its hydraulics atop the reinforced concrete landing pad. Shampoo and the others unhooked their restraints and stood up in the small compartment, eager for a breath of fresh air. It would be anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes before the ship's crew would be ready to let them out.

Shampoo was the first to reach the airlock when the word was passed allowing passengers and crew not-on-duty a brief amount of liberty, but due to their press for time, they would not be allowed beyond the landing pad. That was fine by Shampoo. She had no intentions of getting any farther than the gantry.

The air was sweet and cold as she stepped through the open airlock doors and onto the boarding gantry. Rain had fallen earlier, before their arrival, and pools of it shimmered in the hazy afternoon sunlight. It would probably rain again sometime before they lifted for the jump point, which was a good reason to stay close to the ship.

From her high vantage she could see Mousse's battlemech being carried on a flatbed HET, or Heavy Equipment Transport, towards one of the _Jade Lotus'_ open 'Mech Bay Doors. The steel cables that supported the white and grey Crusader in a standing position on the flatbed were stretched taut and glinted in the light. She looked, but could see no sign of Mousse himself anywhere below.

There was also no sight of General Herb's staff car, which was a welcome relief. Apparently no one from the Complex had bothered to come in any official capacity other than Mousse.

She felt a presense close by, and turned to find Kima standing there, her wings folded behind her.

"What is it?" she asked the hybrid.

"I've just received word from the capitol via our JumpShip. Our destination has changed, and we must leave Lightoller at once for the Capra System."

Shampoo blinked. "Capra?"

"Yes. Genma Saotome and his son are en route to that world. We are to locate them and seize any materials pertinent to their search for Ryuugenzawa. Once we have them, you are to eliminate the two as per your previous orders."

"Why the change in plans?"

Kima shrugged. "I'm not certain. I've been told of an agent within their expedition, and it seems the most likely thing that has happened is that this agent has passed the Elders important information since we left Jusenkyo."

Kima looked out upon the world of Lightoller and shuddered. Shampoo did not know that it was here that the hybrid had been reborn as Akane Tendo's doppleganger. Nor did she hear Kima's silent prayer to the gods that she never return again.

"I shall be on the Flight Deck," she said to Shampoo, and left her as silently as she had approached.

Shampoo watched her step back through the airlock and into the ship. When she returned her attention to the gantry, she could see Mousse stepping out of one of the Lab cars and heading for the gantry elevator. She did not want to be there when he came on board.

She followed her commander through the airlock and proceeded directly for the small mechwarrior's lounge off the main passageway from the ship's core. It would take Mousse awhile for him to check in with Kima and stow his small kit for the trip. With any luck it would be time to strap in for lift-off before he could get a free moment to look for her. She couldn't avoid him forever, not on a DropShip, but she could delay for as long as possible their reunion.

FCJS _Imperator_, in orbit at the

Proteus System Zenith Jump Point,

Proteus System, Nerima Confederation

11 March 3025

General Prince Tatewaki Kuno of the Furinkan Combine was not a happy man. His plans were slipping far behind schedule, no thanks to the dogged resistance of the Confederation. What insolence! Didn't they know when they were beaten?

His beachhead had nearly collapsed even as he was about to lift from the planet, and he was forced to disembark his famed Blue Thunder Regiment from their ships to quash the counterattack. The Confederation dogs had scattered by the time his troops were organized, though their persistant raids had left him unable to secure the starport sufficiently enough to leave. Hunting them down had taken four precious days, and even then he was not certain that he had found all of them.

His troops had obviously missed some of the Confederation fighters as well, as his formations of departing DropShips had been ambushed leaving orbit. They had fought them off, but had lost several of their own ships in the process. How was it possible that these curs could maintain fighters when he had gone to so much trouble bombing the airfields prior to the invasion?

His staff were of no help, standing mutely by their reconnaisance photographs and their troop reports. The best answer they could come up with was that the Confederation was planning on hitting back in this system, and that the defenders were engaged in a suicidal attempt to buy time for the attack to assemble. That at least was good news. It meant that they had fallen for his ruse, and his way to Capella would be clear!

The Confederation's defiance still bothered him, though. If they fought like demons on a world like Calypso, what would they be like when he stood at the gates of their capitol? He would crush them of course. There was no doubt of that, for he was Tatewaki Kuno, the Conquerer, and the future First Lord of the Star League. What concerned him was that it would take longer to rule the Inner Sphere than he had planned.

His Operations Officer approached him as he pondered these matters, sensing that his lord was occupied, and waiting patiently for leave to speak.

Tatewaki gave it. "Speak, man."

"Your Highness, we have received another communique from Nerima."

Tatewaki frowned. "Another plea for a cease-fire? I think not."

The officer presented a decrypted communication print-out.

"No, your Highness. It is from the _other_ source on Nerima."

Tatewaki snatched it up into his hand and began to read. What was the treacherous Nabiki up to now? As he read, his heart began to beat faster, and his palms began to sweat. The gods smiled upon him!

"When shall our fleet be assembled for Jump?" he demanded.

"Another four hours to dock the last DropShips and recall the fighters from patrol, Highness."

"Two hours!" Tatewaki shouted. "You have two hours to make ready. I shall not wait a minute longer. Make it so!"

The Operations Officer saluted hastily and begged leave to carry out his orders. Fortunately, he had taken the liberty of reading the communique beforehand, and correctly determined his lord's response to it. The fighters were already returning. They would be ready to jump in an hour if everything went well, and certainly within two.

He was so pleased with himself that did not notice the hazy shadow that tailed him back to the Executive Bridge.

Tatewaki Kuno took his place on the Bridge for the Jump to Capra. The fleet was assembled and ready to depart the Proteus System for the next stage of his plan. They would sieze the System's jump points, set up a network of DropShips modified into mobile charging stations to swiftly maintain his supply lines, and when the system was secure, the armada would Jump for the Capella System and the domination of the Nerima Confederation.

While he was at it, he would investigate the information Nabiki had given him. If the Saotomes were to be found on Capra, he would have no choice but to slay them and end this farcical engagement to his true love. He relished the task so much that he would see to the planet's conquest personally, just so he could be at hand when they were located.

As far as Nabiki's assertion that sweet Akane accompanied them, he was unsure. It defied reason that she would wish to travel with the curs. Perhaps it was a misguided attempt to keep her from the great Tatewaki Kuno that the foolish Duke had sent her away.

The middle Tendo daughter obviously had some motivation for this betrayal. Was this part of her promise to deliver Akane unto him? He had expected a harder bargain from the steely and shrewd Nabiki Tendo. It would be prudent to remain wary of her, and above all to eliminate her as soon as practical.

He turned to brighter thoughts, despising Nabiki for the black pits of treachery she had opened for him. If Akane were truly with the Saotomes, then she would be rescued from them. He would bring her with him to Capella, and when he had conquered the Confederation, he would marry her within the Duke's very castle!

"Countdown Commencing," the Operations Officer announced over the fleet-wide radio channel. "T-Minus twenty minutes to Jump."

Tatewaki smiled. Within minutes they would be in Capra space, and within days the Saotomes would be dead. He could almost feel the cretinous Ranma Saotome's throat in his gloved hand. If he had despoiled the fair Akane, then the tale of his torture and slow death would become legendary.

His reverie was interrupted by the sudden and furious activity that seized his Bridge crew. Were the cursed Confederation fighters attacking yet again?

"Conn, Sensory;" the intercom crackled. "Be advised of fleet ships Bravo One and Two breaking formation and closing on plasma drive."

The Officer of the Deck conferred with the Operations Officer before responding. "Sensory, Conn; confirm CPA at once. Communications, Conn; raise Princess Kodachi's starship immediately, and establish intentions!"

"Communications; aye..."

"Conn, Sensory; aye... Closest Point of Approach bearing two-four-zero plus one; range five point one kilometers. That's within the optimum Jump Point radius."

The Communications Officer looked to his people, who shook their heads. He then turned to the Deck Officer.

"Officer of the Deck, Princess Kodachi's ships do not answer hails."

Tatewaki Kuno sprang from his chair in a rage. His damnable sister was supposed to be taking over the conquest of Calypso!

"What is thy game, sister?" he said angrily to himself as he watched the two Invader Class JumpShips close with his armada. The minutes passed slowly as the two vessels reached their intended destinations and came to a halt relative to the other ships of the fleet.

"Captain, we're getting a hail from Princess Kodachi's flagship," the Communications Officer announced abruptly to the Ops Officer. His eyes darted towards Tatewaki. "She requests to speak with General Prince Kuno."

"On screen!" Tatewaki barked.

The smiling face of Colonel Princess Kodachi Kuno appeared on the oversize Bridge display set high on the forward bulkhead. She was wearing a breathlessly low cut number in black vinyl, as was her custom when battle was nigh. She seemed to sense her perspective, and looked down at her brother surrounded by his confused and scrambling staff.

"Hello, brother dear," she began.

"What is the meaning of this, sister?!" Tatewaki shot back. "Thy orders were clear!"

Kodachi chuckled.

"I have a score to settle, Tachi. I've just received word that Akane Tendo is to be found on Capra, and I mean to repay her for her insult at Port Said."

"Cease this mutinous activity at once!" Tatewaki raged. "Return thy ships to their station and speak no more of harming my bride. Were I not your brother, I would have you fired upon!"

Kodachi blew him a kiss. "Give my love to Father. Adieu!" She signed off, and the screen went blank.

_Imperator's_ Sensory Section broke in on the intercom.

"Conn; Sensory, we are detecting an energy buildup from Bravo One and Two. Possible Jump signature."

Tatewaki whirled on his staff.

"Fire Control!" he thundered. "Target the JumpCore of my sister's ship and fire all weapons that can be brought to bear!"

His gunners scrambled to comply, but most of _Imperator's_ weaponry that could reach Kodachi's starship were massive Naval Lasers that would take several minutes to energize and bring to bear.

A brilliant flash of light through the viewports told them that they were in vain.

"Conn, Sensory; Ships Bravo One and Two have Jumped."

Tatewaki Kuno bowed his head in contempt of his sister, his blood boiling with useless anger. He reached out to collar his Operations Officer, and dragged him close.

"When we arrive in the Capra System, you shall dispatch marines to board and seize my sister's ship. See that no harm comes to her, but slay at once any of her crew that resist. Bring her unto me only when I deem fit to pass judgment upon her, but keep her comfortable and well guarded. Is that understood, Captain?"

The Operations Officer nodded vigorously.

"Good. Now resume the countdown and carry out the fleet deployment."

Tatewaki Kuno seethed quietly to himself as his crew prepared the fleet for Jump. His sister could not and would not escape him. Nor would the cursed Ranma Saotome.

Nerima Confederation JumpShip _Dragonfly_

Capra System Zenith Jump Point

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

8 March 3025

NCJS _Dragonfly_ winked into existence in a flash of cerenkov gammas and short lived exotic particles, to appear high above the Capra primary's zenith rotational pole. The Invader Class JumpShip fired its maneuver drive in fitful spurts, rolling and turning to set its relative velocity so as to keep a stable orbit above the star - in accordance with its new position in space-time. It was the most dangerous time for a JumpShip, as the velocity vectors that had held it in the proper position for Jump from the originating star were never the same as those required at the destination.

This was particularly the case when the two stars were of different spectral classes. Capra was much less massive than Capella, and its streams of solar wind less intense. It was also slightly closer to the galactic core (and the center of rotation about the Milky Way), which made the star's relative velocity different from Capella's by several dozen kilometers per second. _Dragonfly_ would have to make up this difference quickly and efficiently; otherwise it could find itself hurtling off on some undesirable vector - such as directly towards the star, or out into empty interstellar space.

Captain Hinako Ninomiya directed her crew with just such speed and efficiency. Or at least with speed. Her management style tended towards the manic in these moments, and only a crew well accustomed to her rapidly flailing limbs could have survived this dangerous transition from Jump.

_Dragonfly_ was stable and secure in its orbit within ten minutes. The massive JumpSail was unfurled, allowing the starship to tack against Capra's solar wind and keep the ship in position indefinitely without expending excessive reaction mass. The kilometer-diameter sail itself was embedded with billions of photovoltaic elements that channeled energy into the ship's Jump Batteries to recharge them.

When she was satisfied with her starship's orbit, Hinako ordered the grav-deck brought up to speed. The main habitat for the JumpShip began to rotate about the central core to provide a comfortable eight-tenths of a gravity for the crew's health. The Invader Class was a good ship for its passengers and crew, having a decent-sized grav-deck and two large garden domes to help purify and oxygenate the air, as well as provide fresh produce to eat and a little green to look at.

"Grav-deck rotation nominal," the Chief of the Watch announced.

"Very well," Hinako nodded. "Sound 'Clear to Stations' on the 1MC."

"Sound 'Clear to Stations' on the 1MC, aye."

The Chief of the Watch reached over his panel to a handheld microphone and clicked it twice for attention. An electronic bosun's whistle shrilled over the ship's general announcement intercom speakers.

"Clear to Stations! Set the Station-Keeping Watch; Section One provide. Section Three, eat and relieve the watch!"

Several stations upon the bridge changed hands, an event that took place on the other decks as well. Crew stowed damage control equipment that had been readied for the brief but potentially dangerous transition through hyperspace, and hurried for the mess deck to eat a quick meal and relieve their comrades. Those members of the crew neither on watch, nor expected to relieve, made a beeline for the berthing spaces.

Once the _Dragonfly_ was in order, Hinako ordered her Sensory Section to take a look about the system. The ship's primary synthetic-aperture radar array began to probe the void, and two 1.5 meter telescopes scanned for signs of the distant planet of Capra within the expected orbit.

"Captain Ninomiya?" her radar operator called.

She flitted over to the Sensory Section.

"What is it?"

"Take a look at the radar display, ma'am."

Hinako leaned over the sensory operator's shoulder as Ranma, Genma, and Akane made their way up from the passenger compartment. The three seemed a little disoriented from the Jump, and the free-fall conditions of the bridge did not help. She took note of them and then returned her attention to the puzzling information on the radar display.

"That's very odd," she remarked to the operator in her sultry voice. "Have you checked for damage to the array?"

"Yes, Captain. The array checks out."

Hinako folded her arms across her breasts.

"Interferance from the Jump?"

The operator shrugged. "It's nothing I've ever encountered before, ma'am."

Genma and Ranma floated over to the sensory section, leaving Akane

to peer out into the darkness of space.

"What seems to be the trouble?" Genma asked Hinako. Ranma could see his father's eyes wandering towards her chest more often than they should have.

"I'm not absolutely certain that there _is_ any trouble," Hinako replied, her voice low and breathy as always. It was obvious from her look of distaste that she knew exactly where Genma's attention was focused.

"Why not check out the display instead, Pop," Ranma said tersely.

Genma flushed red. "O-Of course," he stammered.

The two mechwarriors studied the curious radar returns on the display. It was odd, but as they had little experience with a starship's sensors, they were reluctant to put their opinions forward just yet.

"It almost looks like chaff," Ranma remarked after a bit of strained silence. He referred to the practice of scattering strips of radar reflective aluminum to confuse hostile radar operators. "A whole bunch of it."

"Get a grip, boy," Genma countered. "Who would scatter so much chaff out in the middle of nowhere, and why?"

Ranma shrugged his shoulders. "Beats me. But you gotta admit, that's what it looks like."

The radar operator nodded his head in agreement to Genma. "He has a point, Commander. It doesn't make much sense, but it's the only logical explanation."

"I don't like it," Hinako grumbled. She seemed very young and petulant in that moment, rather like a six-year-old. "Keep scanning until you find something."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

Ranma turned to his father. "So. We gonna get a move on or what?"

Genma watched Hinako float away from them and towards the astrogator's station. The view was quite inspiring given the Captain's extremely short miniskirt, and he realized at last what the _Dragonfly's_ crew had meant by their daily announcements of 'the Color of the Day.'

"You were saying something, boy?" he muttered.

Ranma slugged him on the arm. "You pig."

"What?" Genma replied indignantly.

"You're married, you know," Ranma pointed out. "Remember Mom?"

"A man can look, boy, even if he can't touch," Genma harrumphed in reply.

Ranma rolled his eyes in disgust. "Try to remember that, old man."

Hikaru Gosunkugi looked with interest at his Sensory Section's update on the new arrival. His own JumpShip, a massive Starlord Class known as the _Impaler_, watched the unknown starship with passive sensors.

"Your thoughts?" Hikaru asked his Admiral, a competent but dour fellow of ancient Scotch descent named Colin Ian Morag, who often bemoaned the domination of Inner Sphere military operations by mechwarriors. Like most Navy men, he was sick of the Army seeing the naval components as little more than truck drivers, and the aerospace units as nothing more than close air support. The man was one of the few of his senior commanders who had been in favor of his latest campaign. That was no surprise, Hikaru supposed, considering that most of the glory would belong to Morag and the League Navy should it succeed.

"It's possibly a Combine Pathfinder ship," he replied. "Until its intentions are better defined, however, we'll have to play this encounter very cautiously."

Hikaru nodded slightly. His bout with Jump Sickness was not yet over, and he liked to keep as still as possible in free-fall. Only the arrival of this mystery ship had been enough to pry him from the relative comfort of the Starlord's grav-deck.

"I agree," he managed queasily. "Continue to monitor it passively, and inform me of any changes in its condition, or if it releases any fighters or DropShips."

"At once, my lord," Admiral Morag said, and saluted crisply.

Hikaru made his way carefully to the elevator and punched for the grav-deck.

The descending elevator granted him some small measure of gravity as it approached the farthest point of the rotating habitat from the core. He hated space travel, and he hated others seeing how poorly he handled it. It was bad enough that the League's barons were ever-fractious and itching for an opportunity to secede, but for so many in his command to see their Gosunkugi overlord debilitated by a single Jump was practically dangerous.

At least the Navy was with him on this operation. For a chance to outshine their mechwarrior cousins, they would do almost anything for him. It didn't matter who they would face, but to have a chance to stick it to the Furinkan Combine, and Prince Kuno specifically, only heightened their morale.

Nerima Confederation DropShip _Palomino_

Approaching the Planet Capra,

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

10 March 3025

"This is the deal, Ranma," Happousai said to him as they faced off in the Number Four 'Mech Bay. The 20-ton Locust stood in its transit cocoon behind the elder martial artist as he continued his spiel. "Every time I defeat you, you have to change into a girl, got it?" He pointed to several pails of water staged for this purpose.

"So what if I defeat _you_?" Ranma returned.

"Don't concern yourself with something that will never happen," he cackled in response.

"That does it!"

Ranma leaped at the wizened martial artist, who easily avoided his attack and clouted him on the head with his pipe. The blow wasn't painful, but it stung Ranma's pride well enough.

"Is that all you've got?" Happousai mocked. "I expected better of you."

"I'm just warming up!"

His next advance was more cautious than before, yet it was equally ineffective. Happousai was too slippery for him to get hold of. The fight ended with him being sent flying into the outboard bulkhead, which was fortunately padded with insulation against the frigid void of space.

"Quit jumping around, you little freak!" he cried angrily as he picked himself up off the deck.

Happousai laughed.

"You might have thought you were fast, but to me you're standing still!"

Ranma brushed himself off and dropped into a fighting stance.

"We'll see about that."

He charged again, throwing a blinding series of punches that were dodged with little effort by Happousai. Ranma then rolled into an aerobatic volley of kicks, chops, and elbow strikes that failed miserably to land. All he was getting for his troubles was tired.

Happousai sprang out of range to land upon the chassis of his Locust, and looked down on him with pitying eyes.

"You ain't half bad, Ranma m'boy, but you ain't half good either. My grandmother throws a roundhouse faster than you do!"

Ranma flushed crimson. "Bite me!"

"He's just trying to rile you up, you know," Akane observed suddenly. Ranma had missed her arrival in the melee with Happousai.

He turned to her. "So, you're speaking to me again, huh?"

She brushed his comment aside with a laugh. "It looks like you need all the help you can get."

"What's so funny?" he demanded of her.

"I think it's hilarious to see you fighting someone you can't beat," she replied. "You finally get to see how the rest of us mortals feel."

"Hah!" Ranma countered. "This ain't over yet."

Happousai, who had been watching this brief interaction between the two young mechwarriors, chose this moment to intervene.

"It is now," he cried, and leaped down to the deck to face Ranma once again. "Come and get me, boy! I promise I won't jump around this time."

Ranma looked stunned. "You mean it?"

"Of course I do!"

"All right!" Ranma cheered. He charged straight at Happousai, who deftly redirected his energy into the air, flinging him straight up with a yelp of surprise, and dropping him to the hard steel deck with a heavy thud.

"Ranma!" Akane cried. He wasn't moving on the deck, and his eyes were closed.

Happousai produced a pail of water and flung it on Ranma with a cry of "Hit the showers, punk!"

Ranma spluttered back into consciousness and bolted upright.

"W-What the hell happened?" she rambled.

"You lost," Akane observed dryly, though it was clear that she was relieved to see that he was okay.

"To think that a student of the Anything Goes Style of Martial Arts would fail to appreciate such a basic principle as force redirection..." Happousai tsk'ed. "I can see that this will be more difficult than I thought." He gave Ranma an appreciative stare, as her flimsy and waterlogged tank top afforded quite an eyeful to him. "But at least I can enjoy the scenery in the meantime!"

Ranma pulled herself wearily up the ladder to the Lower Deck. She was battered and bruised and utterly disappointed with her performance against Happousai. There had to be a way of beating the old goat!

The guy's only weakness seemed to be his libido, but exploiting it wasn't always palatable. Flashing him was an easy way to distract the old fart, but it almost always led to getting glomped by him before Ranma could land the knockout blow. That was also assuming, of course, that he wasn't too overcome with disgust from the glomp to strike.

No, there had to be a better way. If nothing else, he would train extra hard to improve his speed. That was a good start. If he didn't put Happousai in his place, then the next few months (or even years!) were going to be painful beyond his endurance.

Ranma put those thoughts aside and decided that a hot shower was what he really needed. Not just a hot shower, but a Hollywood shower! Like most DropShips, _Palomino_ was on strict water rationing, as the recycling units often broke down in transit. Showers were thus taken under a very specific procedure.

As in: turn the water on long enough to get wet. Turn the water off. Lather up, shampoo your hair, and shave if you want to. Turn the water on long enough to rinse. Turn the water off. You're done. If you followed the procedure correctly, the longest total time you spent under running water was about a minute.

A Hollywood shower on the other hand was one with the water running the whole time. Ranma had no idea where the term had come from, only that it went back a long long time in history. Hollywood showers were often given as rewards for performance, but considering his hopeless defeat by Happousai, he'd have to settle for some consolation instead.

Ranma made a quick stop through Berthing first, brushing past the black curtain that hung across the passageway to keep out the compartment lighting. The only time the lights came on in Berthing was when the ship was in some kind of emergency condition. She padded across the food cans that lay spread out on the deck, mindful of her step, moving by the dim red fire lights that were spaced two meters apart at deck level.

The soft sighs and snores of people sleeping in their bunks rose only just above the level of the engines. Leopard Class ships had little room for their crews in comparison with the larger DropShips, and as such everyone, officers included, bunked in the same place. _Palomino_ in particular, with its complement of technicians, was especially crowded. Only Akari got a bunk; the rest of her crew slept on cots in the Tech Shop down below.

Ranma reached into her bunk and pulled out her towel and bathing sundries. It was easier to strip down in the narrow Berthing passageway than to try and maneuver in the even narrower space between the toilet stalls and the showers in the Head, and so she peeled off her tank top and shorts, and wrapped her towel around her waist. Lastly she slipped into her cheap plastic shower shoes, which were a necessary precaution against athlete's foot and other fungal infections found in such communal sanitary facilities as a DropShip.

The ship's Head was only big enough to accommodate two toilets, two sinks, and two showers. Stuffed into a tiny alcove on the other side of the shower stalls was a tiny ship's laundry with one washer and one dryer. The drone of the washer competed with the rumble of the DropShip's main drives at it decelerated towards its destination.

Ranma heard voices in the laundry as she stepped into the Head. Her shower shoes slapped against the gritty terrazo of the deck, which must have alerted whoever was in the laundry. So much for the Hollywood shower. She set her towel on the rack and slipped into the stall. The water was immediately hot, and he nearly cried out in pain. All that the people in the laundry heard was a sharp hiss, but this was enough to set them snickering.

His face was red with embarrassment. There was definitely no chance of taking a Hollywood shower now. All he wanted to do was get clean and leave. They would be hitting Capra the next day, and being well rested for it was the best thing he could do to prepare.

He did his business quickly, though the periods of no running water made it easy for him to overhear the conversation in the nearby laundry room.

"I feel so bad for Akane," said the first voice, which he imagined must belong to the Air Lance pilot, Yuka.

"I know," concurred her wingmate, Sayuri.

"To think that she was pulled from command of the 1st Nerima to come along on this mission," Yuka continued.

"And us," added Sayuri. "Not that I mind. I'm in no hurry to die fighting the Furinkan Combine."

There was a pause, prompting Ranma to make some bathing noises lest he be suspected of eavesdropping.

"So what do you think of this Ranma guy?" Yuka asked.

This had Ranma's attention.

"I don't know..." Sayuri replied. "He seems like such a creep to Akane. It's no wonder she gives him the cold shoulder all the time."

Ranma flinched. He was a creep? Since when?

"Still," Yuka said. "Even though we've only been in space for six days, it's pretty clear that she likes him."

Huh? Since when?

"I guess so," Sayuri admitted. "Why else would she even bother with him. But that just makes it worse when he acts like a creep around her."

"Yeah..." Yuka agreed mournfully. "You think he'd get a clue or something."

Ranma clenched his fists. I have a clue, dammit!

"Well, when you consider what a creep his father is, can you really be surprised? I'm not saying Commander Saotome is a bad leader or anything, but you know how he checks us out sometimes when he thinks we won't notice..."

"I hear you," Yuka agreed with a shudder.

"Well, with Ranma it's just the opposite. He just looks right through you. The only time he pays attention to Akane is when he's cutting her down. The guy's so arrogant."

Ranma flinched again.

"You said it, girl. That boy needs an attitude adjustment. He's cute and all, but I think I'd want to slash my wrists if I had him for a fiance."

"Well..." Sayuri hedged. "I don't know if I'd go quite that far, but yeah, it would be pretty harsh..."

Ranma turned the water back on, not caring that it was practically scalding, and rinsed himself off. He stepped out of the shower just in time to see Akane stripping off her towel to step into the second stall.

Their eyes locked for a moment, before Ranma's drifted down Akane's body just far enough to get him in trouble. When he looked back up at her face, she was steaming mad.

"...Seen enough...?" she growled, now clutching her towel protectively to her body.

He fiddled with his own towel for a few moments, wishing he had chosen the other stall so he wouldn't have to get past her to escape.

"Um, sorry?" he managed.

She closed her eyes in an attempt to keep her cool, and stepped aside.

"Just go, Ranma. Go."

He slipped past her, eyes straight ahead, and ignored the fact that their bodies had to rub uncomfortably close together through their towels for him to get by. He ducked into Berthing and dove into his rack, knowing full well that he was going to have a hard time getting to sleep now.

Akane Tendo was no prude. That was impossible for someone who prided herself on being a mechwarrior. Cramped DropShips and shared facilities came with the territory, since there was no practical way to segregate a shower when every last cubic meter of a ship's internal volume counted.

If it had been anyone else but Ranma, she wouldn't have batted an eye. It would have been uncomfortable, but she wasn't going to let anyone see it and possibly judge her as unworthy of her position. No way. As the Grand Duke's daughter she had to work harder and look tougher than any three mechwarriors combined.

She shouldn't have made a big deal about it, she reflected, but when she watched his eyes drift down her body, she nearly flinched out of self-consciousness. It was ridiculous, since she was at the peak of her physical condition, but there she was, embarrassed to get the once-over from a man. That feeling of vulnerability had ballooned into anger out of sheer self-defense.

Perhaps it was because Ranma had looked that she had felt so vulnerable. Since when had Ranma shown any interest in her? He might have felt an obligation to protect her, as he had done against the assassin in the garden, but that was merely because he was now her fiance. It wasn't like he was in love with her or anything.

She heard Yuka and Sayuri gossiping in the laundry as she stepped into the shower. The two Air Lance pilots had been with her in training since they were kids, separating only when the two became aerospace pilots instead of mechwarriors, and transferred to flight school. Judging from their hushed tone, they were probably talking about her and Ranma.

The water was hot, but was nothing compared to the heat in her face.

Let them talk...

The _Palomino_ was on the nightside of Capra, nearing the thin fringes of its atmosphere in preparation for a high-speed, low-profile entry. They were going to treat the landing as a combat drop, with the crew at their battlestations and the pilots in their mecha, ready to deploy. Their intentions were to land well beyond sight and scanning range of Capra City, and then work their way in with low-level flight to a position about forty kilometers away.

The League of Five Nails offered prospectors the ability to file mining claims on many of its worlds in exchange for a ten-percent cut of the take, and Capra was no exception. That would be their cover story if they had to explain themselves. The battlemechs were merely a source of heavy labor and insurance against well armed claim jumpers. The last bit was somewhat of a stretch, but considering that Capra was supposed to be able to field a mixed-forces mercenary battalion with a full company of 'mechs, one lance of strangers wasn't all that threatening.

Genma had been tight-lipped about why they had chosen Capra as their first destination. Only Soun knew the whole story. Ranma, never very interested in the hunt before, had never bothered to look into it.

Now, as they neared the planet, Genma Saotome was ready to show some of his hand. He stood at the forward end of the mess decks to address those members of the expedition entrusted with its true purpose: Ranma, Akane, Senior Technician Unryuu, and Doctor Ono. Happousai, of course, invited himself, and Genma raised no objections to this.

"As some of you may know, Ranma and I have been in search of Ryuugenzawa for over three years now."

Ranma looked around the compartment. "Pop, I think everyone here knows that by now."

Genma continued, ignoring his son. "What may not be clear is how we've been guided on this search."

"Now that's something I'd like to know," Ranma cracked.

"Quiet, boy," Genma growled. "It was shortly after we became Dispossessed that we stumbled across these notebooks." He showed them several battered file folders, data discs, and spiral bound notebooks that were layed out before him.

"Although the boy and I didn't know it at the time, the Scout who owned them was on his deathbed, and he begged us to buy them off him. At first I thought he was crazy, and balked at spending so much money for what little he seemed to offer."

He paused for effect.

"Then, without warning, he up and died on us."

Akane immediately cast a skeptical eye towards Ranma, who returned with a shrug that said Genma was more or less telling it like it was.

"As far as I knew he might have had Nevermore Fever," Genma continued. "And that he was a drifter with no friends or family. I know this sounds callous, but after we called the authorities to come and take care of him, we claimed the material he had tried to sell us."

There was a bit of strained silence at this, and Genma continued uncomfortably.

"It turns out that the search for Ryuugenzawa was the life's work of the Scout. He had compiled an incredible amount of information, and his journals tell of visits to many old Star League facilities that confirm the authenticity of the documents he had collected. The ill-fated trip the boy and I took to Lightoller was to confirm the existence of the Jusenkyo Labs, a facility that was only a rumor to the Inner Sphere, and not a genuine legend like Ryuugenzawa."

"So what are we doing here, Mister Saotome?" Akane asked. "I understand the rest of what you said, but does this mean that this Scout didn't know where Ryuugenzawa was?"

Genma nodded.

"Unfortunately, he did not know its exact location. But he did know enough to put us on the right track. Anyone could continue the search if they had all of his research materials. The reason we're going to Capra is that this Scout was being followed by a gang of pirates and criminals, a group he rarely speaks of in his journals, but when he does, you can feel his fear. In order to keep what he had discovered secret from them, he intentionally concealed important pieces of the puzzle throughout his wanderings across the Inner Sphere." He looked at Ranma. "The boy and I have found most of his clues in the last three years, and now we go to collect one of the most important ones."

"So this is some kind of treasure hunt?" Akane asked him.

Genma cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Essentially."

He thumbed through several notebooks until he found what he was looking for. He held up a rough sketch of some sort of computer device, along with several bits of electronic schematics.

"This is a RADIANT-SIX quantum-interference cypher machine," he announced to them. "It was a standard encryption device for the Star League Defense Force. Most of them were carried off with General Kerensky at the end of the Star League, and of the remainder, only a handful still work. These units were state of the art back then, and nothing we can produce today can even come close to their power. With the Grand Duke's assistance, I was able to procure one of these working units.

"From what I've been able to learn about the RADIANT-SIX is that it requires three to six quantum-interference-encoded 'keys' in order to decrypt a message, and that each key must be inserted into the proper port. The quantum nature of the unit makes it nearly impossible to decrypt a message without the keys, even if you had access to a quantum computer - which, I might add, the Inner Sphere hasn't seen in over a century."

Genma then reached into his white dogi and pulled out four small colored plaques on a chain about his neck. Each was about the size and shape of a domino.

"The Scout had all six of the necessary keys at one time or another. He hid five of them, and lost possession of the sixth. I've got four of them now, and we'll search for number five on Capra." He opened up a small strongbox and retrieved a data disc to show them. "Once we have all six, we can finally decode the data on this disc, data which the Scout was convinced contained the location and layout of Ryuugenzawa, as well as other Star League facilities in the sector."

Doctor Ono raised his hand.

"Do you actually know that for certain?" he asked.

Genma was prepared for this.

"I am," he said confidently. "Serial numbers on the data disc conform to astrogational library data found in the cargo manifests of Star League ships that visited the system. Ryuugenzawa's location was a secret even in that time, which is why the place has never been plundered or taken over like other Star League facilities."

He held up the disc for them again.

"Star League ships that wanted to go to Ryuugenzawa needed a disc like this one, and they needed the decryption keys and cypher machine to unlock its secrets. Otherwise they were out of luck. Control of these materials was handled with the same custody procedures as Star League nuclear weapons. It was only in the chaos of Kerensky's Exodus and the subsequent Fall of the Star League that these objects were to become available."

Genma looked around the room. "Who knows how long the keepers of these materials held on to their secrets, fearful of Kerensky's return, and passing custody along to their heirs until at last the secrets were forgotten and the keys lost?"

"Okay, Okay," Happousai said. "Stop being so dramatic. So where's the sixth key? The one this clown lost."

Genma grimaced. It was a question he wasn't eager to address. "Well, for one thing, the Scout failed to obtain all of the keys at once. He had a key and then lost possession of it before he could put all six together and decrypt the astrogational disc."

"So you don't know where it is," Tofu observed.

"I do, actually," Genma said uneasily. "The Scout's journals told me where it is. Unfortunately, it's a little hard to get to at the moment."

Ranma's ears perked up. This was news to him.

"Oh yeah, Pop? Where would that be?"

Genma cast his son a withering look. "It's better that we concentrate on finding number five before we go after number six."

The General Alarm sounded then, cutting off any further inquiry into the location of the sixth key. It was time to enter Capra's atmosphere. As the assembled group started for their battlestations, Ranma couldn't help but wonder if his father had somehow timed the briefing with the _Palomino's_ mission timetable in order to avoid this very discussion.He doubted it, though; his father simply wasn't that together.

He followed Akane down the ladder to the Lower Deck, and from there down a long and narrow passageway, through a set of airtight doors, and finally to another passageway that linked each of the 'Mech Bays. Just before the passageway was a small alcove lined with pressure suits and survival gear for the pilots. For Ranma, suiting up would be a complicated process of stripping out of his clothes, donning the sensor-studded 'long johns' undergarment, then pulling on his pressure suit and life-support pack, firing everything up, and then checking to make certain that it worked. For the regular mechwarriors like Akane and Genma, it was simply a matter of stripping down to their underwear, pulling on cooling vests to protect them against the tremendous heat of piloting a battlemech, and grabbing a kit bag of survival gear.

Yuka and Sayuri were already finished and on their way to their aerospace fighters as Ranma grabbed his helmet, and he glumly recalled their conversation the previous night. He pulled on his gear as fast as he could, not bothering with the system checks, and ran to catch up with Akane. For no reason he could easily discern, he tapped Akane on the shoulder as she leaned over to open the airtight hatch that led to her Warhammer's bay.

"What is it, Ranma?" she asked tersely. The tension of the drop was already showing.

Ranma found himself at a loss for words.

"I uh, I just wanted to..."

"Come on, Ranma. We need to get our 'mechs warmed up and ready for drop. I don't have time for this."

Ranma stood for a moment in silence, prompting Akane to blow her bangs up out of her eyes in frustration, and then start down the ladder to Mech Bay #3.

"Akane!" he finally called out to her.

"What?!" she demanded from halfway down the ladder.

He steeled himself. "Be careful, willya?"

She looked up at him in silence for a moment before giving him a smile.

"I will. Thanks."

Ranma felt some sort of relief at this, and proceeded to his own 'Mech Bay. The Phoenix Hawk LAM stood in Battlemech Mode below him. He undogged the armored hatch to the cockpit and pulled himself through.

The _Palomino_ began to shake as it struck thicker air. Ranma could hear the thin scream of superheated gasses passing over the heavily armored hull from within his LAM. It wouldn't be long before they were within the planet's troposphere.

He plugged his suit's umbilicals into the Phoenix Hawk's life-support connections. Then his neurohelmet feeds. The DropShip bucked violently as it hit a pocket of denser air, reminding him to strap himself into his cockpit. He reached over to the main computer terminal and flipped a bank of switches that brought the LAM to standby power.

He could feel the subtle tingle of his neurohelmet against his scalp, telling him that it was now receiving input from his brain. As he punched in the start commands to the computer, he projected the password sequence through his helmet. The Phoenix Hawk responded immediately with a sharp _crack_ from the igniting Allied 250 fusion engine. The turbines began to spool up in warmup mode, and the battlemech's myomer groups flexed and and relaxed in their proper preflight sequence.

His preparations turned out to be unnecessary. Word was passed over the intraship commo that they had not been detected, and were about to set down in a concealed position. Battlemechs would not be required for the ship's security as far as Genma was concerned.

Primary Continent, Planet Capra

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

11 March 3025

The _Palomino_ sat within the confines of a narrow wadi within forty kilometers of Capra City. Its two CSR-V8 Corsair fighters sat fore and aft of the giant vessel, ready to lift into the air with only a few minutes warning. Genma's Griffin and Ranma's Phoenix Hawk had set a series of camouflage tarps over the Leopard Class DropShip and the fighters to conceal them from the air, and the wadi itself would screen them from patrols on the ground. Anyone who stumbled across the _Palomino_ would do so quite literally.

Genma had decided to keep the battlemechs inside the DropShip for now, and conduct patrols in a decidedly more low-key manner. That meant hauling out one of the two Boomerang reconnaisance planes from the hold. The task of assembling the plane fell to Akari, who was the senior technician, and Ranma, who would be flying it, and thus had a vested interest in its integrity.

Akari had been a wallflower for the entire trip, never speaking about anything other than battlemechs and their maintenance. Ranma could not recall her ever engaging in more than inane pleasantries on the mess decks, or in passing aboard ship. Battlemechs seemed to be her overriding passion, and the bigger the 'mech, the more she lavished it with affection.

He had to admit though, for a girl whose overalls were always clean and pressed, she knew how to turn a wrench. How she managed to keep neat after putting in a sixteen hour day overhauling Happousai's filthy Locust, he could not imagine. Assembling the Boomerang seemed almost an insult to her skills.

The light recon plane was up in less than an hour, and as Ranma leaned on the spars and kicked at the spindly landing gear, he knew it would perform as advertised. He was eager to get in some hours on the Boomerang, as it was something of a guilty pleasure for him to fly the little turboprop plane. The last time he had done so was two years back, when they had signed up for a brief hitch with a merc battalion in the Federated Shiratori as scouts in order to pay the bills.

Ranma turned to his father as the Boomerang was pushed up the gentle southern slope of the wadi and onto the hard 'desert pavement' of the surrounding ground. The air was dry and hot, but not too hot to prevent his plane's wings from generating lift. The wind was little more than a gentle breeze, but it did wonders to stifle the heat.

"So, Pop. You ready to fly?"

Genma shook his head.

"I've got some planning to do, son."

Ranma was taken aback by this. They had always flown together. Genma had taught him how to fly when he was eight years old. Not having his father in the right-hand seat was too weird to even think about.

"Okay," he shrugged morosely, not wanting to let his disappointment show. "I guess I'll go it alone."

"Take Akane," Genma muttered. He looked down to a topographic map of Capra that was most likely years out of date.

"What?"

"Take Akane," Genma repeated himself. "It'll give her something to do, and you'll need an extra pair of eyes up there."

Ranma scratched his head. "Can she even fly?"

"Beats me."

"Why don't I just borrow one of the _Palomino_'s flight crew, or even Yuka or Sayuri, instead?"

Genma shook his head. "We'll need all of the _Palomino_'s crew on hand in case we need to lift off in a hurry, and the girls will be our only air support when you're not around."

Ranma pointed to Doctor Tofu, who was enjoying the fresh desert air and stretching out his legs.

"What about the Doc?" he asked.

"And lose our only surgeon while you're gone?" Genma harrumphed. "Not going to happen, boy. Take Akane, and get your ass in the air."

Ranma looked around. She was not in sight.

"Where is she?"

"Go find her," Genma grunted. "And stop wasting my time."

Ranma huffed to himself and started for the _Palomino_. He didn't find her until he searched the 'Mech Bays, and sure enough, she was with her Warhammer. Thanks to his efforts, the seventy-ton death machine was painted in a functional desert camouflage pattern. The topic of its recent change of livery did not come up.

His plan was to ask her to come along with him on the flight. When she refused, he would be in the clear, and could take off by himself.

He didn't count on her accepting his invitation.

The Boomerang's engine roared to life, the large prop kicking up a cloud of surface dust from the hard ground. Ranma checked over his small instrument cluster to make sure the engine was functioning properly. One of the things he liked about the Boomerang was its simplicity. There were no overly complicated instrument displays, no computer controlled systems to malfunction and require parts that might or might not be available in the technology starved Inner Sphere, just a pilot, with all the controls he needed at his hands and feet.

"Do you know how to fly?" he asked Akane as the engine warmed up.

"Nope," she confessed. "I never got around to it."

"Great," he muttered to himself. "Don't touch anything."

Akane gave him a sour look. "How stupid do you think I am, Ranma? Of course I'm not going to touch anything. Jerk."

Her words made him wince, and the conversation of Yuka and Sayuri came back to haunt him once again. He pushed the throttle forward and let the sound of the engine take his mind off the subject. The Boomerang stood in place, vibrating heavily as the turboprop reached maximum output with nowhere to channel all that power. Ranma wanted to make one final check to see that everything would hold together, and so far everything looked good.

"Why aren't we going yet?" Akane asked him over the noise.

Ranma gave her a smart-assed grin as his right hand set the prop pitch, and suddenly the propeller bit into the air. The Boomerang surged forward on its little wheels.

He needed only seventy-five meters to get off the ground, which wasn't bad for a plane that weighed a little over five and a half tons, fully loaded with fuel, sensors, and crew. The Boomerang sprang into the air, and once he had reached his desired airspeed, he engaged the muffler system. It drained him of a little horsepower, but made the aircraft virtually silent.

Akane noticed the sudden silence and grinned with delight.

"Whew," she sighed. "I was hoping the whole trip wouldn't be so noisy."

"Don't worry about it," Ranma replied. "It's going to be nice and quiet the rest of the flight. I won't need a lot of power to land, so we can keep the muffler engaged."

She looked around the wide cockpit bubble at the surrounding desert. "It looks pretty desolate out there," she remarked. "What are we looking for?"

Ranma consulted a copy of the map his father had been studying.

"Just checking to see how out of date the map is," he replied. "There might be settlements or maybe a mine or something out here that isn't on the map. For obvious reasons, no one in the League is real keen on publishing current maps of their planets for public consumption."

"It's like that in the Confederation, too," she agreed.

"We also need to find alternate routes back to the _Palomino_ from the city in case we have to beat feet. Pop doesn't want to use the 'mechs unless we have to, and that sounds like a good idea to me. There might be a dirt road or maybe a dried-up river we can take that'll let us make good time and stay out of sight."

Akane sat back in her comfy bucket seat and folded her arms behind her head. "It seems you've got this all figured out."

"Nah, I'm just faking it as usual," Ranma admitted with a laugh.

He put on a little left yaw and rolled over into an aileron turn. The controls felt good in his hands, a direct mechanical linkage that gave him feedback on the plane's performance. It wasn't a fly-by-light photonic control system, which meant there was the chance a linkage could jam or separate, but this was an acceptable risk in Ranma's eyes. Flying like this felt more natural, and ultimately it was more satisfying than any computerized and soulless hypersonic aerofighter, even his LAM.

A flick of a switch brought up their twin telescopic and forward-looking infrared video cameras. The two units were displayed on a bank of monitors between the two sets of instrument clusters, though controls for the cameras were located on Akane's side of the cockpit. A thin set of crosshairs was centered in each monitor, and several columns of alphanumerics tumbled across the sides.

Akane had only a passing knowledge of aerial reconnaissance, and though she had called for it numerous times during training exercises and actual combat, she had always taken the process for granted.

Ranma pointed out a small joystick for her to operate.

"That controls one of the two camera units," he told her. "You can train it around, and when you find something you want to track, you can press that left hand button on top of the stick. The camera will then lock on to whatever is in the crosshairs, even the ground itself, with a laser rangefinder, and track it no matter what the aircraft is doing."

He pointed out several other controls on the stick.

"You can even send burst transmissions to friendly forces like artillery or close air support, and they'll know exactly where to put their weapons. You can only track with one camera at a time though, so once you've slaved one to the target, use the other one to continue looking around."

"In case I find a better target?" Akane asked.

"Yeah," Ranma nodded. "But mostly in case there's someone down there who's fixing to kill you; like Triple-A guns or SAMs, or an air-defense 'mech like the Rifleman. The Boomerang is made mostly of carbon fiber and composites, so it doesn't have much of a radar signature. The engine is about the only thing that'll give a return, so it's surrounded with Radar Absorbing Material. About the only vulnerable point is the inlet duct, so you can't approach a radar site head-on and at a low angle. The engine exhaust itself is ported throught the prop wash, so there isn't much of an IR sig either. Plus it's real quiet with the muffler engaged."

She gave him a look that said she was wondering when he would come to the point of this lesson. He got the message.

"So basically, the only way to be discovered is visually," he went on. "If you can see them, chances are pretty good that they can see you."

He put the Boomerang through another turn.

"This thing doesn't have any armor," he continued. "One guy with a shoulder-launched SRM pack could blow us right out of the sky."

Akane hadn't realized this. She was used to the heavy wall of diamond-hard armor plate that protected her inside her Warhammer. A feeling of helplessness crept over her for a moment before she got a hold of herself. Ranma spoke like he knew the job of aerial reconnaissance firsthand, and she wanted to know how he had lived to tell about it.

"So how does one stay alive in the recon business?"

"Easy," Ranma replied. "Fly above three hundred meters if you can, and always keep your eyes open for trouble. The second you let your guard down is the second you die. That and don't be afraid to make a run for it."

Akane chuckled at this. "The great Ranma Saotome _runs_ from trouble?"

He bristled in response. "Well, duh. This thing has no armor and no weapons. You're literally sitting on a hundred kilos of high-octane gasoline, so you have no chance in hell of surviving a hit long enough to bail out. What else are you supposed to do?"

"I suppose you have a point," she conceded, though her expression told him that she was secretly pleased at having found and pushed one of his buttons.

They flew on in silence for awhile. Ranma kept his mind on his flying, and Akane played with the camera units. They were easy for her to manipulate, and she marvelled at the details they could provide. At one point she was able to count the spots on one of the indigenous reptiles as it sunned itself on a rock. The sensor dutifully tracked the large lizard through a full banking turn of the aircraft.

"So," Ranma said to her all of a sudden. "Wanna fly this thing for a bit?"

Akane looked at him with equal parts of hope and suspicion.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked him. "I told you I don't know how."

Ranma rolled his shoulders to work the kinks out of them. "Heck, Akane, even _you_ could fly this thing without crashing it once I got it up in the air for you."

"Thanks a lot," she grumped.

"Take your stick," he told her firmly. "And put your feet on the rudder pedals just enough to make contact; don't push on them yet." She did so reluctantly, holding the control column with a virtual death grip. Ranma could feel it through his own controls. "Relax," he told her. "You're gonna give yourself a cramp if you keep holding it like that."

She eased up a bit, but only slightly.

"The thing's gonna move around a little if you let it go," he soothed. "But don't worry about it. It's just the feedback from the control surfaces. All you need to do is keep it steady, like driving a car on the freeway. Just put yourself into a 'cruise' mode."

Akane relaxed a bit more. Ranma could feel the tension on the control column ease.

"Great," he said to her. "Just hold it steady for awhile, while you get used to it."

She did so, tensing up with an audible hiss whenever a gust of wind caught the Boomerang and the controls began to jerk in her hand. It would take her several moments of white-knuckling the stick before she was able to relax enough to hold it as he had instructed her.

"You're doing great, Akane," he told her. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, and she did not notice the fact that he was no longer holding his own control column. The aircraft was hers.

"You can look around, you know," he said calmly. He wanted to put a little bite into it, but held his tongue. Well, almost. "The odds of you running into anything up here are pretty slim."

She slowly took her eyes off the windscreen and looked over at him. Her eyes lit up when she saw that he wasn't flying the plane.

"How long have your hands been off the controls?" she asked quietly.

"A couple minutes now," he replied. "The bird's yours."

"This is a bad idea, Ranma," she returned. Her death grip was back.

"Hey, it's my life too, you know," he said to her. "If I thought you were gonna spike us into the ground, do you think I'd let you do this?"

Her eyes fell upon her instruments. "Well... No..."

"Exactly. Now hold the stick steady and push on the right pedal a little bit. That should move the nose of the plane to the right."

She did so. The plane began to swing hard to the right, forcing Ranma to take back control before they went into a flat spin and crashed.

"You see," Akane said in a tiny voice. She was nearly petrified, and the beads of sweat that ran down Ranma's face weren't helping her confidence. "This was a bad idea."

"Man," Ranma grunted once he had control of the plane. "You don't do anything by small measures. I said push on the pedal a little, not stomp on it."

"I'm sorry, all right!" she cried.

"Apology accepted," he returned. "For your punishment I'm gonna make you do it again. The right way this time. Take the controls."

She gave him a helpless look.

"Come on, Akane," he said firmly. "I learned when I was eight, and anytime I screwed up, I got smacked by my old man just as soon as he had the aircraft stable. You've got it easy."

His appeal to her pride worked. She took back the control column and the pedals. The Boomerang began a gentle slip to the right.

"Hey, not bad," he said to her. "Now ease off on the right and put on some left yaw with the left pedal."

She did so, and the plane responded as intended.

"See? What'd I tell you. You can fly this thing."

Akane smiled for him, which to Ranma seemed to raise the temperature of the cockpit by several degrees. He talked her through the motion of the controls and how they affected the Boomerang, and she was made to perform each basic maneuver, such as turning and changing altitude, until she had proven she could do it without losing control. Finally, the topic of instruction turned towards the instruments.

"I guess you're ready for it," he replied in response to her question. "I just wanted you to get a feel for flying the plane without them before you started flying with them. You fly a plane like this by feel more than you do by instruments or computer."

He began pointing out the various dials and gauges for her.

"The big things you have to keep an eye on when you're flying are your altitude - in this case by laser altimeter - your airspeed, your fuel gauge - which measures the kilos of fuel remaining - your compass heading and attitude on your artificial horizon, and every now and then check your oil pressure and temperature gauges on your engine. Those first five things are on your HUD, so you don't have to look away from the canopy. Everything else gets a look now and then when you aren't busy."

"So don't worry about all this other stuff?"

"Not right now," he replied. "Get the basics down first." He looked out at the bleak mountains of jumbled sandstone that marked one of the places where a copper mine was located. The mine seemed abandoned, but they'd have to take a closer look, as it was close to one of their proposed escape routes from the city. "I get the feeling you'll have plenty of time to learn the rest."

Akane sensed his unease.

"What's the matter?"

He returned his attention to her. "It's nothing. Really."

"Why don't I believe you?"

He frowned at this. What did she care anyway?

"I'm taking back the controls now."

Akane nodded faintly and handed them over to him. "I get the feeling you don't exactly believe in what we're doing..." she said, and let her words hang in the cockpit between them.

Ranma winced. Akane had the uncanny ability of hitting him where he lived.

"I don't believe Ryuugenzawa exists," he replied. "I thought I said that to you once."

"First I've heard of it," she remarked. "So what you're saying is that despite all of this evidence that your father has, the place the entire Confederation is depending on for its survival doesn't even exist?"

"That's about it," Ranma said evenly. "It probably existed at one time, but I don't think it's gonna be there when we figure out where it's supposed to be. What are the odds that something so important could have survived intact for so long, when every treasure hunter and would-be king in the Inner Sphere's been looking for it? Even if it does exist, what are the odds that all the stories about what it contains are true, and not just storytellers puffing up the legend with some exaggerations of their own?"

Akane's heart sank. Ranma's arguments made a lot of sense, and that wasn't good news for her people. "So we're really on a stupid wild goose chase..."

"Basically, yeah."

She bit down on her lip in thought. "I refuse to accept that."

Ranma gave her an incredulous look. "Say what?"

"I refuse to accept that there isn't any hope for the Confederation," she replied in a steely voice. "Even if it's true, I won't just roll over and die. Or worse, get married off to Tatewaki Kuno. I'm going to do whatever I can. Whatever I have to do."

Ranma said nothing at this. The force of Akane's convictions made him feel guilty about his own lack of faith. Was it so wrong to look at things cynically when chances were that things were going to turn out badly no matter what?

The Boomerang circled around the copper mine, the last location they could reach before fuel considerations would force them to return to the _Palomino_.

Jusenkyo Commonwealth DropShip Jade Lotus

Capra System Nadir Jump Point

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

11 March 3025

The _Jade Lotus_ had set a new Commonwealth record for the longest average distance travelled per day, and the crew were exhausted reflections of this feat. At the urging of the Elders, the ship had foregone the usual steady one-gee transit of the Epsilon Indi system and instead opted for a punishing two-gee transit, followed by four hours of continuous three-gee deceleration just prior to docking with their JumpShip. Such torturous maneuvers had required that most of the crew be sent to their racks with a combination of drugs that dulled their senses against the pain and stress while keeping their cardiovascular systems up to the challenge of working under such a strain.

The Jumps themselves were a carefully orchestrated ballet of moving from one Commonwealth recharge station to the next, covering the fifty parsec gap from Epsilon Indi to Capra in just under eighteen hours. The crew of _Jade Lotus_ used that time to recuperate from their heavy-gee ordeal, though it was clear that they would need the next few days of transit to the planet to return to their battle-ready condition. The trip itself was rated a major success: only two members of the crew had succumbed to the strain and perished, and they were only men - no great loss to the Commonwealth.

Now they were in the Capra system, and things were very peculiar. Someone, presumably the League of Five Nails Navy, had scattered a great deal of radar-reflective chaff throughout the jump point, making it difficult to determine if there was anything else in the vicinity. Visual and passive EMS scans of the jump point had turned up nothing thus far, but it was clear that something was up. It was possible that this was merely a response to the Combine raid earlier in the year, but it seemed a very impractical deterrent to future raids.

Kima's concern was more pragmatic. Assuming their information was correct, the two Saotomes were somewhere on the distant planet of Capra, a trip of several days. Further assuming that they hadn't already visited the planet and then moved on, how was she to find them?

Capra had only one major city, and a handful of scattered settlements comprised mostly of wildcat mining operations. It made the most sense to cover Capra City, as it was the most likely place for them to visit, but what of the smaller settlements? What if they had no reason at all to visit a populated area? She simply didn't have the manpower to stake out the entire planet.

There was more as well, for two mechwarriors reputed to be in the Capra garrison were wanted by the Commonwealth. Not only did she have to find the two Saotomes, but also two men by the names of Hibiki and Tarou. They too had been at the Jusenkyo Labs during the break-in, and were reported to have cursed alter-egos.

She reflected grimly that this was not the sort of operation she was suited to. Her talents were far more personal, and did not involve directing troops. She knew Shampoo was smart enough to take care of herself, and that Mousse would do anything the purple-haired Joketsuzoku told him to do. That left ten more mechwarriors and two aerospace pilots, plus a platoon of Special Forces that clearly balked at the idea of being commanded by one outside their insular community. This was without a doubt the most difficult assignment she had ever been given.

The small mechwarriors' lounge was two decks directly below Kima. Shampoo sat on a comfortable chair with her back to Mousse as Pink and Link played mah-jong. She watched the twins with little interest, her body still aching from the trip from Lightoller, and her mind clouded with uncertainties.

Of General Herb there had been no word. He had not come to the starport, nor had either of his two henchmen. She had been relieved of course, but as for the reasons for Herb's absence, only Mousse was in a position to know.

Mousse had not greeted her with the expected fanfare and annoying declarations of love. Instead he had given her a simple nod of recognition and steered well clear. She was both pleased and unsettled by that, which added to her confusion. Surely the fool would have been eager to capitalize on his sacrifice for her - right?

She turned to face him. He sat in silence, close enough to touch if she was so inclined. His face was taut with determination, as if he was locked in a battle with himself not to speak to her. He did not look up from his lap when she turned her attention his way.

"Mousse?" Though her voice was quiet, the twins looked up briefly from their game to observe.

Mousse's eyes slowly lifted to gaze upon her. His face remained taut, though his breathing quickened.

"What is it, Shampoo?" he replied. His voice was ragged and metallic with disuse.

She looked away. What did she really have to say to him, anyway?

"It's nothing," she replied. "Forget it."

He winced almost imperceptibly at her response. "As you wish," he said to her, and left the lounge without another word.

Shampoo could feel the eyes of Pink and Link upon her as Mousse left. Now _she_ was acting like a fool! There were more important matters to think about, like finding the two Saotomes.

It wasn't going to be easy. If they weren't close to the city, then it would be almost impossible. The only advantage they had was their status as members of the Commonwealth. The League of Five Nails extended certain courtesies towards the Amazon Nation, so at least they could land at the starport and walk about the city as themselves without any trouble from the local garrison.

They were supposed to capture the information on Ryuugenzawa, but as far as she was concerned, that was Kima's problem. Ranma was hers, and he would pay dearly for her cursed Jusenkyo body! His father's death was only an afterthought.

It did not matter if Ryuugenzawa even existed, which she doubted. Only vengeance concerned her, for by killing Ranma Saotome, she erased the stain of failure that threatened her own death in the eyes of the Elders. Her career had not yet begun, and she was already in peril of losing everything she had devoted her life to. She could not fail again.

Furinkan Combine DropShip _Thorn_,

transitting from the Capra System Nadir Jump Point

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

11 March 3025

Colonel Princess Kodachi Kuno, known to most in the Inner Sphere as the Black Rose of the Furinkan Combine, sat moodily upon a burgundy velvet-upholstered chair within her private sanctum. The ship had been extensively modified from its original configuration, cutting its battlemech complement down to a mere twenty 'mechs, and reserving the space for her Regimental Headquarters staff as well as her personal chambers. It was a place of comforts unknown to other DropShips, even those of her brother.

She was of a sanguine mind, fey, and brooding with heavy-lidded eyes through the dim lighting of the chamber at a fractal hologram of a burning rose. She listened to the darker music of the ages - ancient composers such as Rachmaninov, Mussorgsky, Goldenthal, Kanno, and Elfman. The fractal rose withered and burned away into nothingness before her, each element a smaller copy of itself, its ghostly reflections luminous within the ebon pools of her eyes.

The large glass of Syrah at her elbow trembled with the subsonic vibrations of the ship's main drives, the only indication in this sound-dampened and shock-mounted compartment that they were operating. She sipped at the wine, glad for the warmth that filled her with each drink, and hungry for the narcotic embrace of the alcohol that would let her sleep. She preferred alcohol over tranquilizers; preferred the fuzzy euphoria of drunkenness to the numbing, empty darkness of Nembutal or the dreary half-recalled nightmares of Valium.

The music swelled around her, Rachmaninov's 'Isle of the Dead' reaching its vertiginous and anti-climactic crescendo before drifting dreamily into a languid vaporing of limpid stillness. She felt her heart clench at the tremulous vibrato of the strings rising in counterpoint to the crisp bray of the horns. How could any composer of music compare with the grim despair of aristocratic Russians like poor mad Sergei?

She took another sip of the wine and reflected upon her own struggle with life and death. This would be her one chance for revenge upon Akane Tendo before her dear brother snatched her out of reach. Success depended on reaching Capra first. Failure was unthinkable.

As for dear Tachi's reaction to her disobedience, she tried not to let it concern her, but she knew her brother, and she knew that his anger would be beyond measure once vengeance was hers. Perhaps even sufficient to forget the ties of blood and family that bound them. Her life was too important to be lost over such a trifle as Akane Tendo's death, and steps had to be taken to keep what was hers.

Her ships were well concealed against the inevitable search by his fleet, but she would have to come to a jump point sooner or later if she was ever to leave this dreadful star system. It would prove prudent to keep the Tendo witch alive long enough to use as a shield against Tachi's wrath. Once she was safely within the bounds of her own fiefdom she could murder Akane slowly and by degrees, and Daddy would once again be there to keep Tatewaki in check.

A comtone sounded softly in the lull of the music. Kodachi's hand lashed out into the air, silencing the next performance before it could begin.

"Enter," she called imperiously to the darkness.

The door to her sanctum opened, and the diminutive form of Sasuke appeared against the harsh lighting of the passageway beyond. He stepped across the threshold silently, pausing to let the door slide shut behind him, casting him into the chamber's darkness, before continuing his approach.

"Ah, Sasuke," she purred to him. "I trust your intrusion bears some merit?"

"Of course, Mistress," he demurred. "I wish to inform you of your brother's arrival in the Capra System."

"What distasteful news," she observed, holding the glass of Syrah up to the light of the hologram rose, and swirling the dark red liquid thoughtfully. "I gather that he has begun the search for me?"

"Not yet, Mistress. For the moment he appears to be engaged in some sort of difficulty at the zenith point."

Kodachi was intrigued.

"Explain," she demanded.

"I regret that the details are somewhat sketchy at this point, my Mistress. The _Thorn_ has not yet put sufficient distance between the nadir point and the Capra primary to receive any clear transmissions from the fleet."

"Your regret is noted," she returned. "I expect more than mere speculation from you, Sasuke, if you wish to intrude upon my meditation."

The ninja bowed deeply in apology.

"Of course, Mistress. I shall keep your words close at hand."

"Keep them in your head, Sasuke, or not at all."

"Yes, Mistress."

He bowed again, and turned to excuse himself.

Kodachi watched him start for the door, and waited until he was just about to leave before halting him. "Sasuke!"

"Mistress?"

"Do you think my dear brother will have you executed?"

Sasuke looked puzzled by this.

"Mistress?"

She gave him a predatory grin. "Surely you don't think he hasn't realized who it was that leaked the whereabouts of the Tendo girl to me, do you? Nor the fact that you are no longer embarked aboard any of his ships, and therefore must be in my company?"

Sasuke shook his head slowly. "It has occurred to me, Mistress."

She chuckled softly at this.

"I suppose then that you've thought of some countermeasure against his wrath."

He bowed for her once again, and she gave him a dismissive wave in reply.

"Go now, Sasuke."

"At once, Mistress."

His departure was as silent as his arrival. Kodachi considered putting the music back on, but the mood was spoiled, and the wine no longer had its usual appeal. She drained her glass absently, not bothering to savor its vintage, and then threw it against the bulkhead with a shriek.

The glass shattered against the cherry panelling of the far bulkhead with a crash. Kodachi Kuno sank down into her chair. Her laughter was manic and forced, descending abruptly into deranged shrieks of fear and despair before cascading into wet sobs of hopelessness.

She wept incoherently for some time, her eyes red and wet with frantic tears. Her throat stung from the wracking sobs of anxiety that gripped her soul. This was a desperate game that she played; her pathological fear of her brother pitted against the ravenous hunger, the deep-seated exigency for revenge against Akane Tendo, that clawed at her sense of self-worth. In order to restore herself, she courted her own destruction.

League of Five Nails JumpShip _Impaler_

orbiting the planet Capra-Beta,

two light-minutes from the system primary

The League of Five Nails

11 March 3025

Hikaru Gosunkugi watched the Tactical Display with his cousin Tetsuo. The Furinkan Combine JumpShips were appearing out of hyperspace at the Zenith point. Numerous passive sensors concealed within the painstakingly sown clouds of chaff revealed each new JumpShip as it winked into existence. There were far more ships present than Hikaru had expected.

"Kuno's really calling in the clans," Tetsuo observed.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," Hikaru replied. "He doesn't know what he can expect in the Capella System, and he's probably sweating the resistance he's getting at Calypso, Tybalt, and the other places he chose for his feint."

"I hope we've brought enough ships."

"Any damage we inflict can only delay his attack on Capella," Hikaru observed. "And now that we've confirmed Kuno's end-run strategy, our little HPG message to Grand Duke Tendo warning him of what's coming can only make it worse for the Combine."

They both laughed at this, explosive snorts and wheezes of breath that filled the _Impaler's_ Combat Information Center. Admiral Morag was busy directing the coming attack, and his forces would engage the fringes of the Combine formation within minutes. So far, Kuno's fleet had deployed only a fraction of its fighter escorts, leaving his starships to flail the surrounding space of the jump point uselessly with their radars.

Tiny green points of light representing League Navy fighter and GunShip squadrons closed within the projected detection zone of the Combine fleet. Hikaru and Tetsuo both lit the candles tied to their heads upon seeing this. Tetsuo began chanting mantras cursing the Combine fleet with bad luck, while his cousin hammered namesake iron spikes through a dozen straw effigies of Tatewaki Kuno. They were leaving nothing to chance in this attack, not even divine intervention.

Tatewaki Kuno shrugged off the effect of a Jump better than most people, a trait he used as further evidence that he was a superior human being. While his crew shook their heads and reached for stimulant inhalers to bring them out of their Jump-induced mental fog, he was floating towards the viewport in search of the planet Capra.

Space itself seemed to shimmer with light, perhaps because of the effects of so many starships appearing from Jump in such a short span of time. Was this not an omen foretelling his victory over the Confederation?

He had his answer only moments later when a small strip of shiny aluminum foil struck the viewport. The strip's low relative velocity ensured that the contact was without incident, but its presence puzzled him deeply. It was only as his sensory crews got their wits about them that the mystery of the foil was revealed.

"Conn, Sensory; multiple paint at all bearings. We're showing very unusual return signatures."

"Sensory, Conn; aye," the Officer of the Deck replied. "Sensory, Conn; can you classify?"

There was a pause.

"Conn, Sensory; we have either jumped into a heavy field of radar chaff, or one of the fleet ships has suffered a catastrophic JumpSail malfunction."

"Engineering reports successful deployment of JumpSail," the Assistant Engineer reported quickly from his Bridge station.

"Sensory, Conn; aye... Very well, Engineering."

The Officer of the Deck summoned his Communications section. "Contact the ships of the fleet and request the status of their JumpSails," he ordered.

The call went out throughout the fleet. No ships reported any problems with their JumpSails.

Tatewaki turned at this news. Had his sister's ships run afoul of some terrible catastrophe? His heart leapt at the thought.

"Whither my twisted sister?" he asked his Operations Officer, Captain Lucius Kyle.

Kyle looked to the Tactical Display, but as expected, the lack of reliable radar data offered no immediate answers to his prince's question. The fleet ships each had a transponder signal, which made it easy to display their locations despite the radar interference, but Princess Kodachi wasn't foolish enough to use them after her little mutiny against her brother.

"Unknown at this time, m'lord," Kyle offered cautiously. "Until we can establish the cause for this radar interference, I would suggest an elevated state of alert throughout the fleet."

"Aye," Tatewaki agreed. "This anomaly smacks of the Gosunkugis and their League swine. Intensify our efforts with passive detection equipment, and find my sister."

"At once, your Highness," Kyle returned crisply. "I request permission to fully deploy our fighter assets."

"Denied," Tatewaki answered coolly. "Our ships will have enough trouble sorting through this cursed interferance, and the fighters will only add to the confusion. Furthermore, I am wary of a collision that may handicap us in our ultimate goal of conquering the Capella system. Our passive sensors will have to do for now."

Kyle nodded and turned to carry out his orders.

Hinako Ninomiya had been in rough situations before, but she had never stared down an entire fleet. The Furinkan Combine's starships kept winking into existence around them, and if not for the screening fields of chaff the League had mysteriously sown, they would have been detected. They could not hide forever, though, and she had taken steps to get them out of the jump point as quietly as possible.

_Dragonfly's_ JumpSail was quickly stowed for starters. It was too big and too reflective to avoid notice for long. They would also have to make do without radar, which was just as well considering how useless it currently was to them. After that it was a matter of pointing their stern in a direction away from the prying passive sensors of the Combine fleet and use their thrusters at their lowest practical outputs to creep away.

She had been playing this game for almost an hour now, and had put on enough delta-vee to make a modest run for the ecliptic plane. She would keep the star between _Dragonfly_ and the Combine fleet for as long as possible, and in the meantime she would try to think of some way to warn the planet-bound _Palomino_ without giving away her position.

Flashes of light reached out into the darkness, signalling men and women to prepare for war. The dot-dash prosigns stood for key words and phrases for the attack, and took the place of radio transmissions that would give away their presence to wary Combine sensory operators. The message was a simple one:

"Hellcat Lead to all Hellcat flights; Engage weapon presets. Prepare to attack."

Hellcat Lead listened to the chorus of double-clicked radio mics over his headset that confirmed the receipt of his orders. Arrayed behind him was an entire fighter wing of eighteen HCT-213B Hellcat II aerospace fighters, and his wing was only one of six that the League Navy had committed to the attack. In addition to the fighters were two GunShip squadrons of Leopard and Union Class DropShips that exchanged their ability to transport 'mechs for heavier armor and more firepower.

The GunShips led the attack, as they were large enough to carry the passive detection gear necessary to locate and home on the Combine fleet in the radar-limited environment. The fighters followed, using pencil-thin laser beams emitted from trackers aboard the GunShips, and aimed at the lead fighters as a guide until they closed to combat range. This was a battle the League of Five Nails Navy had trained hard for, and one that they had prayed would come.

Data streamed onto Hellcat Lead's HUD as the lead GunShip sighted the Combine JumpShips on the perimeter of the formation, and passed on the news through modulations of the laser guidebeam. To the fighter pilot, the enemy fleet was nothing more than tiny shimmering points of light, visible only because of their tremendous JumpSails reflecting Capra's primary. At their considerable velocity, they would be in attack range in just over seven minutes.

His commo crackled for attention on the tactical frequency.

"All flights, this is Hound Lead; We are compromised, I say again, we are compromised. Commencing PsyWar-Op ALFA. Good luck and good hunting to you all."

Hellcat Lead clicked his radio mic twice in acknowledgment, and swallowed a gulp of oxygen streaming from his helmet facemask. The Combine pickets had spotted their formation, as was to be expected at this close range. From that point on, they were operating without any radio communications.

The skirl of bagpipes and the roll of drums howled over all frequencies and at maximum gain. It was the set known as 'Nell Flaherty's Drake', and it would serve as the timing for the League attack - while denying the Furinkan Combine forces the use of the radio. Hellcat Lead winced at Admiral Morag's taste in music, and hoped it would be just as annoying to the Combine. At least the League forces had the advantage of training under the music's effects.

The ships of his wing broke up by squadrons and slipped into their attack formations. They would sight on his fighter for the attack, and would attack the Combine JumpShip that he engaged. Other squadrons fanned out into a wide skirmish line that would take half of the enemy fleet in one point-blank pass. After that, they would mix it up down and dirty with the Combine until their fuel status reached thirty percent, then they'd make a break for their carriers. Hellcat Lead doubted the Combine would attempt to chase them far, as the rendezvous orbit would take over nineteen hours.

'Bonnie Dundee' gave way to 'The Hills of Glenorchy' over the tac-net; the sign that they would be within weapons range in mere minutes. Hellcat Lead couldn't wait.

Tatewaki Kuno had barely taken his seat on the Executive Bridge when all hell broke loose.

"Conn, Tactical; Pickets Charlie-Four-Kilo and Charlie-Four-Lima report enemy spacecraft approaching on intercept with the fleet; bearing two-two-four minus three, range nine thousand kilometers! Time to intercept is four hundred seconds."

Captain Kyle whirled on his tactical staff as the data streamed into _Imperator_'s battlecomp.

"Give me a raid count and classification!" he demanded.

The men and women of the Tactical station hunched over their displays collating and classifying their targets. Angry red points of light appeared on the main monitor as alphanumerics scrolled past them at a dizzying rate. They were almost on top of the Combine fleet!

"Enemy Raid Count estimated at six wings of starfighters plus six to eight DropShips. Identity is unconfirmed, but believed to be League of Five Nails vessels."

"Sound General Quarters!" Tatewaki thundered. "Scramble the fighters to intercept! Smite these heathen upstarts!" How dare the League meddle in his affairs!

Alarm klaxons began to sound. The struggle of the crew on the Executive Bridge shuffling into their pressure suits and plugging their life-support into the ship's service connections at their stations drained the fleet of precious reaction time. Just as they were starting to come together as a unit again, the bagpipes struck.

"What is that infernal noise?!" Tatewaki howled over the din. Someone at the Communications section cut out the tac-net speakers in response, reducing the din to tinny screams from individual headsets.

"Your Highness!" the Commo Officer cried. His ears were still ringing and his face was wracked with discomfort. "The enemy formations are broadcasting some sort of electronic warfare on our command and tactical frequencies."

"Drown them out!" Tatewaki demanded. "End this horrid wailing at once, Commander!"

The Communications Officer steeled himself and answered his lord. "We can jam their transmissions, Highness, but that will still prevent us from communicating with our fleet ships. All we have at the moment are line-of-sight laser comms, and those are useless for reaching our fighter escorts."

Tatewaki began to seethe. "Thy job, Commander, is to see that our forces can communicate. If this requires thee to stand in an open airlock with a flashlight and signal flags, then so be it, but I want these League curs reduced to their component atoms!"

The Commo Officer's face paled.

"As you command, your Highness!"

The Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine turned to Captain Kyle. "Have thy sensory section track the raiders back to their carriers. Dispatch a GunShip squadron from the _Caledon_ to destroy them. See to it personally if necessary, but I will have my revenge."

Kyle bowed in acknowledgement. "Of course, your Highness."

Satisfied that his Operations Officer was up to the job, Tatewaki summoned his harried Officer of the Deck.

"Prepare to come about and engage the raiders with our full firepower," he ordered the man. "We shall face the foe head on, and for years hereafter the widows of the cursed League shall gnash their teeth and wail in despair at the great defeat Tatewaki Kuno has given them!"

Hellcat Lead was no fan of Scottish martial music, but he knew his job depended on a keen ear. 'Muckin of Geordies Byre' had given way to 'The Fox Hunters', and that meant they were committed to attack.

He sighted his target, a fat Monolith Class JumpShip loaded with battlemech carrier DropShips. He aligned his Hellcat with the target and strained his eyes against the darkness for the tell-tale flash of a Combine fighter's plasma drive. There was nothing nearby, so all he had to worry about was the starship's anti-meteor defenses.

Radar was useless in the carefully cultivated environment of confusion they had sown, and so he selected his target tracking system to laser designation and rangefinding. The Monolith's JumpSail made for an easy and happily reflective target.

The range-to-target indicator ticked off the kilometers to the Monolith on his HUD. He made fine course adjustments to put his weapons to bear on the JumpShip's delicate tracery of cables and stays for the massive JumpSail. It went against convention to attack an enemy's JumpShips for fear of damaging the irreplacable jumpcores, but there was nothing that said you couldn't attack other parts of the ship. Hikaru Gosunkugi was playing a dangerous political game with his decision to go ahead with this unprecedented attack, and Hellcat Lead respected him for having the balls to do it.

The Monolith grew in size on his HUD as he screamed straight at the massive silvery JumpSail. Bolts of particle beam fire began spitting from the starship's point defense turrets at him. Because of the chaff and the powerful jamming equipment carried by the GunShips, the JumpShip's gunners were without their radars, and the wildly fired bolts streamed around him harmlessly.

He took little notice of the incoming fire, knowing that his ship's armor was good for a few hits, and needing all his concentration focused on his shooting. He was trying to hit a difficult target while moving at high relative velocity. His finger caressed the weapon trigger on his control stick, and invisible pulses of laser light rippled out into the darkness.

The beams splashed into the deployment booms for the Monolith's JumpSail, tearing them apart in brilliant flashes of flame and jagged metal. The massive disk of the sail trembled from the shock, and he could see starlight through the rents made by the shrapnel from the booms. A smile lit across his face at the results of his strike, and he altered course to get one more good blow in.

He barely felt the shock of puncturing the paper-thin material of the JumpSail as his aerofighter blasted through it. His drives flared behind him, adding destructive heat to the damage caused by his collision. A quick look over his shoulder allowed him the pleasure of seeing his squadron mates finishing the job he had started. The ragged JumpSail was cut away from the Monolith, and it streamered debris as it collapsed into a crumpled mass of mylar and photoelectric mesh.

The sight of Combine ships meeting similar fates around him felt good. In minutes the League Navy would render the Combine forces helpless and impotent, something the Army had been unable to do since the fall of the Star League. They would remember this battle for all time.

Tatewaki Kuno watched the Tactical Display grimly as the League's fighters buzzed around his mighty fleet like angry wasps. Reports filtered in over the laser-comm net of JumpShips suffering damage to their sails, though for some reason the mongrel League pilots had refrained from targeting his ships directly. He wondered at the motivation of the League commander that would have him commit such a cowardly and disgraceful act, and yet not have the courage to commit to a more final attack.

What he did know about the attack was that his fleet's radar-blind point defenses were next to useless in stopping the fighters, and the enemy's GunShips had taken little damage. The few Combine fighters airborne at the time of the attack were badly outnumbered and ended up getting mauled.

"Conn, Sensory; Contact Victor-Five-Golf bearing zero-zero-five plus one-six, range nine hundred kilometers."

Tatewaki watched as the designated target, a League Union Class GunShip, was highlighted in the display. The mighty _Imperator_ had thrown its full weight into the battle, and though its point defense weapons were of little effect against the fighters, the tremendously powerful gun-directing radars of its anti-ship weapons were more than a match against the jamming of the slower and less agile GunShips.

"Sensory, Conn; aye. Fire Control, match bearing rate and shoot."

_Imperator's_ forward mounted Naval Lasers belched forth billion-joule beams of light that arced across the empty void of space between battleship and League GunShip, immolating an aerofighter unlucky enough to blunder into the barrage, and striking the intended target dead-on. The lasers lanced into the GunShip's armor, sending coruscating motes of flame into the darkness before piercing the spacecraft through and through. The GunShip exploded moments later, boiling off men and machinery into a rapidly expanding sphere of million-degree plasma.

Tatewaki Kuno watched them die over one of the telescope monitors and nodded with detached satisfaction.

"Conn, Sensory; Contact Victor-Five-Golf destroyed. Recommend course change to one-five-nine azimuth four-four, to bear on new target Victor-Two-Golf."

"Sensory, Conn; aye. Helm, come left to course one-five-nine azimuth four-four."

"Come left to course one-five-nine azimuth four-four, Helm; aye. Officer of the Deck, Helm answers the ordered maneuver."

"Very well, Helm."

_Imperator_ pitched up and rolled against the fiery battlefield of the Jump Point to bring its heavy weapons to bear on the next target. The enemy GunShip realized too late that the _Imperator_ had selected it for death, and fired its own drives in response, trying desperately to clear the battleship's forward fire arcs before it joined its sister ship in oblivion. Tatewaki watched the drama over the telescope monitor and tried not to laugh at the hapless GunShip.

"Officer of the Deck, passing one-six-nine azimuth four-four; ten degrees from ordered course."

"Very well, Helm. Fire Control, ready primary batteries for vertical salvo; Gun Mounts Two and Four."

"Fire Control; aye. Officer of the Deck, Gun Mounts Two and Four are ready in all respects. Target Motion Analysis is green. Gunlaying Synchronization is green."

"Very well, Fire Control."

Tatewaki grinned. His ship was about to annihilate another hated foe.

"Officer of the Deck, Helm answers steady course one-five-nine azimuth four-four."

"Very well, Helm. Fire Control, match bearing rate and shoot."

"Fire Control; aye."

Tatewaki watched the monitor, eagerly awaiting the flash of light that would signal another fatal blow from his mighty warship's guns. The League GunShip made one final evasive maneuver, but one that could not free it from the reach of the _Imperator's_ forward mounts in time.

At that moment the second wave of the Furinkan Combine fleet winked into existence at the Jump Point. They were the civilian-contracted cargo ships, and operating under a schedule that had not been modified in the wake of Kodachi's hasty mutiny. Which put them in-system twenty minutes too soon.

The GunShip suddenly found itself occupying the same space-time coordinates as the arriving Merchant Class JumpShip - an event which heralded an explosion of light and heat unparalleled by anything that had preceded it during the battle. The warp and woof of reality recoiled violently, distorting space and time around the blast and drawing out Tatewaki's scream of outrage and disbelief into a minute-long drone of muted horror.

The JumpShip had been carrying his precious converted DropShips. The ones modified into mobile charging stations. The ones that would reduce his fleet's transit time between Capra and Capella.

The _Imperator_'s bridge displays crashed into snow and static, cutting out the mad skirling of Admiral Morag's beloved bagpipes and replacing it with complete pandemonium. Lights went out and alarms chirped for attention as the starship felt the space-time backlash of the collision. The well-ordered operation of the ship fell into disarray. Even worse, the unexpected spatial displacement of the ship had caused their fragile laser-comm network to lose track of the other ships in the fleet. Now they had no communications whatsoever.

Tatewaki Kuno picked himself off the deck and swore dark oaths of blood, fire, and vengeance upon his enemies. He would personally crucify the Gosunkugi responsible for this; right down to driving the nails in with his own two hands.

Hellcat Lead narrowly avoided death as the Merchant Class JumpShip burst apart into a nimbus of chromatic fire. His instruments and controls had an instant seizure, forcing him into dead-stick flight while his computers attempted to reboot from their hardened backups. A piece of debris from the explosion sizzled past his canopy, missing it by scant centimeters.

He had never experienced anything like this before; nor had anyone else in living memory. More JumpShips winked into existence around the battle zone, though none with such immediately catastrophic events as that first unfortunate starship. Instead he watched helplessly as friendly fighters blundered into the lumbering giants, and hoped fervently that one wouldn't materialize in front of him.

It was time to call off the attack, he realized. The odds of dying had just reached the point of diminishing returns against what damage they could hope to inflict by staying. There was no way to signal his comrades in the chaos. He would have to trust in their own common sense.

His Hellcat rebooted, and the controls came alive in his hands. It took several moments for his astrogation system to take the necessary star sightings to fix his position, and then he punched in the course for the rendezvous. A handful of fighters were already peeling away from the fiery jump point as he did so, which filled him with hope.

As the aerofighter's plasma drives pushed him for home, he watched the Furinkan Combine fleet burn in his aft-mounted telescope. What they had started, the merchant ships had finished. JumpSail debris littered space around the jump point, and several starships were burning from collisions with the clumsy merchanters.

The Furinkan Combine fleet wasn't going anywhere for awhile.

FCJS _Imperator_

at the Capra System Zenith Jump Point,

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

11 March 3025

"FIRE-FIRE-FIRE! FIRE IN ATMOSPHERE CONTROL MACHINERY ROOM TWO! CASUALTY ASSISTANCE TEAM AFT - LAY TO ACMR#2!"

Tatewaki Kuno watched angrily as his crew struggled to regain control of his battleship. Debris from the exploding Merchant Class JumpShip had struck _Imperator_ at several points along the 'midships hull, piercing the armor and damaging critical equipment. Fires had broken out throughout the ship, including the Executive Bridge, and the pall of smoke hung over the emergency-lit compartment.

Several ships in his fleet had suffered collisions, if not from direct contact with an arriving starship, then with debris from other encounters. At least one of his troopships was destroyed. The entire complement was feared dead, as the habitat was laid open to space from bow to jumpcore. Other ships faced damage of varying severity.

The urgency of the situation had left them with no control over the battle, letting the League raiders escape practically unchallenged. If they had come to destroy his fleet instead of cripple it, there would have been no stopping them.

"Status report," he demanded of his Operations Officer. His voice was pinched and tinny through the pressure suit helmet's external speaker. The burning electronics had introduced poisonous compounds to the atmosphere, and until the fires aboard his ship were extinguished, there could be no attempt to scrub the air.

Kyle was tight-lipped in his reply.

"The ship's hull integrity remains sound," he began. "There appears to be no damage to the jumpcore, and personnel casualties are low. No fatalities have been reported. Engineering reports that primary power will be restored to all decks within twenty minutes, and that there remain sufficient reserves in the ship's batteries to last another two hours under the current electrical load.

"Furthermore, it appears that most of our fleet vessels have either lost their JumpSails entirely, or else suffered sufficient damage to them or their supporting systems as to render them useless. Capra has no indigenous recharge support facility to capture, and our mobile charging stations were destroyed in the Jump mishap. We are forced to rely on our ships' powerplants to recharge our jump batteries, and that will take upwards of ten days - depending on the ship."

Kuno took this in stride. At least his precious Star League battleship had survived intact.

"I expect a full inquiry into this debacle," he menaced. "Seize any merchanter found liable for damage caused by his ship. Execute the Captain and take possession of the ship with a prize crew where you deem it appropriate."

"It shall be done, m'lord."

Tatewaki now turned to the matter that burned brightest within him.

"What of the League?"

"We are unable to track them at this time, though we have verified through visual sightings and with what little of our laser-comm network that we have remaining with other fleet vessels, that they have withdrawn from the battle."

"And of our pursuit?"

Kyle took his time in responding.

"Our fighters became engaged from the moment they launched. There were heavy casualties... Our GunShips were not prepared for an engagement, and they were unable to launch before the League withdrew."

He could see his prince begin to flush with heat.

"We are, however, about to launch a scouting force to regain contact with the League ships, that we might execute a counterattack against their carriers."

Tatewaki cooled slightly.

"Very well, Captain. I expect our retribution to be swift and sure."

"Of course, your Highness."

Tatewaki looked away for a moment, apparently deep in contemplation.

"It appears that our strike against Capella will have to wait," he said at length. The statement pained him considerably. "The scoundrels have chosen to target our means of recharging our jump batteries for the trip to Capella, and they have succeeded beyond our worst nightmares. We need time to lick our wounds and reorganize our fleet, and we must find those League carriers lest we suffer another attack."

"Yes, my lord," Kyle agreed.

"I am concerned about the League's ability to ambush us so effectively," Tatewaki went on. "They could not have had such a force prepared against us by mere chance. Our raid of this system was small, and was not likely to provoke such a reaction. We shall have to look into this."

"Consider it done, your Highness."

"One more thing," Kuno said to him. "Before I depart with the landing force for Capra, I want to know where my cursed sister's ships went. Is it possible that they have somehow materialized at this system's nadir point?"

Kyle considered this.

"It is possible," he conceded. "But given the spatial arrangements of Proteus and Capra, arriving at the nadir point instead of the zenith point would prove risky to them."

"But not as risky as facing her brother's mighty fleet when they followed them through hyperspace," Tatewaki noted.

"I see your point, Highness," Kyle conceded. "I shall dispatch a reconnaissance-in-force to the system's nadir point to investigate."

Kyle left him to make the necessary arrangements. Tatewaki's pride still stung at this defeat, and his capable adjutant could go a long way towards restoring it. Until the League fleet could be located and destroyed, his primary concern now lay with his sister, and her vow of revenge against his beloved Akane.

Akane, fairest of the Inner Sphere, and his most treasured prize above all else in the universe. If Nabiki was to be believed, and he had little doubt of it, then Akane was somewhere on the planet Capra. She was also with that bride-thief and scoundrel, Ranma Saotome.

Saotome would die, and Akane would finally become his, but there was little time, and his sister had a strong lead. He could not afford the luxury of careful planning; his domination of the planet had to be swift and absolute, and his forces strong enough at every point to resist any black deed of treason perpetrated by Kodachi. She had dug her own grave this time. Not even Father could excuse this act of treachery and sedition. She had to be brought to heel.

She _would_ be brought to heel.

Hikaru Gosunkugi could barely contain his excitement upon receiving news of his attack. The Furinkan Combine had been dealt a crushing blow to their planned attack on Capella, and the League of Five Nails had done it. Surely this would be the achievement that would keep his meddling parents satisfied with his command and out of his hair.

He considered the prospect of sending some sort of message to Kuno to gloat. The Combine prince was easy to provoke, and careless when he was wroth, which might allow the League forces to get in another good blow, perhaps even destroy them entirely. On the other hand, his own position was weak. His fleet orbited out of sight around one of the inner planets of the system, and the jump points he needed to escape were a good three days transit using the weak plasma drives of his JumpShips. Aggravating Kuno could mean an all-out hunt for his fleet, and the enraged prince might well feel justified in reducing the League Navy to dust.

It would be best if he did his gloating while safely out of reach, he decided. What his next move would be was not as clear to him.

Escape seemed the best option, as the nadir jump point was currently uncontrolled by Combine forces. It would be a perilous three days to the jump point, however, and the risk of discovery was great. He might even have to fight his way there.

His concern for the inhabitants of the Capra system was negligible. Capra was a minor planet with moderate resources but little water, which along with its proximity to frequent Combine and Confederation raids hardly made it worth defending. The mercenary unit defending it was of course expendable. He hadn't even bothered to warn the garrison that the Combine had arrived, lest some spy leak news of his surprise attack in time to warn Kuno.

He had to think of the long term picture. Kuno was bloodied, but far from beaten, and he would eventually Jump to Capella. It was vital that the Confederation resist his attack, and hopefully the League of Five Nails had bought them some time to prepare. Hikaru found it somewhat ironic that he was the savior of the Nerima Confederation, but in doing so he was preserving Akane Tendo for himself.

Perhaps he could come up with a strategic alliance with Duke Tendo in light of his noble sacrifice and his timely warning of Kuno's attack. With the League's resources, the Confederation's tough, battle-hardened fighters, and possibly even the wealth of the Federated Shiratori backing them, they could drive the Furinkan Combine into retreat! It was a heady prospect, especially so since Akane Tendo's hand in marriage would be part and parcel of the deal.

He was also eager to shed himself of the Jusenkyo Commonwealth's undue influence on League affairs. An alliance would be just the thing to do that. He didn't trust the inscrutable Amazons any farther than he could throw them, and being a forty-five kilo weakling, that wasn't very far.

The Grand Duke would be just as wary of him as Hikaru was of the Commonwealth, but at least a shared enemy and his acts of good faith would do something to alleviate that. The question then became one of which Tendo to approach. Should he deal directly with the Grand Duke, or should he use Nabiki?

The middle daughter had clearly lost some of her cachet in the wake of her failed bid to sell the Confederation to Kuno. Rumor and hearsay put her on the outs with her father, but she remained within easy reach of the castle. Would she still be willing to back the Combine even if she knew a League-Confederation-Federated Shiratori Alliance was a possibility?

Hikaru guessed that she wouldn't. Nabiki was an opportunist, and though she had been sideswiped by her father over the Surrender Summit, she knew which way the wind blew. If he could convince her of the viability of such an alliance, she would surely throw in with him. The next question became one of her current value to such an alliance.

He did not know the extent of her falling out with the Grand Duke, but Soun was the sort of sentimental sap who would probably fall all over himself to make up with his disaffected daughter. If she laid it on thick enough, and Hikaru knew that she could, the Grand Duke might well come around to an alliance against the Combine. It would help the cause knowing that Soun believed the Combine was responsible for the attempt to kidnap Akane.

Hikaru's musings were interrupted by his aide.

"What is it?" he demanded. He did not like interruptions.

"My lord, we have detected a sizable Furinkan Combine force leaving the jump point."

This concerned Hikaru greatly. Was Kuno already on the hunt for him?

"What is the nature of this force?"

"A planetary invasion force, apparently," the aide declared. "Though Intelligence is at a loss to explain its size. The force is far too large for dealing with the expected garrison."

"After the surprise we gave Kuno at the jump point, I wouldn't take anything for granted, myself," Hikaru returned. "How big are we talking; a battalion, a regiment?"

"A full battlemech division," his aide said flatly. "Plus divisional assets and air support."

Hikaru was floored.

"A... DIVISION? Of battlemechs?"

The aide showed him long-range telescope images that clearly depicted a swarm of Union and Overlord Class DropShips, as well as infantry and equipment transports, and Leopard CV fighter carriers.

"What the hell is going on?" Hikaru wondered. "This is more than just a little healthy paranoia on Kuno's part." He thought for a moment in silence. "Even if he wanted to annihilate the colony out of spite, he wouldn't need all that force..."

An idea occured to him, the only thing that made sense.

"Unless there was something very important on Capra that he needed..."

"My lord?"

He grabbed his aide roughly by his tunic, a gesture that would have been comical in other circumstances when considering that the man out-massed Hikaru by forty kilograms. "Tell my cousin that he has command of the fleet. Then get my generals front and center in my briefing room. There isn't any time for explanations."

"A-At once, my lord!"

The aide scrambled to comply, leaving him with his thoughts once again. He had decided to leave the system, having inflicted what damage he could. This breaking news had changed that. He needed to find out what was up with Capra, and why it had suddenly become so important to Kuno. He knew in the pit of his stomach that it would mean going there personally.

He would need some firepower on his side, but he did not have the 'mechs or the troops necessary to face an entire division in a head-on battle. That was fine by him, he didn't like those kinds of fights anyway. In the doctrine of warfare espoused by such masters as Sun Tzu and Clausewitz, a general was foolish to fight a battle like that. A true genius struck at what the ancient Prussian called 'the centers of gravity' of his enemies.

The Combine fleet's JumpSails had been one such target, destroying Kuno's ability to launch a surprise attack on Capella, and allowing the Confederation time to reinforce. Now he must find Kuno's new center of gravity, and hit it hard with what little force he had to bear.

And most importantly, he had to find out what the Blue Thunder wanted so badly on Capra.

The outskirts of Capra City,

Planet Capra, Capra System

the League of Five Nails

14 March 3025

After three days of carefully scouting their surroundings, Genma Saotome was finally ready to come into the only city of any significance on the planet Capra. The six-wheeled all terrain truck carrying him, Ranma, Akane, and Doctor Tofu, pulled up the gentle slope of the wadi and started off for the highway that would take them into town.

Happousai watched them go. He could think of two good reasons to stay away from the city, at least for now, and about a dozen lovely looking reasons to stay with the ship. One of them walked in front of him even as he contemplated this, and earned a wolf-whistle for her troubles.

Yes, he had to hand it to Genma for his taste in crew. They were quite the young and beautiful complement, and it pained him to think that they spurned his every advance. No matter, he thought happily. There would always be another chance.

He faced yet another conflict of interest. His obligation to spy for Cologne was technically met. He had discovered what was going on in the Tendo household, and had dutifully reported it. An Amazon sex-kitten was waiting for him as soon as he could return to Jusenkyo to collect.

It was a thrilling idea, but staying with Genma's motley crew promised even greater rewards.

What he had considered to be a half-baked scheme to find the lost planet of Ryuugenzawa was starting to come together as a possibility if nothing else. Enough of a possibility to stay on with the expedition for a while longer, anyway. If Genma was actually right (for once) they could all stand to become the richest, most powerful men and women in the Inner Sphere.

He really had little desire for the power that would come with the discovery. Money, on the other hand, could at least rent happiness if it couldn't actually buy it outright. His disciple Soun was better suited to power than him, and would always be beholden to his old master. Genma was a chump, always was and always would be, and needed his son Ranma to ensure his future comforts. In fact, Ranma was probably the best thing to ever come out of Genma Saotome.

Ranma could be a problem. The boy would never submit to him - it was clear that he had his mother's stubborness. He could have made a real man out of Genma if not for Nodoka. With the boy in line for Soun's throne (an absolutely devious move on Genma's part, he admitted, and wondered if he had actually been smart enough to come up with it on his own) he would be in a position to push him aside - maybe even banish him from the Confederation. There was no doubt that the little punk would do it. If that happened, then his share of the wealth and glory was lost.

He'd have to come up with a workable solution concerning Ranma.

Such was his dilemma. Skip out on Genma at the first opportunity, and get what was coming to him from Cologne, or stick around and hope the fool was right - only to have to deal with his thankless son. After a moment's thoughtful contemplation, a third option entered his mind.

He started after the girl he had whistled at with lust in his eyes.

Capra City was an uninspiring sprawl of concrete and asphalt - a blight on the surrounding high desert plateau. Few structures reached over three stories tall, and most were single level dwellings and dismal half-deserted strip malls. The only significant landmarks were the Governor's Mansion, Fort Dettmering, and the Starport on the opposite side of the city.

The city was struggling, as it had been fighting a slowly losing battle against total collapse for the last two hundred years. Copper and iron mining had been - and still was - the primary industry, and during the Star League the system had been prosperous. The fall of the Star League and the subsequently savage First Succession War had brought about the near-destruction of the industries that required Capra's raw materials, which depressed prices. The scarcity of independent freight haulers had raised the cost of shipping so high that almost no profit could be had from what was produced.

Most of the mines had closed in the last hundred years. The few mines remaining in operation were heavily subsidized by the League of Five Nails as strategic resources, but these were low output operations and were really little more than 'pilot lights' - keeping the mine open and available in case production was urgently needed later. A few wildcat operations looking for gold and other rare metals were tiny affairs, rarely successful, and largely unregulated.

The people were a tough and bitter lot, worn and weathered by hardship as much as by the frequent sandstorms. They were trapped on this planet, with no opportunities, and no way outside of death to escape. If they noted Genma, Ranma, Akane, and Doctor Tofu as offworlders, they did not show any signs of caring about it.

Ranma had seen worlds like this before. Too often, in his opinion. It made him appreciate his star-hopping life, for he had an escape these people would never have.

For Akane, the poverty was an abstract brought to sudden and dismal life. She knew there were worlds like Capra within the Confederation, and that the same economic forces which choked the life out of this world's people also strangled her own. It was one more reason for her to hold out hope for the existence of Ryuugenzawa. If advanced Star League technology could be recovered, the Confederation's industry could be revitalized, and everyone's standard of living would improve.

The six-wheeled open-topped truck that carried them into the city from the desert was dirty and battered in appearance to blend in with the squalid surroundings. Their clothes reflected the dingy grime of wildcat prospectors. Genma had ordered no showers for anyone coming into town with them. Water was scarce on Capra outside of the city, and a little funk was important for maintaining their cover.

It did not take them long to reach the hospitality district. It was wedged between the Starport and Fort Dettmering. Strip clubs, saloons, a two-screen movie theater, and a casino were the featured entertainment, while a handful of run-down hotels handled the lodging. A diner and a few food kiosks took care of the eats. None of the establishments seemed particularly busy in the middle of the day.

"Ranma, pull over by that hotel," Genma said, consulting his notebooks.

"Is this the place?" Ranma asked his father.

"Looks like it," Genma grunted.

The Lucky Prospector Hotel was as dirty and run down as the rest of the city. It was a two level structure of pre-fabricated concrete and cheap masonry. Had lumber been available in any quantity on the planet, its construction would have been even cheaper. It had only twenty units, based on a quick visual inspection, and Ranma wondered how the owners expected to find enough occupancy to fill even that many rooms. A sign in the office window advertised hourly rates for the benefit of troops from the nearby garrison.

"What exactly are we doing here?" Akane asked.

Genma held up a room key. The magnetically encoded card was old and frayed at the corners, but the hotel's logo was still evident on the worn surface.

"Our Scout stayed here once. His journal states that he planted the fifth key on Capra, and it's possible that he left a clue for himself in his room. He had a bad memory it seems, and wrote things down constantly so he wouldn't lose the information."

"That key can't possibly still be good," Akane observed. "And besides, it doesn't have a room number printed on it."

Genma shrugged. "No one said this would be easy."

Ranma parked the truck in the deserted parking lot across the street from the hotel. A few kids in their early teens eyed them hungrily from a concrete drainage culvert nearby. From the size of the culvert, Capra City was apparently subject to some tremendous, if infrequent, rain storms. He wondered what the seasons were like here, and whether the dry climate was a fairly recent occurance or a normal one from when the planet was first colonized.

"What's the deal, Pop?" he asked his father.

"You and Akane go into the office and check the register if you can. The Doctor and I will wait out here and keep an eye on the truck." His chin turned towards the teens briefly to emphasize his point.

"Whatever," Ranma sighed. "Come on, Akane."

The two stepped out of the truck. Only Akane was armed, as she was in the habit of carrying a dagger and a small pistol concealed on her person in the field.

"Why is it that whenever you have to go somewhere, I get stuck with tagging along?" Akane asked him as they crossed the street.

"Who's making you go along?" Ranma countered. "Pop might be running the show, but you're an aristocrat. What's he going to do to you for not listening to him?"

She huffed indignantly in reply. This was not what she wanted to hear from him.

"Well?" Ranma pressed.

"I'm trying to do what my father wants, Ranma. Okay?"

"Now who's making you? My dad or yours?"

They reached the office door.

"Drop it, Ranma," she told him curtly as she opened the door.

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

The clerk was watching television behind the front desk. The program was a rerun, imported from a nearby system with the resources and the idle wealth necessary to produce its own shows. It wasn't particularly enjoyable the fifth time around, but it was apparently better than nothing.

He looked up at them with bloodshot eyes.

"Hourly rate is ten marks," he told them in a bored tone of voice. This was an oft-repeated spiel, and it showed in his delivery. "Clean sheets are five more, and you put 'em on the bed yourselves. No smoking in the room. If you want to use the telephone; it's a ten mark deposit, calls are a quarter each, and the balance is refundable at check-out. Your time starts when I hand you the key, and it's full price for the next hour if you're even a minute late."

He waited for them to either hand him some money or leave.

"Hourly rate?" Akane asked, realizing what was implied by the statement and not liking it one bit.

"I can give you a three mark discount if you're done in half an hour," the clerk replied. He sized up Ranma with a glance. "That shouldn't be a problem."

"Now wait a minute!" Akane protested. "That's not what we -"

"-We won't need a phone," Ranma interrupted. He flipped the clerk a ten mark coin, and earned an angry look from Akane in the process.

The clerk examined the coin for a moment. "Let me code your room key. Sign the register over there." He pointed to a bound ledger with yellowed pages.

This was what Ranma was hoping for. The place didn't look like it would have a computer to handle registration, and that way they'd be able to flip through the pages for a sign of the Scout.

"Ranma...!" Akane hissed. "Are you going to let him get away with that?"

"Get away with what?" he whispered in reply. "Who cares what he thinks? It's not like I'd do anything like that with you anyway..."

He heard her knuckles popping in her clenched fist and waited for her to try and strike. Instead she stood there and fumed.

He found the entry near the beginning of the book. It was four years old; obviously not everyone who worked at the hotel was as scrupulous about maintaining the register as this guy. The name 'Chance G. King' was a common _nom de plume_ for the Scout, and the handwriting was familiar. He had taken Room 210.

"Excuse me," Ranma said to the clerk.

"What is it?" the clerk asked. "Change your mind about the phone?"

"Not exactly. I was wondering if I could get Room 210."

The clerk eyed the two of them.

"What for?"

Ranma turned to Akane and held his breath. Then he grabbed her around the shoulder and pulled her close. She was too surprised by this to offer an immediate protest. "It, ah, it has a certain sentimental attachment to us, if you understand my, um, meaning."

Akane turned crimson.

The clerk gave them a knowing wink.

"I understand. No problem." He went back to coding their room key.

"...Raaannnmaaa..."

He looked down at her elbow, which was currently digging its way into his floating ribs, and let her go.

The clerk looked up from his desk and handed them a plastic card similar to the one Genma now kept.

"Enjoy," he told them, and returned to his television program.

Ranma could not leave the office fast enough. Nor could Akane.

"What's the big idea!?" she demanded once they were safely outside.

"Whaddya mean?" Ranma growled. "We're trying not to act suspicious here. What else would a guy who works in a hotel with hourly rates expect from us?"

"I'm not like that," she spat.

"Who says you are?" Ranma returned. "Heck, I'm surprised a chick like you would even know what went on in places like this."

She elbowed him in the ribs again as they crossed the street.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Ever had a boyfriend?" he challenged.

The question struck her harder than she thought it would, and she flushed even redder. From the smug look on Ranma's face it was clear that he knew the answer without her even saying anything in reply. "O-Oh yeah?" she stammered. "How about you? Have you ever had a girlfriend, Ranma, or did you learn everything you know from a sticky magazine?"

Not it was Ranma's turn to flinch. Fortunately for him, they were now close enough to the truck for Genma to address them on the matter of what they had learned in the office.

"Well, boy?" he asked them.

"He was here all right," Ranma replied, grateful for the reprieve from Akane's question. "I saw his name in the register." He held up the room key. "I got the same room as him."

"Good work, Ranma," Genma grunted. "Now let's go see what he left for us." The teens had moved on as dusty police car gave them the once-over while Ranma and Akane were inside, and he put the truck in gear, safe in the knowledge that they wouldn't come back any time soon.

Governor's Mansion,

Capra City, Planet Capra,

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

14 March 3025

"Governor Argust?"

League Governor Model Argust looked up from his desk to his secretary. A worried expression clouded her otherwise pretty face.

"What is it, June?" he asked.

"An ambassador from the Jusenkyo Commonwealth is here to see you, sir."

Argust flinched reflexively. What on earth was an Amazon doing on his planet unannounced? He thumbed through the morning reports for an answer, and found it: the JCDS _Jade Lotus_ had arrived at dawn carrying the Ambassador plus a complement of troops - including battlemechs.

Why the hell hadn't the Port Authority alerted him to this? Even a phone call would do!

"Send her in," he said evenly. "And call down to the cooks for some refreshments."

"I already have, sir," she replied.

Argust managed a brief smile. At least someone on his staff was on the ball today.

June stepped back through the door. Several of the Joketsuzoku entered shortly thereafter. The leader was tall and imperious, with short blonde hair and piercing hawk's eyes. She was draped in a russet cloak of exceptional fullness in the shoulders, and flanked by a fierce purple-haired young woman and an equally dangerous-looking man in white robes.

Argust rose to greet them, coming from behind his desk and offering a greasy smile.

"Welcome to Capra, your Excellency!" he said to Kima.

Kima gave him a respectful bow in return. "Governor."

Argust did not mince any more words. Though Capra was a backwater system, people did not rise to the rank of League Governor without some personal merit, and Argust's manner for getting to the point of things was duly noted by the Gosunkugis.

"Forgive my curiosity, but what brings you to this world?"

"We are in pursuit of several fugitives," Kima replied curtly. "We have every reason to believe that they can be found here."

"Fugitives?"

"Correct, Governor," she affirmed. She produced several flimsies and offered them to him. "Two mechwarriors named Hibiki and Tarou - known to be part of the planetary garrison, and two spies named Saotome."

Argust studied them. Hibiki and Tarou he recognized immediately, as he had recently decorated them for their valor in defeating the Combine raid. The two Saotomes were a mystery. The fact that they were named as spies, and obviously had some connection to Hibiki and Tarou, concerned him greatly.

"Spies, you say?"

"Yes, Governor. We wish to take them into custody and return them to the Commonwealth for a trial. The Commonwealth is offering a substantial reward for their capture. A reward I am prepared to disburse on the spot, should they be taken."

"Understandable," the governor grunted, thinking of what he could do with the reward money. "But why do you want the two mechwarriors?"

"They are deserters and possible accomplices to the spies."

Argust looked down at the flimsies on Hibiki and Tarou. They had served the planet well in the raid, but if they were connected to the two spies, they could just as well be moles of some sort for the Combine - the raid being an effective, if costly, way of establishing their _bona fides_ in order to set them up to inflict greater treachery later.

The possibility of such a thing was enough to sour them to him at once. The fact that they were accused of desertion would prove sufficient to have them released from the garrison and taken into custody. It wouldn't take all that much convincing, he mused. Especially when he seized their battlemechs in the name of the League, and shared some of the proceeds of their sale with the garrison commander.

"Yes, I see," Argust said to her at length. "There shouldn't be any problems with that. I'll phone the garrison at once."

Kima inclined her head respectfully to the governor.

"And the two Saotomes?" she asked him.

"I will arrange to have the local authorities notified about them," he said to her. "If they're in the city, they won't escape custody for long."

Kima was not eager to let bumbling local police handle the two Saotomes. They seemed a very capable pair, and would likely escape any attempts to arrest them.

"If I may, Governor?"

"Yes? What is it?"

"I would like your permission to take my non-battlemech forces into the city and its environs in order to conduct the search personally. These two are extremely dangerous, and I wouldn't want to see your police officers facing such an unusual threat."

Argust frowned. He did not like the idea of the Commonwealth showing the flag in this manner. At the same time he was eager for a share of the reward money. League Governors served six year terms, and needed to amass significant fortunes during their tenures in order to pay the bribes and other graft necessary to advance them higher in their careers. Argust wanted a better star system after Capra, much better, and money was the key to getting it.

"I can't permit you to openly patrol the streets of Capra," he began. "It wouldn't look good to my superiors, and would hurt the morale of the police." He saw Kima's tiny frown. "However, I would be happy to extend special passes to, say, a dozen of your troops to enjoy liberty. Given the rough-and-tumble nature of the city, they would naturally be permitted to carry sidearms outside the starport quarantine zone."

He gave her a wink.

"If they should happen to stumble across the spies, then it would be only natural for them to do their duty without interference from the police. If the police should find them first, then I will see to it that they are turned over to you personally. Of course, there is the small matter of the reward..."

Kima inclined her head to him with a smile.

"You shall have it, Governor, with my complements, whether my troops find them, or yours."

"Splendid. Shall we have lunch?"

Kima nodded. "It would be our pleasure, Governor."

Ryouga Hibiki and Pansuto Tarou walked their battlemechs into the covered hangar with the rest of their lance. The Lieutenant was in a pissy mood after the patrol, and they were eager to debrief and get the hell off the base for awhile. They had found a hole-in-the-wall Japanese restaurant in town that featured good cheap food and a karaoke machine with a frighteningly large, if dated, collection of material.

Naturally, they were more interested in the food than the karaoke.

"Okay, One-Red Lance," the Lieutenant barked over the tac-net. "Debrief is in fifteen minutes. Be there."

Ryouga grit his teeth and shut down his BattleMaster without bothering to acknowledge the order. He knew Tarou was probably following suit. Monster-boy had mellowed out a bit in the last few days, and the respite was doing wonders for their strained relationship. A couple beef-bowls and some beer couldn't hurt.

He raised the clear arymid-polymer armored canopy and stepped out onto the gantry. A tech's apprentice was there to take his cooling vest and his helmet for him. Tarou was doing the same across the hangar.

The hangar was hot and stifling, and little better than the cockpit of his BattleMaster during a battle. He looked up, and noted that the oversized ceiling fans were apparently on the blink again.

He absolutely could not get off this rock too soon.

Tarou joined him a moment later, which was good, as he often missed the way to the briefing room otherwise.

"I heard some news this morning," Tarou grunted, his _bishonen_ face suddenly dark with malice.

"Yeah?" Ryouga replied.

"I didn't want to mention it during the patrol in case that asshole lieutenant of ours listened in," Tarou went on. "There is a Jusenkyo Commonwealth DropShip at the starport."

Ryouga's blood went cold.

"When?"

"This morning," Tarou responded. "Supposedly there's a diplomat on board, and she went to see the Governor right before we went out on patrol."

This did not sound good at all.

"You don't suppose it's us they came here for, do you?"

Tarou favored him with a look he reserved for the utterly stupid, which, in his opinion, was most of humanity. Ryouga was used to the look, and paid it no mind.

"Why else would the goddamned Joketsuzoku be here?" he growled.

Ryouga's face darkened. Curse their terrible luck for not being able to run far enough from the Amazons!

"What are our options?" he asked, as much to himself as Tarou.

"There aren't any ships we can get out on, even if we had the money. So... We can desert and run off into the wasteland until we starve. Or we can go quietly back to Lightoller for more experiments."

Ryouga nodded glumly

"That's what I was afraid of."

As they approached the briefing room they were met by a squad of infantry led by one of the unit's full-time military police officers.

"Mechwarriors Hibiki and Tarou?" the MP asked them. It was a formality, as it was impossible to remain anonymous for long in a small mercenary unit.

The two stopped in their tracks.

"Mechwarriors Hibiki and Tarou, I have orders to escort you to the Governor's Mansion. Come with me, please."

The squad of blazer-equipped infantry made it clear that the MP was not going to take 'no' for an answer.

"We're screwed," Ryouga muttered to himself. Barely contained rage lit across Tarou's face as they submitted to their escorts.

Hikaru Gosunkugi watched the tactical displays as his DropShip force approached the planet Capra unobserved. Owing to their long preparation and assembly time, they had lost their advantage of being closer to the planet than the Combine forces, and now they were almost six hours behind. They were also outnumbered three to one in battlemechs. His only chance for success lay in surprise, but first he would have to see what it was that Kuno was so interested in. The planet's moon would offer a sanctuary for his forces until he could gather that vital intelligence, and then he would strike.

Capra continued to remain unaware of the approaching Furinkan Combine invasion force, and Hikaru had given specific orders not to warn them. Since the garrison could not hope to defeat such a large army, it was better if Kuno won an easy victory and became overconfident. It would also mean that he would accomplish whatever it was that he had come to the planet to do, and that would make it easier for Hikaru to find out what it was in time to interdict him.

There were reports of other DropShips reaching the planet first, but their identities were unknown. Hikaru was of the mind that they were Combine scouts and pathfinders. An invasion force as large as Kuno's was bound to get bolluxed up in the drop without significant ground support.

The Lucky Prospector Hotel, Room 210

Capra City, Planet Capra,

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

14 March 3025

The room's interior matched its exterior; which was old and dingy. The furniture was spare, and showed its age with little grace. A musty smell of stale tobacco, sour beer, sweat, and semen-soiled sheets lingered defiantly in the wake of the industrial-strength deoderizer spray someone had generously applied to the room.

The room was fairly clean, except for the bedsheets and a few forbidden cigarette butts. The brand was a familiar one to Ranma. Though he did not smoke, he had known plenty of people who did. They had been manufactured in the Federated Shiratori. The mercs who garrisoned the planet had been there recently, as the League's tepid trade relations with 'Goddess-Empress' Azusa made imports unlikely.

Akane was clearly uncomfortable with the room, and she stood near the door wringing her hands.

"Everyone take a corner," Genma told them. "Leave nothing unsearched. Pull out the drawers, look under the table and chairs, under the bed, behind the lamps. In the closet, too."

"What exactly are we looking for, Mister Saotome?" Doctor Tofu asked. He wasn't entirely clear about the matter.

"Hopefully, the fifth key," Genma replied. "But it could be anything small and easily concealable for a long time without being discovered. If you find something out of the ordinary, let me know."

They began the search, punctuated by the sounds of moving furniture and the occasional groan of disgust when Akane found used condoms. After twenty minutes of this, they had trashed the room and come up with nothing.

"Maybe he didn't leave anything," Tofu observed.

"And maybe it got discovered and thrown away," Ranma added.

Genma bit his lip and tried not to let his discouragement show.

"Everyone switch places and look again," he told them. "Someone might pick up on something that another might have missed."

"There ain't nothin' here, Pop," Ranma groused.

Genma nearly busted a vein in his forehead. "GODDAMMIT, BOY, YOU'LL DO AS I SAY!"

Ranma shrank back from his father. Cowed for the moment, he began to search. Akane helped him with the drawers, unwilling to cross in front of Genma to take a new area.

Again, they turned up nothing.

Genma would still not admit defeat.

"We're going to have to assume that he was a bit more resourceful in hiding it," he declared.

"Or else there ain't nothing here," Ranma muttered quietly.

"Don't piss me off, boy," Genma warned his son.

Ranma looked up at him with fire in his eyes. "As soon as we get outta town, I'm gonna kick your fat ass, old man."

Genma was nonplussed. "The sooner you find that key, the sooner you'll get your chance."

Ranma blew out his breath in a huff and started for the bathroom. Tofu had made short work of the area, and his thoroughness told him that wherever that stupid key was, it was not in there.

The door to the bathroom hung ajar as he stepped up to the doctor.Tofu offered him a weak smile and a shrug. His reluctance to leave Nerima (read: Kasumi), and accompany the mission team, seemed justified in light of his current duties.

Ranma looked at the door again. Something he had learned from a half-forgotten man in the spy business came back to him, and he began to tap at the door while listening close.

"What is it, Ranma?" Tofu asked him.

"I don't know," he said quietly. "Maybe nothing."

The door was a hollow core type, as were most interior doors in the Inner Sphere. There was no obvious sign of something being concealed within, as the paint was uniformly worn and faded.

He leaned on the sink to ensure that it would take his weight, and then jumped up onto it. The height allowed him to observe the top of the door, and a heavy lining of lint and dirt that blanketed it. He brushed away the sticky grey-green fuzz and cried out in surprise.

"Sonuvabitch!"

"What?" Genma and Akane chorused.

"All that shit you put me through in surveillance training paid off, old man," Ranma replied. He looked down at Akane. "Let me borrow your knife."

She gave him a puzzled look.

"What for?"

"There's something I have to pry up."

Reluctantly, she handed him her dagger. It was of a simple design, making up in the exotic inlaid-wood hilt what it lacked in other ornamentation. He admired it for a moment before stabbing the tip into the top of the door.

"Be careful with that!" Akane protested. "It was a birthday present!"

Ranma replied by popping out a stubby cylinder of wood and cork. Attached to the end of the cork was a hook, and on the hook was a strand of fishing wire. He carefully pulled the wire out of the hollow core door.

"Now normally this would be the kind of thing you'd do if you wanted to plant a bug in a room," he said to her as he withdrew the wire. "It's not the kind of place your average joe would look to find one, and even if he does, all he'll usually do is sweep his hand over the top of the door. If the bug was hidden by a pro, the planter will even supply the dust that will convince the sweeper that there's nothing wrong with the door."

He finished withdrawing the wire. Suspended from the wire was a small jewelry box, the kind you would expect to find containing an engagement ring.

"This has to be it," he said, happy that he had not withdrawn a listening device.

"Open the box," Akane said excitedly.

Ranma cut the wire loops off the box with her dagger and then opened the box. A brief gleam of light reflected off whatever was in the box, and shone on the wall opposite Ranma.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Is it the fifth key?" Genma added.

"Tell us, Ranma," Tofu pleaded.

Ranma, his face tight with dismay, showed them a small metal plaque. Alphanumerics were punched into the metal, and it was spotted with caked-on dirt and a blue-green verdigris.

"It ain't the fifth key," he said to them. "It looks like a serial number plate for a vehicle or something."

"Let me see it!" Genma demanded. Ranma jumped down from the sink and handed it to him. His face told them that Ranma had called it exactly. "The boy's right," he said to everyone.

"It has to be from the Scout," Akane said. "Who else would do such a thing?"

"I agree," Genma replied. "But what this means, I don't yet know."

"It's probably a clue as to the location of the key," Tofu remarked. "All we have to do is figure out which vehicle it came from, and that will be where it is."

"Either that or we'll find another clue telling us to look somewhere else," Ranma noted. "You don't know this guy works. He had us on a damn scavenger hunt trying to find number four."

"There wasn't anything else tucked inside the door?" Genma asked his son.

"Didn't look like it."

"Then let's go. With luck there will be an official database the public can look at for vehicle ID. If not, well, it won't be the first time Ranma and I have done a little B&E."

"B&E?" Akane asked innocently.

"Breaking and Entering," Ranma supplied for her. He looked at his father for a moment. "Getting in is easy. The trick is not getting caught."

They didn't bother to put the place back the way they had found it. If the clerk actually called the police about it, there was no way to trace their identity. They had paid cash, and registered under a phony name. The clerk hadn't even bothered to ask for ID.

Ranma slipped the room key into the door slot as Genma wheeled the truck around the corner. He caught up with them a moment later, and they started for the center of town and the government buildings to follow up on their clue.

"Breaking and entering?" Akane asked him quietly when he was settled into the truck. "You're a couple of thieves?"

Ranma winced.

"More or less," he replied uneasily. "Pop says it comes with being a Scout, but it's just another way to pay the bills." His eyes flicked to the front seat where his father was driving. "We went to find the Jusenkyo Labs not just to confirm the documents we had on Ryuugenzawa, but so Pop could find something of value that he could sell."

"So you had nothing to do with it," she replied, her tone making it clear that she wasn't convinced.

"Well..." Ranma hedged. "It wasn't my idea, but..."

"But you help him do it anyway," she finished for him.

Shame fell over him.

"Basically, yeah."

Akane thought about this for a moment.

"I understand if you have to bend a few laws to get us to Ryuugenzawa, Ranma," she said at length. "But there won't be any more stealing for your own gain, okay? As the representative of the Grand Duke, I won't permit it. It isn't right, and I won't permit it."

"Fine with me," Ranma returned. Since when was Akane so high and mighty about being Duke Tendo's daughter?

"That also means that you don't let your father do it, either," she went on. "We have enough funding to take care of us on this expedition for some time, so there isn't any need for stealing."

He nodded slowly.

"Fine by me."

Colonel Princess Kodachi Kuno had taken refuge from the hot afternoon sun in the shadow of her black Marauder, where her manservant and loyal ninja Sasuke had placed her folding chair. He now served her a cold drink as she awaited news from her spies from the safe distance of a hundred kilometers from the city. The wind was gritty and warm, and she was glad that the thick lower legs of her battlemech screened her. Despite the shade, she sweltered in the heat. Black vinyl apparel simply wasn't suited to the desert.

The only reason she had not charged into the city and burned it to the ground was that she wanted to confirm that Akane was there. While it would be amusing to destroy the pathetic town, she was playing against the clock, and could not afford to waste time and effort with diversions. Her brother was coming for her.

"Tell me, Sasuke. What news of my brother?"

The ninja pursed his lips in reflection before answering.

"We have reports from our picket in orbit that he is approaching with a sizable force." He paused to let her contemplate that. "Approximately three regiments of battlemechs."

"A full division?" Kodachi asked, chuckling. "My, my. You don't suppose my dear brother is upset with me, do you, Sasuke?"

He bowed respectfully for her.

"That goes without saying, Mistress."

"Of course," she said, disregarding the remark with a flick of her hand. "Though I don't suppose his humiliating defeat at the jump point has anything to do with this, hmmm?"

"Quite likely," the ninja agreed.

News of the League's attack on the Combine Fleet had finally reached Kodachi's forces as they cleared the blocking effect of the Capra primary. It was enough to bring her out of the depths of her nervous collapse, and for that she considered sending Hikaru Gosunkugi a dozen black roses through her agents in gratitude. He had given her almost eight hours of respite from her brother with his attack, and her fleet's aggressive burn for Capra had extended that margin by over a day.

The surprise attack was clearly his work, and she admired him for his underhandedness. Of course, had she planned the attack, she would not have worried about convention and struck right for the enemy's jumpcores. He was obviously playing by a different set of rules.

She considered Hikaru a moment and pondered what his next move would be. The League Heir was the unknown factor at work, as Tachi's intentions were transparent to her. If he was smart, and he was usually smart, he would see how badly outnumbered he was, and quit while he was ahead.

"Why do you suppose the League of Five Nails is here, Sasuke?" she asked idly.

"Mistress?"

"Come now, Sasuke. The League has a large force in the system, and since we have received no word from our agents of an attack against the Confederation in the works, they were apparently lying in wait for my brother."

Sasuke noted this.

"Agreed, Mistress."

She narrowed her eyes at him. He was supposed to offer up possibilities that would stimulate a conversation, for she loved climbing inside the minds of her adversaries. "You are no fun whatsoever, Sasuke. I don't see why I bother with you sometimes."

Sasuke said nothing, as no reply was expected. Or welcome, for that matter.

Kodachi took a sip of her drink. Her full and sensuous lips took the plastic straw in a way that an observer would have found to be quite provocative. There was no conscious intent in this, it was merely the way she was. Sasuke remained silent and unmoved as she set the drink down to reveal a smudge of deep red lipstick upon the tip of the straw.

"Have your men determined why those witches from the Commonwealth are here?" she asked him. The sight of the _Jade Lotus_ berthed at the Starport had given her some pause. Though she enjoyed the same numerical superiority over the Amazons as her brother enjoyed over her, she was reluctant to pick unnecessary fights. Particularly when she would need all her strength at hand in case she was unable to seize the Tendo girl before he arrived.

"We have learned that they came searching for two deserters," the ninja replied. "With the cooperation of the planet's governor, they have been taken into custody."

"Deserters?" Kodachi asked. "They must be very important if the Commonwealth dispatches an entire company of battlemechs to find and capture them. I should think a simple bounty would be sufficient."

"There is a bounty posted for them, Mistress," Sasuke confirmed. "A significant one, even for mechwarriors, though not nearly the bounty offered for you by the Nerima Confederation."

Kodachi smiled at this.

"Ah, Sasuke, you are ever the flatterer. There will never be a bounty offered that is higher than mine, even if I have to kill the Grand Duke himself to ensure it." She smiled again, her eyes crackling with malice. "Oh yes, once I have his youngest daughter in my clutches, there will certainly be no higher bounty in the Inner Sphere than the one offered for me."

She settled back into her folding chair and took another drink, well pleased with the thought.

"So why haven't they departed yet?" she asked after a moment of warm reflection. The Joketsuzoku continued to linger in the back of her mind like a tiny splinter that was just out of reach.

"They only just arrived," he replied, though she knew that already. "Perhaps they wish to let the crew have liberty."

"Here?" Kodachi snorted. "Those elitist Joketsuzoku witches would turn their noses up at this forsaken desert in the blink of an eye. There must be a reason, Sasuke, and I expect you to find out what it is."

Sasuke bowed for her. "Of course, Mistress."

Several moments of windy silence passed between them.

"Sasuke?"

"Mistress?"

"Do you remember our little conversation several days ago?"

It was not apparent that he did, or at least that he did not wish to remember it.

"Mistress?" he asked innocently.

"I asked you if you had come up with an excuse to save you from my brother's wrath," she supplied for him.

"Yes, Mistress," he replied. "I do remember that."

His following silence proved irksome to her.

"And...?" she asked tersely.

He remained silent, which was exactly what she expected from him.

"You may go now, Sasuke," she told him curtly.

"At once, Mistress." He bowed deep enough to brush his hooded head in the sandy dirt, and backed away from her to the command tent.

You play a dangerous game as well, Sasuke, she reflected darkly. Though you must know that, to have survived for as long as you have.

"I'm very sorry," the clerk said, not sounding very sorry at all. "But those records are not available to the public."

"I see," Genma said gravely. "Thank you for your time."

Ranma, Akane, and Doctor Tofu looked up from their seats. When he had left the small too-warm office, they drifted out after him.

"What did you notice about the place, Ranma?" Genma asked when they were outside the League Government Building.

"There's a motion sensor in the lobby," the pig-tailed mechwarrior replied. "It gives good coverage, but it looks pretty old, and might not be functional. The doors have the standard magnetic clips, and the same with the windows." He pointed to the doorway. "The arming box there has a tumbler key lock and a number pad. The master panel is just on the other side of the door, and only has a number pad."

"Good work, boy," Genma replied. "Where do you suppose the alarms go?"

Ranma thought a moment. "Good question. I didn't see any annunciators around, same with lights, so I assume it's a silent alarm that goes to the Police station. There's a phone number written in pen on the wall above the master panel - probably so the custodial staff can call in case they set the alarms off by accident."

"Are the alarms conducted by radio or by land-line?" Genma asked.

"Dunno," Ranma replied. "I'd say land-line just so there's no chance of interference causing a bunch of false alarms. They'd probably go through the phone trunk with the rest of the lines."

Genma nodded.

"The odds of them calling someone out if we cut the line?"

Ranma thought a moment. It had been awhile since his father had put him on the spot like this, and with Akane standing next to him, it was embarrassing to show off how much he knew about burglary.

"They'd probably send out a repairman before they sent out a cop," he decided. "It's not like they keep any money on hand, and there really isn't all that much to steal. I'd say forty-five minutes to an hour before he shows up if we do it late at night."

"Plenty of time to do what we need," Genma decided. "Let's get us all something to eat, and then we'll wait for dark."

Special Prisoner Holding Block

Capra City Jail,

14 March 3025

Kima did not appreciate Governor Argust's insistance that the two mechwarriors be held in the city jail instead of being taken aboard the _Jade Lotus_. He had given fine legal reasons for it, of course, such as the need to protect them from wrongful accusations, the completion of the necessary extradition paperwork, the need to get a judge to approve it (a rubber stamp affair considering the Governor's power) - but what it really came down to was money. The reward money, specifically. Argust was not going to cough up the two until he got his hands on the gelt.

What she had told him about the money was true. She was in a position to disburse the reward money upon capture, but the actual authority to do so was not hers. She cursed the rotten meddling of Council Elder Peony, the Commonwealth Comptroller, and holder of the purse strings for this operation. She was notoriously distrustful of the military caste, and was not going to release a large sum of gold bullion to the control of a mere Agent - even one acting in the capacity of Commonwealth Ambassador.

Not as long as there existed the means to communicate with the home world, anyway, and her JumpShip had the HPG array to make that possible. Kima's request to pay the governor for his cooperation was now three hours old. It had taken six minutes via a risky tightbeam radio message out to the starship, and from there it had to proceed along the Commonwealth HPG relay chain to Jusenkyo. If Elder Peony was taking a nap, or having lunch, or any other excuse she could think of when the message finally reached her, she would ignore it until she felt like responding.

The answer would be yes. Cologne would not stand for it any other way, but Peony and Cologne had never had much affinity for each other, and this was just another skirmish in their decades-long personal war. What it meant to Kima was a reply no sooner than the following morning. No sooner, being the operative words...

She did consider the idea of simply ignoring her orders and disbursing the money right away, but the odds of Peony having her own spies aboard the ship were high. The Elder would not pass up the chance to have her arrested for it, even if it ruined the operation, simply to tweak Cologne's nose.

She cursed her rotten luck as well. She had a very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she could not guess the reason why. It was as if a pall of unrecognized doom hung over the place, palpable, but unidentified.

The jail had little in the way of comforts, even for its keepers, and she decided to return to the DropShip. Shampoo would be put in charge of the two prisoners until morning. She had decided that it would be a good idea to keep Shampoo and Mousse apart for awhile, owing to the peculiar way they had been acting around each other. It had not been hostile, but strained, and Kima did not need any more internecine squabbles ruining her operation.

Ryouga Hibiki sat upon the hard cement pallet that made up his bed and thought about fate. After he and Tarou had been positively identified by the Commonwealth Ambassador (whatever that meant), they had been taken to the city jail. Apparently no one had thought that he and Tarou would be there long, as they had not furnished him with a mattress, or toilet paper for the cell's toilet, or anything to eat.

He had been here for six hours now, and he was hungry, sore, and bored. Tarou had remained silent in the cell next to him, leaving him with no one to talk to. There weren't even any guards about, and no one answered his shouts for attention.

The last time he had spoken to anyone was with the Ambassador, Kima. It was mostly a one-way conversation. All she really cared about was what he knew about two guys named Saotome. Ryouga didn't recognize the men in the photos she had provided for him, and he hadn't heard the name in years. When their usefulness as informants was gone, he and Tarou were packed away to the jail.

The way he saw it, he and Tarou were going back to Lightoller for more experiments. Perhaps fatal ones, if the Joketsuzoku feared their secret lab was no longer a secret. His BattleMaster and Tarou's Hunchback, both 'mechs that had been in their respective families for generations, would surely be commandeered by their ex-unit. They were effectively Dispossessed.

A tear of rage welled at the corner of his eye. What kind of cruel universe was it that would do this to them? It would be better, kinder, to simply execute them on Capra and get it over with. Instead they suffered the shame of being dishonored before their comrades, of being Dispossessed of their mechwarrior birthright, and condemned to spend weeks, months, even years of torment in a laboratory before being quietly dispatched, forgotten by the rest of the Inner Sphere.

Ryouga was given to fits of depression, and now he was fully in its grip. Despair washed over him, waves of hopelessness that could not be fought through, only suffered. He would not cry, he was strong enough for that, but he could not help himself.

He remembered the decision he had made some time ago, the one about commiting suicide rather than joining the ranks of the Dispossessed. It warmed him somewhat, to think that he would cheat the Joketsuzoku of their test subject once again, that he would not help them in their Frankensteinian work, and deny them their revenge.

It would be a difficult thing to do in his cell. He had no linen to fashion into a noose. There was nothing sharp he could use to slash open his wrists or throat. He wanted to die here, before they could take him away, and deny the damn Governor, who had once decorated him for valor and now sold him down the river, his forty pieces of silver.

He wanted some measure of dignity in his death, but the only way out it seemed would be to strip off his clothes and use them for the noose. It was possible; a properly motivated person could hang himself from the sink drain if nothing else. The top crosspiece of the cell bars was even better suited to the idea.

Shampoo found the Capra City Jail to be a dreary place, lacking any sort of humanizing qualities. Even the most spartan Commonwealth barracks was rich in the culture of the Joketsuzoku, and filled with the proud fighting spirit of its troops. This place was a barren and lifeless Golgatha, a drain on the spirit, even to its keepers.

She was locked through the doors to the Special Holding Cells without a word from the police guard, though she could feel the hungry eyes upon her. Kima was right to restrict most of the DropShip's crew to the starport quarantine zone. The younger girls, the techs and other non-combatants, could find themselves preyed upon by the locals, and Joketsuzoku honor would demand swift and bloody retribution for any harm done. It would be a foreign relations disaster.

There were four holding cells against the opposite wall. Each was small, designed for a single occupant. A chair and a small table with a telephone were set aside for her long vigil. She hadn't brought anything to do, which was foolish, but it couldn't be helped. Shampoo did not have much in the way of hobbies. There was cooking, but she did little of that while on a mission.

One of the two deserters was sitting quietly on the floor of his cell. He was the taller of the two, she remembered, the one with the face (and especially eyes) that was handsome to the point of being pretty. Despite his _bishonen_ beauty, his countenance was darkened with malice, and she sensed that this was one that would bear close attention when he was being moved.

The other one was stripped to the waist when she stepped through the rust-streaked steel door, with a sheepish expression on his face like he had just been caught doing something he shouldn't. Hibiki, she remembered from the brief. She had only seen him in the flesh one other time, during the confusing battle inside the Labs that had ended with all of them taking dives into Jusenkyo Pools. He was ruggedly handsome, and his shirtless chest was deeply muscled like a swimmer or a gymnast; all tone and definition with little of the ostentatious bulk she despised in men. She wondered if he recognized her.

If he did recognize her, he did not show it. Instead he looked at his shirt as if deciding whether or not he should put it back on. He looked at her once again and slipped the shirt back over his head.

Shampoo did not understand what he was doing. The cells were in the basement a level below the parking garage, and as a result were cool and dry. It was not the type of climate a man would find uncomfortable enough to remove his shirt.

"You there," she called to him. "What you doing?" It galled her to think how she must have sounded to him then.

Ryouga did not reply.

"Answer!" she barked at him. She hated this, communicating in a language that was not her own. "Or it go bad for you when we take away..."

His face almost cracked into a smile of bitter irony at her threat. He had to know what was in store for him once he was out of the League's jurisdiction.

Shampoo decided to let it drop. There was no intimidating a man who knew that he had nothing to lose. Ryouga went back to sitting on the hard cement pallet.

She deserved much better than this, she decided. She was a mechwarrior, and a good one. She should have been out patrolling the city for a sign of the two Saotomes, not babysitting two deserters who were clearly not going anywhere until it was time to move them.

Had she angered Kima in some way, and was this dreary assignment her punishment? Was this the result of some special instruction from her great-grandmother, designed to keep her out of trouble until the incident on Lightoller blew over? Council Elder Peony was not the only enemy her great-grandmother had on the Council, and none of them would pass up the chance to see her disgraced as a way of hurting Cologne. She did not know what it had cost her great-grandmother to secure for her this opportunity for redemption, and she decided that she would rather not find out.

Her watch would be over in four hours. Until then, she had nothing to do but think. She needed to think about her future, and about how she was going to take back control of it from the hands of her enemies. It was a startling thought, that she had enemies within the highest echelons of her clan, merely by dint of her blood. Until that moment she had always basked in the warm glow of fellowship and family, that the Joketsuzoku were a clan united in a common struggle, and that she was a welcome part of that struggle.

The truth was painful to her, and the realization of that truth came with a second realization that she still had a lot of growing up to do. In many eyes she was a spoiled little girl with privilege and power that she had not earned. She now understood that she would have to make them accept her for what she was, and not for whose child she was.

Furinkan Combine DropShip _Oda Nobunaga_,

approaching Capra parking orbit,

Planet Capra, Capra System,

The League of Five Nails

March 15 3025

"We'll be established in orbit within the hour, your Highness."

General Prince Tatewaki Kuno nodded brusquely at the report from his DropShip Commander. Such matters were for pilots, astrogators, and other computer types. His concerns were far more pressing, the concerns of a warrior.

The location of his sister for one thing. Capra City was currently in the darkness of night, and long-range telescopes gave no indication that any sort of battle was in progress below. He was well accustomed to Kodachi's tactics, and even if she had dispatched the planet's defenders, she would order the city burned. Such a fire would still be visible to thermal sensors many hours after the flames were gone.

Instead there was only the faint infrared glow of a small city shedding its stored heat for the day. Signal Intelligence detected no radio or microwave transmissions indicating that anything was amiss. Kodachi remained silent, hidden, and likely coiled to strike.

That knowledge did not deter him from his mission. He would hit the city in force, with two full regiments of battlemechs, plus supporting infantry, air, armored cavalry, and mobile artillery. If his serpentine sister dared to strike at his heels, he would have a force more than double her own on hand to crush her. Such a force would also keep the cursed Saotomes from escaping with his bride, and he had given his commanders explicit orders to minimize collateral damage within the city to prevent her from coming to harm.

He expected a counter-attack by the League, and maintained his third regiment of battlemechs, the seasoned 9th Sword of Thunder, in orbit as reserves. Any landings by League reinforcements would face a vertical envelopment by the 9th that would annihilate them before they left their drop zones. If by chance the Gosunkugi cur who commanded the League's forces in the system decided to leave Capra to the Combine, the 9th could be dispatched to investigate the minor settlements scattered across the planet for signs of Kodachi and the Saotomes.

His setbacks would be put well behind him, he decided. Kodachi would be exiled - if she did not choose to die first. Akane would be safe in his custody. The damnable Ranma Saotome would be so much charred grease on the sole of his boot!

"Signal the Division," he ordered one of the Overlord Class DropShip's communication staff. "Order them to prepare for combat drop at their assigned zones. Sound General Quarters and begin the countdown as soon as all units have responded!"

"At once, your Highness!"

Tatewaki Kuno turned and left the DropShip Bridge for the Mech Bays, and his personal battlemech. As he stepped through the airtight door and into the short passageway to the personnel elevators, a bosun's whistle shrilled over the ship's circuit 1MC intercom speakers.

"GENERAL QUARTERS GENERAL QUARTERS! ALL HANDS MAN YOUR BATTLESTATIONS! SET CONDITION ALFA THROUGHOUT THE SHIP! NOW GENERAL QUARTERS!"

Tatewaki strode purposefully into the elevator as the crew scrambled to their battlestations. He would see to this victory personally. His would be the last laugh over his sister.

Capra City, Near the Government Buildings

15 March 3025

Ranma and Genma Saotome, their faces blacked out with greasepaint and dressed in dark thermal-dampened and lint-free bodysuits, stood in the shadows near the League Government Buildings and waited. The exotic chameleon suits worn by assassins would have been better for the job, but they were very rare and expensive, and required more maintenance than theSaotomes were able to provide.

The warm glow of the nearby Governor's Mansion was going to pose a problem, as it illuminated the place they needed to be. They did not expect the place to be so lively so late at night.

"It makes sense," Genma realized ruefully. "Everyone must sleep for the afternoon because of the heat."

"Too late for that now," Ranma replied. "Are we gonna do this or what?"

"We might as well," Genma admitted. "Daylight is just too risky."

"Right."

The telephone trunk terminated from the building inside a small service closet that opened to the outside. A simple tumbler-lock barred their access, and was made short work of. Ranma stepped inside while Genma kept watch from the shelter of a low adobe-brick wall.

Ranma lit his flashlight and looked over the rows of telephone terminals before him. As he suspected, most of the fiber-optic modules were no longer functional, and had been subsequently bypassed with much less sophisticated electrical units that could be built and maintained on Capra. That made his job a lot easier.

What also made his job easy was the fact that some thoughful tech had posted a listing of the terminals on a sheet of laminated paper now yellowed and stiff with age. It was legible, and told him exactly where to look.

He pulled out a set of probes and plugged them into the test terminal. Donning a small headset, he listened to the sound of an analog modem sending data on the fire and security system over the line. This particular modem was busy transmitting a constant 'rest' signal, and would continue to do so until an alarm was tripped and the identifying data packets sent.

The pocket oscilloscope he carried would be worth its weight in gold on a planet like Capra, and he put it to good use. The 'rest' signal was analyzed and projected on the small LCD display. It took only two minutes to set his portable signal generator to the proper pulse amplitude and frequency.

He was lucky that the modern fiber-optic systems no longer worked. You could tap into them, but it took time and was tricky to do on the fly, especially with a system that was designed to sound a loss of communications alarm if the signal dropped out or was altered by a poorly filtered tap. If they had been functional, he would have had little choice except to start cutting and pray they had enough time to get in and do what they had to do before a technician came out to investigate.

As he jumpered out the input from the security system to the modem and replaced it with his own phony 'rest' signal, he regretted ever learning how to do it. This was not something a mechwarrior did. He was a fighter, not a tech or a spy. Scouting was something they did to pay the bills, and now that they had battlemechs again, it was a career they could give up.

It disturbed him to think that he now considered Akane's opinion in the matter when making these decisions. Even if she didn't approve of his methods, he was ultimately doing this for her and the Confederation. The least she could do was recognize that, and be more appreciative about it!

He checked the signal again and made certain that nothing was wrong. There was no loopback from the controlling station to acknowledge any alarms. Everything looked good.

Ranma turned off his flashlight and stepped back outside. Genma gave him a questioning look, which he answered with a 'thumbs up.'

"Let's do it," Genma said to him.

They had to go through a window to get inside, as the front doors were only two meters from the street. Once inside, Ranma noted that the security master panel near the door was tripped into alarm. If the signal tap didn't work, they could expect company.

"We need to hustle," he told his father, who knew it just as well as him.

The computer was running in standby mode, with its access timed out. Genma tapped a few proprietary commands into the terminal and pulled up a keystroke log. After several moments of scanning he noted what looked to be the clerk's user ID and password, and entered them into the system. They were in.

"What's the ID number, boy?" he whispered to Ranma.

Ranma pulled out the nameplate and read the numbers to him.

Genma entered them into the system and began a search. It took only a few moments before spitting out a response.

"Paydirt," Genma grunted. "That nameplate goes to an earthmover owned by the ANAMAX Corporation Red Butte Mine Division. The vehicle tag is Alfa X-ray Whiskey Romeo Five Five Eight, and has been expired for eight years."

Ranma scribbled the tag number down on a notepad and replaced both pad and nameplate in his pocket.

"Red Butte Mine?" he asked. "That name sounds familiar."

"It should," Genma replied as he shut down the computer. "It's a mine not far from where the _Palomino_ is hidden."

"Oh yeah..." Ranma said quietly. "That's the abandoned copper mine Akane and I checked out the first day here."

"Fate's with us, my boy," Genma said as they pulled themselves through the window. "We'll head back to the ship at daybreak, and on the way we'll stop by the mine."

"Sounds good to me."

"What's taking them so long?" Akane asked worriedly. She and Doctor Tofu sat at the table in the small double-occupancy motel room they had secured for the night, and waited for the return of Ranma and Genma.

Tofu gave her a reassuring look. "It hasn't been that long," he told her.

"It's been an hour. How long does it take to break in, get what they need, and get out?"

Tofu had no answer for this, as burglary was far out of his ken.

"Be patient," he advised her.

"I'm doing the best I can," she returned.

Tofu noted the concern she had, and guessed at the cause.

"Ranma will be fine," he said to her. "Don't worry."

Akane was taken aback by this.

"Who says I'm worried about Ranma?"

Tofu smiled. "Oh, I'm sorry, Akane. I should have known you'd be more concerned about Mister Saotome."

"What?" she cried, not believing that she was hearing this from Doctor Tofu! "I'm worried that they'll get caught and then the whole expedition to Ryuugenzawa will be ruined!"

Tofu agreed that this was a potential risk. "If that happens, then we'll return to the ship and get the battlemechs," he told her. "I can take Mister Saotome's Griffin, and with your Warhammer and Happousai's Locust, we should be able to bust them out of jail."

He smiled to let her know that he wasn't all that serious. It was ridiculous to think that three 'mechs, one of them a Locust, could take on the entire garrison and defeat them, but Akane appreciated his effort to reassure her.

"Thanks for trying, Doctor Tofu."

"I'm a doctor," he replied. "It's my business to make people feel better. Now, do you want to admit that you're worried about Ranma, or not?"

Her face clouded. "I'm not worried about Ranma."

"I don't believe that for a second."

"I do!" she cried. "He's a total jerk. He's rude, obnoxious, arrogant; I could go on and on about him. I still can't believe my father went along with this stupid engagement!"

"Is that what this is about?" Tofu asked pointedly. "You're mad at Ranma because your father engaged you to him?"

Akane froze. It was true that she wasn't happy with her father for what he had done. Was she really taking it out on Ranma for something that was between herself and Dad?

She couldn't help but think about another conversation she and Doctor Tofu had. He had accused her of holding Nabiki responsible for the surrender summit, when the truth was that surrender was not possible without her father's approval.

"That's not it," she said quietly, though she wasn't sure that was entirely true.

Tofu nodded sagely.

"Then it's his so-called 'curse' that has you so upset with him," he declared.

She looked up from the table where they sat.

"I admit that Ranma's 'curse' makes me a little uneasy sometimes," she said in a small voice that was barely audible over the sound of the room's drop-in air conditioner. "But that isn't the reason. I told you the reasons why I don't like Ranma."

"And those were all good reasons," Tofu conceded. "If you take them alone." He reached across the table and touched Akane's hand, making her shiver with excitement. She may have told herself that there was no chance for happiness with the handsome doctor, but in that moment she was lost in the fantasy that this expedition would bring them closer together than ever before.

"But what you're telling me," he went on, and her fantasy of love with him came crashing down around her. "...is that Ranma never does anything thoughtful, kind, or considerate for you. Akane, I know that isn't true."

She remembered the flying lessons Ranma had given her over the last three days, his admonition to her before they entered Capra's atmosphere to be careful, the fact that he had been ready to die for her in the garden.

"I suppose you're right," she said. "But that doesn't make the rotten stuff he says or does any easier to bear."

Tofu took off his glasses and wiped them with a cloth.

"Maybe so, but I think you can do yourself a favor and be more honest about your feelings."

He left her in silence with that, a silence that lasted only a few moments before Ranma stepped through the door of the motel room. He had a stupid grin plastered all over his blacked out face, his large eyes and white teeth making him look rather like the Cheshire Cat.

"In and out," he told them, but he was looking at Akane. "No sweat."

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Tofu asked.

"Enough to continue the search," Genma answered. "I say we get some sleep and leave the city at first light. We're all tired, and could use some rest."

"Back to the ship?" Akane asked. "What about the key?"

"We'll make a detour to an abandoned mine along the way and pick it up," Genma told her. "Then we'll lift for the trip back to the jump point."

"Pretty easy, huh, Akane?" Ranma said, clearly pleased with how things were going.

Akane looked closely at him, and he was ridiculous in black-face. It was all she could do to keep from laughing.

"Whatever you say, Ranma."

Commonwealth Mechwarrior Mousse saw the motel ahead of them and directed the driver to stop. The woman did so, though she clearly chafed at the idea of being ordered around by a man. Mousse was used to the thinly-veiled animosity he received from Joketsuzoku women, and paid it no mind.

Kima had sent him out with a detachment of troops in the middle of his sleep cycle because of a phone call she had received from the Governor. Apparently the local police had received a tip about the Saotomes from the night clerk of the motel they were now approaching. Because of the sternly worded warning regarding the dangers of apprehending the two, the police had requested that the Commonwealth deal with the matter directly, with them providing back-up.

That was fine by Mousse. He didn't need the locals getting in the way. If Kima had not specifically instructed him to comply with the demands of the police, he would take the captured spies directly back to the DropShip. Naturally, the police had insisted on detaining them with the two deserters until the matter of the reward money was settled.

The room where the spies were supposed to be found was dark. It was rather late, and they were likely asleep. He wasn't going to leave anything to chance. They had a spare key from the motel clerk, and he and his detachment would enter quietly and take them down before they knew what hit them.

Two policemen covered the door of the room, while another two watched the window. There was no other way out of the place. Mousse sent six of his squad to the door. The SWAT trooper closest to the door slid the key into the lock and slowly turned the handle. After that, he edged the door open ever so slightly, as a second SWAT trooper tossed in a handful of flash-bangs.

The reports were deafening, and smoke filled the small room. His troops stormed in behind the blasts, armed with stun-sticks and pepper spray. They were not in the habit of using less-than-lethal weapons, but Mousse had faith in their discipline.

His faith was rewarded with the excited shouts of the Police as the spies were dragged half-conscious and in manacles and leg-irons from the room. Oddly enough, there were four people inside, one of them a woman, and Mousse hoped like hell that they hadn't hit the wrong room. He stepped up to the young man with the pig-tail and compared his face to the photograph Kima had provided him, and the one that had begun circulating through town since sundown.

"Ranma Saotome," he said to the dazed mechwarrior. "You are under arrest."

Headquarters, Black Rose Terror Regiment

50 kilometers east of Capra City

Planet Capra, Capra System

The League of Five Nails

15 March 3025

The Black Rose of the Furinkan Combine mounted her black Marauder, her eyes shining with delight at the news she had just received. The horrible Tendo girl had just been arrested by the local police, with the help of the Jusenkyo Commonwealth! It was delicious, for she would be able to seize the Tendo girl at the same time as she killed a few Amazon witches!

The 75-ton war machine roared to life at her command, its sensors twitching in the darkness. It would be almost an hour before they would reach the city from their current position, which would put their arrival just before daylight. It was perfect. Dawn would bring light in the form of charged particles and beams of coherent death.

Her dear brother was also on the way, which made her decision to move fifty klicks closer to the town early that evening a wise one indeed. Her headlong rush for Capra City would be a race against time, but made the experience all the sweeter in the knowledge that Tachi would watch Akane Tendo slip through his fingers.

"Full advance!" she ordered her battlemechs. "Let nothing stop you from victory - not the League of Five Nails, nor the Commonwealth, and especially not my brother!"

Her troops cheered over the tac-net, a full regiment of them, loyal to her unto the death. It did not concern them that they might face fellow Combine mechwarriors in battle. The Black Rose commanded, and they obeyed.

Special Prisoner Holding Block

Capra City Jail,

15 March 3025

Kima could not believe her eyes. Not only had they captured the two Saotomes, but also Akane Tendo! Being as intimately familiar with Akane's face as Kima was, she could never forget it. Akane wore her hair short now, which made Kima wonder whether her Jusenkyo body had any more value to her superiors in the Commonwealth. It would be too much trouble to have it cut and styled every time she needed to change.

There were other matters. The two Saotomes had to be interrogated for their knowledge of Ryuugenzawa, but after that they were as good as dead in the hands of Shampoo. What was she supposed to do with Akane and the Tendo

family's personal physician?

Killing them was a dangerous idea. If word leaked out that they had died at the hands of the Commonwealth, it would bring severe repercussions, not the least of which was Tatewaki Kuno's undying wrath. Kima had no doubt that the word would get out sooner or later.

Leaving them on Capra was also questionable. If their identities were revealed to the League, then Hikaru Gosunkugi would not hesitate to take Akane hostage. While some good could come of it, she doubted that the Elders would approve. It was not her place to make the Commonwealth's policy, only to enforce it.

That meant that she had to take them all with her, back to Jusenkyo. It seemed like the best choice under the circumstances. Akane and the doctor could be released as a gesture of goodwill between the Commonwealth and the Confederation. It was regrettable that the Saotomes would have to die, given the recent engagement of the young mechwarrior to Akane, but the Commonwealth had ample proof of their espionage activities to justify the deed.

"Is everything to your specifications?" Governor Argust asked her, meaning: "Are these the ones you're looking for - so I can get my money?"

"Everything is fine," Kima returned.

Argust rubbed his palms together. "Excellent. Any word yet from your Government?"

Kima sighed. "Not yet, Governor. It will probably be several more hours at the earliest."

"Then you won't object if we continue to hold them here?"

She visualized her dagger protruding hilt deep from between his eyes.

"No, Governor. Not at all."

Argust nodded his head with satisfaction.

"Wonderful. I shall be retiring for the evening, your Excellency. Do let me know when you hear from Jusenkyo."

Kima was only too glad to see him go. "Certainly, Governor."

"Do you remember when I said this was easy?" Ranma asked Akane as they stood by the bars of their cell. Genma shared a cell with his son, and Akane and Doctor Tofu were confined to the cell next to them.

Akane nodded slowly, still feeling the effects of the stun grenades and the ringing they had left in her ears.

"Um-hmmm..."

Ranma rubbed at his neck. "I'm sorry I said it."

He looked out at the bars to see the Commonwealth Ambassador from the summit on Nerima sizing him up. She wasn't the only one. Shampoo was with her, standing next to an angry looking man in long white robes. The man he vaguely remembered through the painful haze of their capture as the one who arrested them.

How in the hell had the Commonwealth known to come here to look for us? he thought angrily. More to the point, who was the traitor who tipped the damn Amazons off? He recognized the other two in the cells. They were both part of the Jusenkyo Lab's security, if he remembered correctly. Why were THEY here, and locked up with him and the others?

These were questions that demanded answers, but only when they were free of their jail.

Shampoo approached the bars. She was every bit as dangerous looking as he remembered her. It was only by accident that she had fallen into one of the Jusenkyo Pools, but the look in her eyes told him that she blamed him exclusively for what had happened.

"Shampoo thought she kill you on Lightoller," the Amazon told him, her violet eyes crackled with fury at the thought. "I no make same mistake twice."

"Kill?" Akane cried in protest. "I understand what Ranma did was against your laws, but doesn't he at least get a trial?"

Shampoo narrowed her eyes at Akane.

"You no understand how Amazon Law work," she told her curtly. "You shut mouth now."

Akane stepped back, stunned by Shampoo's retort. She tried to speak, but her anger kept her from forming any words.

"Don't sweat it, Akane," Ranma said evenly. He could not see her in her cell, but knew full well what lay behind her silence. "If Shampoo wants a piece of me, it'll be her funeral, not mine."

Shampoo was incensed. "No make Shampoo laugh! I rip out heart."

He returned her stare of challenge. She might have been a pretty good fighter, but he wasn't going to back down.

"I guess we'll find out, huh?"

She gave him a contemptuous look and returned to her place by the far wall. Kima took her leave of the holding cells, and Mousse trailed after at a respectful distance.

That left Shampoo to watch over them with her big feline eyes.

Ryouga watched the confrontation in silence. It made no sense, but somehow the four who were locked up with himself and Tarou were also wanted by the Commonwealth. What had they done? Who were they? The two Saotomes were vaguely familiar looking, and the one his age was even named Ranma, but if they were the ones he remembered, he had last seen them almost seven years ago.

There was only one way to find out.

"Ranma...?" he asked quietly.

There was a long pause, and he was about to ask again when Ranma replied.

"Yeah? Who's this?"

"Nevermind that," he returned. "I have a question for you."

Another pause.

"Go ahead. I ain't got nothin' but time."

"You wouldn't happen to remember the Hsien Junior Military Training Academy on the planet Tamegonit, would you?"

"Vaguely. It's been awhile," Ranma replied, wondering who the hell it was that knew so much about his childhood wanderings. "So what?"

Ryouga felt himself tense at the news. The very Ranma Saotome who had humiliated him day after day at the training academy, the one who had run out on their duel seven long years ago, was in jail with him. The bars that kept him a prisoner were the same bars that kept Ranma Saotome alive.

Still, he had to know...

"It's me, Ranma," he told him. "It's Ryouga Hibiki."

"Ryouga Hibiki?" he heard a young woman's voice ask. "Do you know this person, Ranma?"

"The name sounds sort of familiar," Ranma replied.

"Don't you remember me?!" Ryouga barked, earning a hard look from Shampoo.

"Well... Like I said, the name sounds familiar. Did you say the Hsien Academy?"

Ryouga was livid. He had burned with shame for three years after that fateful day. Ranma had dropped out of the Academy, and rumor had it that he had left the system with his father, leaving Ryouga with no way to get his revenge.

"You mean you don't remember our man to man duel!?"

"Duel...?"

"You don't remember something like a duel?" the girl's voice asked. "This Ryouga fellow sounds awfully serious about it."

There followed the sound of a foot tapping the cement floor.

"Gimme a second, I'm working on it... A duel... A duel... A guy named Ryouga... Me in a duel with a guy named Ryouga... Me in a duel with a guy named Ryouga at the Hsien Academy..."

"Do you remember or don't you?!" Ryouga demanded.

"I said gimme a second!" Ranma shot back. "Hey, Pop, do you remember anything like what he's talking about?"

"I hardly think it's very important given our current predicament, boy," a gruff voice replied.

Time passed as Shampoo looked on with some amusement.

"Well?" Ryouga asked, beyond anger and into despair. Had he devoted what were supposed to be some the best years of his life to hopeless plans for revenge - when his bitter enemy had thought so little of their duel that he didn't even remember it?

"Sorry man, it ain't ringing any bells," Ranma finally answered him. "I got in lots of fights when I was twelve."

Ryouga knocked his forehead against the bars in misery. It was true. All those dark years of Junior High spent in shame and humiliation for nothing. The bastard didn't even remember him.

"Forget about it," he said sullenly, knowing that Ranma already had.

"Maybe if you gave me a hint or two," Ranma responded. "Like why we were having a duel."

Ryouga's expression perked up. "We were duelling because of the way you humiliated me in the cafeteria."

"Hmmmmm..." Ranma wondered aloud. "Nope. You gotta be more specific than that."

"You always stole my bread!" Ryouga thundered.

"Bread?" Ranma and Akane chorused.

"Yeah, bread!" Ryouga repeated. Looking back on those days, it did seem like a stupid thing to fight about, but somehow fate had seen fit to allow him this one chance to settle a seven-year-old score, and he was too angry to let it go.

"Oh yeah!" Ranma suddenly chirped. "Now I remember!"

Ryouga's heart leaped. At last!

"You guys fought a duel over bread?" the girl's voice asked in disbelief. "What kind of school did you go to, Ranma?"

"It was nuts, Akane," Ranma replied wearily. "The place was totally competitive. Grades, 'mech training, small arms, sports, even _lunch_. They used to call out the lunch specials at the counter, and it was first come, first served. I saw a lot of kids get trampled over junk like algae bread!"

"I was one of them!" Ryouga cried indignantly.

"So tell me, Ryouga," Ranma asked him. "Why are you so mad at me for a duel that you didn't even show up for?"

"You lie!"

"I ain't lying. I waited at that stupid practice field for three days waiting for you, without food or sleep, and you never showed!"

"Three days?" the girl, Akane, cried.

Ryouga was livid. Those cruel days of childhood had returned to him. "Yeah, and by the fourth day, you had run away!"

There was a long moment of silence between them.

"Hey, Ryouga?"

"What is it, Ranma!?" he snarled.

"Just why exactly did it take you four days to get to a field that was right outside our dorm rooms?"

Damn him!

"You got an answer for me?" Ranma pressed.

Shampoo stood from her chair. "Yes, this what Shampoo also want to know," she said to him with a toothy grin.

Ryouga gripped the bars tight enough to feel the friction heat burning his hands.

"It's because he has the universe's worst sense of direction," Pansuto Tarou said sardonically from his cell. It had been the most he had said since his incarceration.

"You shut up, Monster-boy!" Ryouga barked. He could almost feel Tarou's smug grin leveled at him through the cement wall that separated them.

"Well I know that," Ranma answered the unknown man in the cell next to Ryouga. "I just wanted to hear it from him." He raised his voice a notch. "It takes a real man to admit he's wrong, huh, Ryouga?"

Ryouga's simmer had become a full boil. The bars of his cell began to creak in their concrete foundations.

"Damn you, Ranma!"

"You're still pissed about the bread after all these years?" the pig-tailed mechwarrior asked him. "Tell you what; if we ever get out of here, I swear I'll make it up to you. You can have any kind of bread you want. Name it, and it's yours!"

"Save breath, Ranma," Shampoo interjected. "Only place you going is Hell of Being Ripped to Pieces!"

"What!?" Akane asked the Amazon.

"Chinese have many Hells," Shampoo supplied for her with a wry smile.

Ryouga couldn't believe Ranma had such gall.

"This isn't about bread!" he cried angrily. "This is about years of anguish and humiliation! Of enduring soul-crushing shame! I was never the same after Hsien Academy!"

"Ryouga, take my advice," Ranma offered in a soothing voice. "Get some professional help, man. Really. You're blowing a head gasket about something that happened when we were both kids, when right now we're both in this lousy jail, waiting to get shipped out to meet our doom at the hands of our worst enemies. I mean, prioritize, man!"

The eastern outskirts of Capra City,

thirty minutes before sunrise

15 March 3025

Kodachi's lead elements had taken up positions around the city's handful of main traffic arteries. There would be no escaping while her spearhead companies drove straight for the center of town and the police headquarters. Her third battalion was set to attack the starport and the fort.

She turned her battlemech to either side of her. Set up on a low ridge, one of the few places near the city that could be called high ground, were her Fire Lances. Archers, Crusaders, Catapults, and Trebuchets prepared to deliver a blistering volley of long range missiles. The barrage would throw the city into chaos and at the same time would create a path of destruction for her spearhead to follow to the center of town.

Her adjutant appeared on her commo display.

"All companies report in-position at their preliminary jumping off points, Highness."

"Very well," she said, her voice dripping with anticipation. She flipped over to the tac-net frequencies. "Fire Lances, commence fire! Fire at will!"

The ridge lit up as bright as the sun. Hundreds of angry yellow and orange darts of flame leaped skyward from the battlemechs, the first of many missile volleys. The giant war machines were silhouetted against the flames, as were the rows of ammunition carriers that would allow them to keep up a continuous bombardment.

Kodachi watched the first volley fall into the city near the edge of town. Brilliant fireballs erupted at the impact points, and the concussions shook even her Marauder from a distance of nearly five hundred meters from the blasts. In the distance she could see her other bombardment group pounding the starport and the fort.

"Good morning, everyone!" she sang out to the city on her Marauder's external speakers. The second wave was already falling as she called for her troops to advance. "The Black Rose has come for you, little dears!"

With her Marauder in the lead, Kodachi's headquarters company began stomping towards the flames. Her thermal sensors could not distinguish through the fire the images of survivors fleeing in a dazed panic, but she knew they were out there. Structures weakened by the missiles collapsed on top of them, the failures caused by the tremors of so many battlemechs moving towards the city, adding to the terror she sowed.

It was terribly funny to behold, and she laughed with reckless abandon at their misfortune.

Kima was not even out of the parking garage when the first missiles began to explode. There were luminous trails of smoke in the sky, leading back to two distinct points of origin. The booming reports spoke of many battlemechs in the pre-dawn darkness beyond the city, a realization that nearly sent her into a panic.

She turned to Mousse.

"Get to the _Jade Lotus!_" she ordered him. "Order them to prepare for emergency lift-off if they haven't already started when you get there. Then take command of the battlemech company and move them out to positions that will defend the ship until we can leave."

"What about Shampoo?" he cried. There was no way he was going to let them leave her behind.

"Send the truck back for us!" she told him, and leaped clear as they rounded a corner to take them to the starport. She wasn't going to lose her prisoners, the Governor's money be damned!

Governor Argust was just stepping out of his car when Kodachi's missile barrage hit. At first he did not realize the magnitude of what was taking place, and his initial impression was that some horrible accident had just occurred at the fort's armory.

Moments later, when the alert sirens began howling throughout the city, he realized that he was terribly, terribly wrong.

"Those Joketsuzoku whores!" he cursed. "They're taking the prisoners without paying my reward!"

He rushed into the mansion to phone the garrison commander.

"Shhhhhh!" Ranma hissed. "You hear that?"

"Hear what, Ranma?" Akane asked nervously.

"It sounded like explosions," he replied.

Shampoo perked up her ears and began to hear them as well.

"I think you right," she said quietly.

"What's going on?" Doctor Tofu asked.

"Beats me," Genma replied. The only mechwarrior left on the DropShip was Happousai, and he didn't see his master taking on the entire city for their sakes, even if he knew they were in trouble.

"I hear sirens," Ryouga added. "The city is under attack! It must be the Combine!"

Akane felt suddenly cold. Kuno...

Ranma rattled the bars for Shampoo's attention.

"Hey, let us out!" he cried.

Shampoo shot him a dirty look. "You rot," she told him. "Shampoo no care if you die down here in basement."

Kima sprang through the door a moment later, a guard falling dead through the threshold behind her. His throat was slashed open, and she brandished a bloody dagger as well as the keys to the cells.

"What's going on?" Shampoo asked her.

"The city is under attack," Kima replied. "We don't know who's out there yet, but they have a very large force. It's probably the Combine."

"What about the prisoners?"

Kima held up the keys.

"We're taking them with us just as soon as the truck returns from the starport."

"Hey!" Ranma cried louder. "Let us out!"

Kima leaped to the bars with surprising speed. "Quiet!" she barked at him. "You'll do as I say, or I'll gut you and leave you for the Combine."

He stepped back, nonplussed by her threat.

"Whatever, lady."

The _Jade Lotus_ was wreathed in flames when Mousse reached the starport tarmac. Starport Emergency teams scrambled through the smoke and fire, fighting several nearby blazes to keep them from detonating the sizable reservoir of liquid hydrogen in the tank farm. More missiles rained down from the sky to the south, and missiles arced across the city from the east. The wail of the alert sirens added to the infernal din.

The Union Class DropShip had suffered only a few hits. Its armor was proof against much more damage, but if they didn't get off the ground immediately there was no telling how long their luck would last. He could see the ship's crew working to cast off their support umbilicals and the gantry for lift-off. At least he could concentrate on the Company.

He sent the truck back to the jail on the run, leaping out as Kima had done. There was little time to do what needed to be done.

A soldier stood her ground at the combat personnel hatch. He ignored her challenge and pushed her aside, his male effrontery too appalling to even resist.

He clambered up the ladder to the 'Mech Bays. The rest of the Company was already prepping for action, allowing him a moment to strip out of his robes and into his cooling vest. His white and grey Crusader stood at brisk attention in its padded drop cocoon, and he took the ladder rungs up the legs and torso two at a time. The rumble of the _Jade Lotus'_ massive plasma drive warming up for lift-off reassured him.

Once mounted and powered up, he addressed the rest of the unit. This was the moment he had been waiting for ever since his release from General Herb. This was his chance to prove himself to Shampoo, and to all the other women. He would not be denied recognition. He would not be denied this chance to shine before Shampoo.

"Fire and Command Lances will disperse and take up defensive positions within range of the DropShip's weapons," he commanded. On a side display he could see the Fire Lance Commander - his superior officer prior to Kima's sudden brevet - frowning and about to protest orders not only from a man, but from a subordinate. He did not give her the chance. "You have your orders, Lieutenant," he roared. "As I have them from Commander Kima. Carry out those orders, or find yourself replaced by someone who will!"

Cowed by this surprising show of force from the usually silent and submissive Mousse, she saluted and turned her Lance, minus his Crusader, forth through the heavy armored doors of the DropShip. The Command Lance followed suit.

He turned to the Recon Lance, which was short by Shampoo's Panther.

"The rest of you follow me into the city," he told them. "We have to protect Shampoo and the Commander until they can return to the ship."

Tatewaki Kuno sat within the confines of his Thunderbolt's cockpit, listening to the chatter of his troops over the tac-net. They were in the final descent towards Capra's atmosphere. Within thirty minutes they would be setting down at their drop zones.

Because of the magnitude of the drop, he had recognized the need for pathfinders to go ahead of his main force to mark and prepare the drop zones. This was no simple raid, but a dedicated planetary invasion, and he could not spare any time lost trying to reorganize on his drop zones.

"My lord Prince," his G-2 Intelligence Officer called over his command channel.

"Speak, man!" he replied impatiently.

"Our Pathfinder Battalion reports heavy fighting in the city," he began. "Preliminary reports indicate BRTR forces in regimental strength are responsible. The Drop Zones are not compromised at this time."

"My sister!" Tatewaki cried angrily. The Black Rose Terror Regiment was running loose! "She must know where my beloved is!"

He punched up his Divisional Operations Officer, Colonel Singh.

"Singh," he spat over the radio. "Dispatch six squadrons of aerospace support to the city. They must smite my sister's traitorous legions with all haste!"

"Forgive me, Highness," Singh replied. "But six squadrons represents a sizable portion of our descent cover."

"Speak not to thy liege as if he were a dolt, Singh, or thy rank and station are forfeit! Six Squadrons!"

Singh paled.

"At once, my Prince!"

Tatewaki clenched his fists in an impotent fury. The descent orbit could not be altered without significant scattering of his forces, which would be suicidal in light of Kodachi's strength. All he could do was wait, hope that the rest of his staff weren't as timid as Colonel Singh, and pray to the gods of battle that he would be in time to stop his sister.

In keeping with the technological dark age of the Inner Sphere, the fuze of a Long Range Missile is a simple mechanism, reliable and cheaply mass-produced by unskilled labor. Two spinning flyweights linked to springs hold a striker away from a percussion cap acting as the detonator. As the missile flies through its ballistic arc to the target, the spin imparted by the rifled launch tube acts as a stabilizer and sets the flyweights in motion. When the missile hits something, the force of the impact overcomes the spring tension, driving the striker into the percussion cap, and starting the explosive train of detonator, booster charge, and finally, the bursting charge.

This process takes less than a tenth of a second, and ends the lives of the three people who happen to be sleeping in the apartment of the four-story building where the missile hits.

Spearhead Element,

The Black Rose Terror Regiment

Approaching the Heart of Capra City

15 March 3025

Kodachi spared little time for the apartment building that collapsed into a roiling cloud of smoke, dust, and flames before her Marauder. The Bombardment Group to her rear was doing an admirable job of walking its fire just ahead of her advance, ensuring that little remained standing in her path, and that no ambush could be sprung that would slow her down.

Their rate of fire was slowing down though, she noted, as individual 'mechs walked back to the rear of the advance to reload their launchers. Soon their effectiveness as a massed artillery force would be at an end. It was important that they continue to cover the advance all the way to the Police Headquarters.

If necessary, she could call off the attack on the starport and pull those 'mechs into a reserve for the main thrust, but it would take them some time to change positions. She decided to pull them back now rather than later.

As she was giving the order, the sight of a battlemech moving through the smoke and fire beyond caught her eye. Her Marauder's Dalban HiRez tracking system locked on to the war machine, a garrison Shadow Hawk that had somehow slipped away from the attack on the fort, and past her Recon Lance.

The others in her Command Lance had not noticed the Shadow Hawk, which now knelt behind a pile of rubble and took aim with its medium laser and Armstrong 90mm autocannon to shoot across a ruined plaza at her Support Lance.

Kodachi put a burning but still erect building between her and the Shadow Hawk as it prepared for its ambush. She waited until it fired, which did not take long, and then charged around the building towards it. The Shadow Hawk was busy ducking the return fire from its targets, and did not notice her Marauder coming up on its left flank.

She squeezed both weapon triggers, and twin beams of laser fire slashed into the Shadow Hawk's arm and torso just before both PPC bolts struck. The 55-ton battlemech reeled with the impact of the bolts, and staggered to its feet still wreathed in static lightning.

Kodachi felt the heat bloom of her full barrage moments later. It was an exciting sensation, full of fury and bloodlust, and not a little personal risk. The Marauder tensed to spring at the Shadow Hawk in reaction to her cry of delight, heat pouring from its glowing radiators. The Support Lance held its fire as they realized their mistress had taken the enemy 'mech to task.

The mercenary battlemech stumbled backwards as she charged at it. It was a foolish thing for a Marauder pilot to charge an enemy who was already at close range, as the main armament of Particle Projection Cannons had minimum range targeting difficulties that would leave only its medium lasers and dorsal-mounted General Motors Whirlwind autocannon as effective weapons. Kodachi did not concern herself with tactical convention this time, nor had she ever.

The autocannon hammered over her head at the Shadow Hawk, bright green tracers slamming into the aligned crystal steel and bursting with strobes of white flame and brilliant motes of melted armor. Kodachi kept her thumb clamped down on the autocannon trigger, hosing shell after shell of rapid fire into the 'mech and laughing maniacally over the external speakers.

The rookie Shadow Hawk pilot flailed its arms up in defense against her continous burst. Shells ripped the limbs to pieces, and strands of myomer bundle musculature under tension began to snap and whip around the battlemech in bright pink filaments. The forearm mounted medium laser exploded an instant later into a violet cloud of gas as shells detonated the pulse-capacitors.

Kodachi watched the Shadow Hawk fly apart piece by piece under the buzzsaw roar of her autocannon assault. The Ammunition Remaining indicator flashed in her HUD the dwindling reserves of shells as they were expended into the unfortunate battlemech. When the counter at last read '000,' the gun went silent, and the shattered Shadow Hawk fell back into a nearby building, trailing streamers of grey gunsmoke.

Satisfied with her first kill of the day, Kodachi stomped on towards the Police Headquarters.

Mousse angrily swatted aside a garrison Whitworth, leaving the fallen 'mech for the rest of the Recon Lance to finish off. The mercenary garrison's cohesion had been thrown into total collapse from the start, with individual 'mechs running helter skelter, and firing at anything that moved. More than once Mousse had seen a battlemech exterminate its own battalion's infantry or armor in the confusion.

His path across the wide boulevard from the starport to the city center was open, but the advancing missile bombardment would make crossing the road a dicey proposition. The thunder of particle beams and autocannon fire told him that the invaders were well into the city.

His lancemates stood the best chance, as they were small and fast. His own Crusader, 65 tons of armor and heavy missile launchers, was not as fortunate. Cursing his luck, he threw the battlemech forward, knowing that while the other Commonwealth 'mechs could get across the killing field quickly, without him they would be unable to fight off the Combine heavy 'mechs on the other side.

He kept the mech's arms crossed on high to protect his vulnerable cockpit. Missiles and autocannon shells screamed down at him, bursting against his armor and peppering the surrounding buildings with shrapnel. Any glass left intact by this point was now shattered, scattering brilliant shards across the pavement, and crunching under metalshod heel.

The barrage slowed halfway across, allowing him to take cover against an office building and catch his bearings. The two Stingers and the Valkyrie of his Recon Lance had survived as expected, and crept down a sheltering alleyway towards the government buildings. Mousse watched them break from cover to dash across another wide boulevard, only to run into a withering barrage of laser, autocannon, and Short Range Missile fire.

The first Stinger had made it across safely, but the second was cut down in seconds and tumbled to the pavement engulfed in flames. The Valkyrie was driven back into cover - minus a left arm. Twin jets of silver plasma fountained from the 20-ton Stinger's back, the sign of a breached reactor vessel. The pilot within was probably dead, if not from a direct hit to the cockpit, then from the heat and searing radiation from the breached fusion reactor.

Mousse could not see their attackers, but the shuddering pavement told him they were heavies. If he didn't take action, the rest of his lance would be slaughtered. His Crusader peeled off the cheap facing of a building, and crashed through to the other side.

The Zeus and the Dragon on the other side of the building were taken by surprise by his brutal flanking manuever. Mousse triggered his hip-mounted SRM racks point blank at the Zeus, striking the mech low on the torso and right arm with thunderous effect. His forearm mounted lasers and twin machineguns blazed forth streams of lead and light, tearing apart the exposed arm and setting off the reloaded Long Range Missile launcher.

The explosion blew the battlemech's arm clean off at the elbow, and sent Mousse flying back through the ruined building. He fought his controls, trying to stand up before he was immolated by the Dragon. The shots did not come.

The Dragon was occupied with the surviving Stinger and Valkyrie, who took well-aimed shots with their lasers from the cover of the surrounding buildings. Mousse lurched his Crusader upright through the twisted debris of the structure, and launched another volley of twelve Short Range Missiles at the Zeus's flayed open right torso to finish it off.

He was rewarded with the sight of the assault 'mech shivering with his missile hits and tumbling down to crater the pavement. The Dragon, now caught in a crossfire, began backing up - while laying down a suppressing barrage of autocannon fire. Beyond the Dragon, Mousse could see not one but _two_ Warhammers struggling for a shot through the melee with their particle cannons.

Discretion was the better part of valor, Mousse agreed, but these heavies were keeping him from Shampoo. He stomped on his foot pedals, goosing his reactor to full combat power. The myomer bundles in his legs groaned with the strain as he sprinted for the retreating Dragon.

Autocannon shells spanged off his armor, gouging shallow craters in the polished white surface. He ignored the barrage, running for a low-tackle at the 60-ton Combine 'mech, and slamming full force into the squat torso. Steel screamed and sparks fountained from the impact as his Crusader seized the Dragon up into its arms and, carried along by his tremendous momentum, threw the battlemech backwards at the Warhammers.

The two Combine 'mechs flailed in desperation at the flying Dragon, trying to deflect it away from them, but to no avail. One Warhammer was hurled to the pavement, while the other one lost its left PPC arm at the shoulder and was knocked off balance. Mousse followed through with his charge, SRMs blowtorching off his hip racks and slamming home into the maimed Warhammer's center torso. His lasers slashed deep into Combine armor, and his machineguns' ceaseless chattering dug ragged swaths into the battlemech.

The Combine mechwarrior switched to his gunclusters in a panic, hosing laser and machinegun fire into the Commonwealth Crusader's midsection. Mousse watched as angry red damage lights flicked on in his cockpit and sirens wailed. His fury swelled within him.

"I WILL NOT LOSE SHAMPOO!" he cried over the tac-net.

The Crusader's massive fist slammed into the Warhammer's polished visor, splintering the armor, and rocking the battlemech back. Mousse launched a second punch, a wild haymaker that crashed through the ragged torso armor and threw up a flurry of orange sparks. The violent effect of his blows drove him into a berserker rage, and he slammed fist after metal-shod fist into the stricken Warhammer until his battlemech's arms were slick with grease and spilled hydraulic fluids up to the elbow actuators. The Warhammer, driven to its knees by the ferocity of his blows, fell forward with a tooth-jarring crash into the shattered street.

Regaining some of his composure, his breathing heavy and deep as a winded quarter-horse, Mousse turned his Crusader around to face his surviving lance mates. Bright red fluids dripped from the scored metal fists and arms to pool at the Crusader's feet. The once pristine white and grey finish was ragged and scorched, and spattered with more of the red hydraulic fluid. The Crusader's visor glowed hellishly in the firelight as he addressed them.

"Form up on me," he said coldly.

The Stinger and Valkyrie pilots complied. By their cautious advance it was clear that they held fear for him deep within their hearts. Never even in their worst battles had they borne witness to such mechanized savagery.

They did not notice the other Warhammer rise slowly to its knees from where the Dragon had felled it - until it was too late.

A direct hit from a particle cannon lanced through the upper left torso and shoulder of Mousse's Crusader. The hit itself was superficial, but through the ragged tear in the armor and structure spilled dozens of Long Range Missiles. The solid-fueled projectiles clattered to the pavement behind the 'mech and began to explode.

The missile explosions came as fast as firecrackers, though their fifty kilo RDX warheads were far more destructive. Gouts of flame and smoke spurted skywards, obscuring the Crusader from sight in a firestorm.

Capra City Jail

Special Prisoner Holding Cells

15 March 3025

"What's taking them so long?" Kima asked aloud. The sounds of explosions and weapon fire were much louder now, and punctuated with the rhythmic vibrations of battlemech feet.

"Should I take a look?" Shampoo asked.

Kima thought about it. Shampoo was a formidable fighter, but armed only with her dagger and her mace-like _bon bori_. It would take but one well-placed shot with a rifle to end Shampoo's life, and that would leave only her.

"No. Stay here," she ordered the mechwarrior. "I'll need you close at hand when we move the prisoners."

Shampoo nodded in reply. The one called Tarou had been eyeing them closely since Kima's return. It was the look of someone who wanted desperately to kill you, sizing you up for the chance.

The sound of footsteps down the hall brought them both to rapt attention. Was it warriors from the _Jade Lotus_, or was it the enemy?

The term 'enemy' had broadened significantly in light of the attack. Argust had sent his personal goon-squad down to the jail to take the prisoners to the mansion. Their bodies were presently cooling off to ambient temperature in a far corner of the holding area. Apparently the League Governor thought the attack on the city was something of an elaborate doublecross on their part, and the Commonwealth was no longer welcome.

It was a stupid notion, and reflected only the Governor's own mendacity, but it was too late for apologies.

Kima stood ready with a 10mm submachinegun plucked out of the still-warm hand of one of the League goons. The fully automatic weapon was murderously effective in a tight and narrow space like the hallway leading to the holding area, as several policemen had discovered too late. The rest of the cops had either fled the building or cowered somewhere on the floors above.

"Who's there?" Kima demanded of the approaching footsteps. As the query was in the Joketsuzoku's own particular dialect of Chinese, it was not likely that an imposter could understand it, much less give a convincing reply.

"Your loyal driver, honored Commander," the young female voice responded.

Relief was bright on Kima's face. "We're down here, Joyful Cloud!" She turned to Shampoo. "Release the prisoners and form them up in a line. Take a machinegun before you do it, and shoot anyone who doesn't cooperate in the slightest."

Shampoo saluted and pawed over the dead goons for a machinegun and several magazines of ammunition. Once armed, she threw the keys to Ryouga.

"Open cell and come out," she ordered him. "Then hand keys to next cell. Keep hands on top of head, and no make Shampoo angry, or you fall dead." She jerked the charging handle on her weapon, chambering a round, to emphasize this point.

Ryouga did as he was told.

Tarou came out next. His eyes gleamed spitefully at Shampoo, but he remained at a distance from her, with his hands planted on the top of his head, playing the good little boy.

Akane and Doctor Tofu followed, as did Ranma and Genma. They remained silent and still under Shampoo's gun.

Ryouga looked once at Ranma and then turned his eyes away. Only as he looked away did he see the sympathetic look from Akane. By the gods, she was so beautiful, he thought to himself. Only an angel could have been so pure and lovely.

Another thought crossed his mind. What was someone as perfect as her doing in the company of the cursed Saotomes? Especially Ranma!

"Move out!" Kima ordered them suddenly. "Shampoo, cover them from the rear."

They began to file out one at a time through the door, slowing only enough to step over the shredded bodies of the two dead police in the hall. Joyful Cloud and Kima waited for them at the end of the hall, Kima's machinegun in front and Shampoo's weapon behind keeping them honest.

The sounds of battle were amplified in the brick and cement parking garage. The Commonwealth truck, its windshield crazed by shrapnel, and several bullet holes prominent in the sides, waited for them with the engine running.

"In the back," Kima ordered her prisoners. Ranma lowered the tailgate and jumped in back. He looked from side to side for a chance to bolt, but with both Kima and Shampoo armed and wary, did not like his chances.

Tarou was the last to board. He gave Shampoo a dirty look as he did so, and she contemplated shooting him down as an example to the rest of them.

"Shampoo, you ride in back and cover the prisoners. Don't hesistate to shoot if you have to," Kima ordered. She slapped the dash of the truck. "Let's go!"

Shampoo climbed in back with the others, her machinegun aimed directly at Tarou's chest. If anything happened, she wanted him dead first no matter what, and then she'd deal with the others as necessary.

Joyful Cloud put the truck in gear, and climbed up the exit ramp to the street level. A spray of heavy machinegun fire greeted them as they cleared the ramp, the shells shattering the windshield and ripping apart the hood. The truck lurched to an abrupt halt before a giant black battlemech.

"OH-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO!" Kodachi Kuno cackled her trademark laughter over her external speakers. The Black Rose's Marauder towered over the truck, its cloven hoofed feet blocking the road left and right. The Warhammer that fired the machinegun burst stood close by with the rest of the company.

Kima wiped blood out of her eyes and brushed the fragments of broken glass off her face. She looked to her left and saw that Joyful Cloud was dead. A single 20mm machinegun round had caved in her entire face with the force of the impact, and exploded out the back of her neck to pass through the cab of the truck behind her. There was surprisingly little of her blood in the cab. Kima's first instinct was to shoot back at their assailants, but her submachinegun was useless against a Marauder.

"Going somewhere, my dears?" Kodachi asked them over the speakers with another laugh. "I think not."

She opened the hatch on her Marauder, and slipped lithely through to stand upon the smooth black armored deck. The sky was beginning to lighten with the approaching dawn, making her a dark and slender silhouette.

"Step away from the truck," she commanded them over the speakers through the microphone in her helmet. "My men won't hesitate to kill you if you refuse me."

Ranma was the first to appear.

"What do you want from us?" he demanded. "We ain't done nothing." He looked around to size up the situation. Twelve heavy battlemechs did not make for good odds.

"Who dares presume to question the Black Rose of the Furinkan Combine?" she replied haughtily.

"Ranma Saotome dares," he called back.

Kodachi found herself smiling in spite of his impertinence.

"THE Ranma Saotome?" she asked him in a sacharrine voice. "The fiance of Akane Tendo?" She chuckled loudly at this. "What absolutely splendid news! Why, I travelled all this way just to meet Akane Tendo face to face."

"Way to go, Ranma," Akane growled at him from the truck. Ranma paled at his mistake.

"Who?" Ranma asked Kodachi lamely. "_That_ Ranma Saotome? You made a mistake, lady. It's all a big misunderstanding. I never heard of Akane Tendo before."

"Nice try," Kodachi said tersely. "But I'm afraid I don't believe you. In fact I have it on very good authority that Akane Tendo is being held in this jail." She motioned for the Warhammer which stood next to her Marauder. "I'm offering just three seconds for everyone to back away from that truck before I have it stepped on."

The giant battlemech stomped closer to the truck.

"Three..." Kodachi intoned. "Two..."

Shampoo jumped out first, followed by the rest. Kima stepped out of the shattered cab, her machinegun loose in her hand.

"Excellent," Kodachi purred. "I can see that you're all smarter than you look." She looked down at them. There were two Joketsuzoku, their uniforms and their weapons made it clear who they were. The rest were a token assortment of fools. Finally, her eyes fell upon Akane Tendo. Her hair was much shorter than it used to be, but she wasn't going to be so easily fooled by her nemesis.

"So, Akane Tendo, I presume?" she called to them from above, her finger pointing squarely at the Confederation Heir.

Akane looked up slowly at Kodachi.

"I'm right here," she replied scornfully.

Kodachi chuckled to herself. This was delicious! "I had hoped to have had the opportunity of killing you in battle," she began. "To make up for my defeat at Port Said. Then I planned on killing you here and now..."

"No way, lady!" Ranma shouted, jumping in front of Akane. "I ain't gonna let ya!"

"Ranma, you idiot!" she cried, and pushed him away. "I can face her myself!"

"How sweet!" the Black Rose gushed. "Futile, but terribly sweet. As I was saying, that was my plan..." Distant explosions now sounded from the south. "But unfortunately, my dear brother has made that option untenable. In fact, we'll all have to run along to my DropShips before he can catch us."

She narrowed her eyes at them.

"Correction. _Akane Tendo_ and I will have to run along now. The rest of you can die where you stand."

"Hey! Waitaminute!" Ranma cried. "Don't we get a last request or something?" It was a desperate stalling tactic, but they were fresh out of options.

Kodachi laughed. "Now why on earth would I want to do that? The lives of peasants mean nothing to me."

"How about last words?"

She regarded him for a moment. His poor breeding was plainly evident, but he was insanely brave and, she realized, devilishly handsome. It would be a pity to kill him, but she did have a reputation to uphold.

"Such as?" she asked him sardonically.

Ranma looked slowly from side to side, taking in the eyes of his companions. There was fear and apprehension there, but also a grim determination.

"Well, for one thing..." he began. Then he thrust his finger to the sky. "EVERYONE: SCATTER!"

Ranma grabbed Akane on the run, followed closely by Genma and Doctor Tofu. Kima fired a burst of machinegun rounds at Kodachi, then dove for cover. Ryouga sprinted in the opposite direction as Ranma and the others, while Tarou decked Shampoo with a surprise left hook.

Kodachi cringed as Kima's burst spanged around her. She felt a bullet ricochet through her cooling vest, and ice cold water doused her legs. A moment later the shrill of fusion scramjets filled her ears with dread.

The 7th Heavy Attack Squadron of the famed Blue Thunder Regiment screamed overhead at low altitude. Bombs fell from wing-mounted hardpoints into the midst of the Black Rose's personal guards. Massive explosions shook the ground and filled the air with the whine of shrapnel. Mortally wounded battlemechs toppled to the pavement, or careened drunkenly through wrecked buildings. As quickly as they had appeared, the fighters were gone.

Ranma and Akane tumbled in each other's arms as the concussions flung them through the air to land in the short stiff grass of the city's only park. Chunks of pavement rained down around them as they lay moaning on the ground, Ranma shielding her with his body.

"W-What?" Akane asked through a haze of pain.

"Airstrike," Ranma supplied for her. He saw his father and Doctor Tofu pull themselves upright several meters away. Beyond them he could see that the fighters' bombs had largely overshot the target, killing only three of the Black Rose's guards, but shaking them up enough to permit escape. The survivors were busy scanning the sky for another attack. He could not see what had happened to the Black Rose.

Akane pushed herself up, and he moved off of her.

"How did you know?" she asked.

"I saw 'em circling overhead at high altitude," Ranma replied. "I figured there was no way they could pass up a fat target like a company of 'mechs all bunched up in one place."

"Come on, boy," Genma called to them. "We have to get out of here."

"No shit," Ranma spat. "Any bright ideas on how we do that?"

"I don't think they took the truck when they arrested us," Genma answered his son. "We parked it across the street, remember?"

"Yeah. I guess it's worth a shot."

Akane spied Ryouga wandering in a daze through the smoke and fire of the destroyed Police Headquarters. Kodachi's black Marauder loomed motionless over him.

"Ryouga!" she called to him.

He looked up as if hearing voices in his head.

"Ryouga!" she cried again.

He turned and spotted them, puzzlement clear on his bloodied face.

"What's the big idea?" Ranma asked her.

"We can't just leave him here," she retorted.

Ranma shook his head. He didn't really have anything against his one-time rival. "I guess not."

Ryouga started their way. He had a nasty cut on his scalp that dripped blood down the left side of his face. Doctor Tofu met him halfway to look at the wound, but without any medical supplies, there was little he could do.

"What is it?" Ryouga asked her.

"You're coming with us," Akane said to him.

Ryouga's heart leaped.

"R-Really? You w-want me t-to...?"

"Of course!" Akane said with a grin. "We can't leave you to the Black Rose or those Amazons."

"Speaking of which," Ranma interrupted. "Why don't we talk about this somewhere else? Before the Black Rose or those crazy Amazons come after us again."

Ryouga shook his head. "I have to get my battlemech," he told them. "I can't leave it behind."

"Great. Where and what is it?" Ranma asked, wondering not only if they would have enough time to get it, but whether or not they would be able to squeeze it into the _Palomino_. The Leopard Class was famous for its ability to surpass its load limit and still make it into orbit, but there was only so much it could do.

"It's at the fort," Ryouga said, pointing in the wrong direction. Ranma steered him towards the south, and the pillars of smoke and flame that rose from the heaviest fighting.

"You mean over there?" Ranma asked. "In the middle of Hell?"

"I won't leave it behind," Ryouga snarled. "That BattleMaster has been in the Hibiki Family for over a hundred years!"

"BattleMaster?" Ranma gaped. No wonder Ryouga was so reluctant to give it up. Not only was the 85-ton battlemech one of the most fearsome in the Inner Sphere, it was also one of the rarest. "Why didn't you say so sooner?"

Ryouga's face darkened. "You wouldn't give me a chance!"

Ranma patted him on the shoulder. "Don't sweat it, Ryouga. Let's go." He turned to his father. "Pop, me and Ryouga are gonna go get his 'mech."

Genma didn't look very thrilled by this, but grudgingly assented.

"Don't take too long, boy," he told him. "We'll wait for you on the west side of town near the highway."

Ranma nodded. The west side of Capra City was about the only part that hadn't been flattened by the Black Rose's Terror Regiment.

"Gotcha. Come on, Ryouga!"

Ranma started off down the ruined street with Ryouga following close behind. Their eyes darted furtively between the fallen Black Rose battlemechs, which remained motionless. Their pilots were either dead or stunned from the bombing attack. The others were still watching the sky, and paid no attention to the two mechwarriors as they darted between piles of rubble.

Akane watched the two of them go. The jerk had been so excited about Ryouga's BattleMaster that he hadn't even bothered to say good-bye.

Ranma and Ryouga passed by the wrecked Joketsuzoku truck. Joyful Cloud sat still and dead within the cab. Kima and Shampoo were nowhere to be seen, and neither was Tarou.

The Black Rose was also nowhere to be found, though her Marauder stood silent and motionless above them. Ranma didn't think it was too much to ask that she had been killed in the bombing attack. Talk about a scary chick. Anyone who attacked a planet just to settle a score was some kind of sicko.

"So how'd you end up in a dump like this?" he whispered to Ryouga as they turned from the street that led to the Police Headquarters and started for the fort. The city echoed with weapon fire and explosions, some distant, others unsettlingly close.

"It's a long story," Ryouga replied.

"I'll bet."

A stray missile dropped to the street close enough to feel the heat from the blast. The two dove for the cover of a parked car in case more missiles fell. Two Combine Slayers screamed overhead a moment later, their heavy autocannons hammering some unknown target, and then they climbed almost vertical for the morning sky.

"Why are you helping me, Ranma?" Ryouga asked as they waited for the fighting to pass.

"I always wanted to see a BattleMaster," the pig-tailed mechwarrior replied. "I've never seen one up close."

Ryouga grunted. "Now tell me why you're really helping me."

"Oh come on, Ryouga, it's obvious. We both know about your direction sense."

Ryouga lowered his eyes. "There is that..."

"Plus I've always wanted to see a BattleMaster up close," Ranma added. "That part was true."

Ryouga stood, and started down the street at a run.

"Then come on, Ranma."

"It would help if you started running in the right direction, dork!" Ranma retorted. "You're heading back the way we came!"

Ryouga froze in place, shame burning upon his face as brightly as the flames of the city.

Ranma laughed at him. "Gotcha! You were going the right way all along."

The fanged mercenary strongly considered beating Ranma senseless and leaving him in the street.

Kima shook herself back to alertness with the sound of the bombs still ringing in her ears. She had taken cover underneath the truck when the fighter-bombers struck, and had been spared the carnage delivered to the Black Rose's guards. She could not see Shampoo - or anyone else for that matter.

The pavement beneath her was wet with antifreeze from the truck's shattered radiator, and with blood that dripped through the jagged hole in the back of the cab where Joyful Cloud sat. She pulled herself free of the truck's undercarriage and groped for her submachinegun.

A foot came down on her hand, crushing it against the hard cold metal of the weapon. She yelped in pain, forgetting herself as one of the great Joketsuzoku.

She looked up to see Pansuto Tarou grinning down at her.

"You won't be needing that," he told her.

His _bishonen_ features were smeared with blood and smoke from the bombs. How he had survived, she did not know. She did know that it was a very bad thing for her that he had.

"It's everyone for themselves," Kima told him. He put a little more weight down on her hand. "There's no need to continue this," she said between clenched teeth. "Just go! I don't care if I ever see you again!"

Tarou eased up on the pressure, though not enough to let her hand free.

"I have a problem," he told her.

"Maybe I can help?" Kima asked.

"You can."

Tarou lifted his foot to strike her across the nose. Kima's head rocked to the side, blood streaming freely from what was now a broken and rapidly swelling nose.

"You see, my problem is with all of you goddamned Amazons," he explained to her. His foot in her stomach accentuated the point he was trying to make. "You ruined my life with your Jusenkyo experiments!"

Kima coughed violently, not knowing if the sticky blood that smeared her hands was from her nose, or from deep inside her.

Tarou pushed her down to the pavement with his foot.

"You turned me into a monster."

She looked up at him through the swirling motes of pain that swam before her eyes.

"I'm not to blame for what happened to you," she croaked.

"Aren't you?" Tarou accused. He kicked her down again. "You're all to blame for this. If you had left those damn pools alone, none of this would have happened to me!"

Satisfied that Kima wasn't going anywhere for the moment, he stalked over to the corner of the street, and the fire hydrant that stood there on the concrete sidewalk.

"It took me awhile to come to grips with what I am," he told her. "I can see now that what you've given me is more of a gift than a curse, but damn you for not giving me a choice!"

He lashed out with a vicious kick that ripped the hydrant from the flange it was bolted to underneath the concrete. Water geysered into the air and drenched him into his monstrous Jusenkyo body. He stood under the spray for some time, lost in rapture.

Kima was too horrified and too hurt to do anything but stare at the thing Tarou had become.

His hellish eyes opened and fixed upon her. He started towards her, his soggy fur dripping water in puddles behind him. The eerie tentacles across his back whipped and swayed menacingly in the hot breeze. The water from the ruptured hydrant began to stream towards her as he approached.

She expected him to say something, but his monster form was incapable of making any sounds other than guttural grunts and howls. She groped once again for the submachinegun. If she didn't kill him now, she wouldn't live to see the next sunrise. She caught the weapon up in her hand and sprang with desperate energy to her feet.

Her gorgeous white wings unfurled behind her as the cloak fell away. She leaped for the air, leveling the weapon at Tarou's face as one of his grossly long ape-arms grabbed her by the throat.

She squeezed the trigger, eager to watch his hideous face explode in a spray of blood and bone, and heard only the hollow sound of the firing pin falling on an empty chamber.

Tarou's laughless eyes blinked twice in surprise at this fateful turn of fortune, and then he began to crush her throat. He increased his grip slowly, so that she could have some sense of appreciation for her impending death. Kima thrashed in his monstrous grip, her legs flailing and the spent machinegun battering his arm to no effect.

Finally, he felt the cervical bones in her neck give way with a sickening crunch, and she went suddenly limp, as if turned off by a switch. He regarded her for a moment, and found that her wings and her bird-of-prey countenance were beautiful to behold.

With a grunt of satisfaction he tossed her aside. Her limp body, still hanging on to the grey fringes of life, fell into the streaming water from the broken hydrant. The Jusenkyo Effect worked its impossible magic one final time upon her, and Kima died not as a Joketsuzoku, but as Akane Tendo's doppleganger.

It was only then that Pansuto Tarou felt any twinge of regret for what he had done, for it became clear that she had been as much of a pawn and a victim of Joketsuzoku ambition as himself.

He turned his attention back to the burning city. The Black Rose's guards fired wildly into the morning sky as Combine fighters darted to and fro overhead. The Black Rose herself was obviously a casualty, as her Marauder remained motionless in the midst of the onslaught.

The purple-haired Shampoo was nowhere in sight, he realized. Perhaps she had been blown to bits in the airstrike. There wasn't time to confirm this however, as he had to get to the fort to reclaim his Hunchback. Once mounted, he'd kill the rest of the Amazons on Capra.

Nerima Confederation DropShip _Palomino_

40 kilometers west of Capra City

Planet Capra, Capra System

The League of Five Nails

15 March 3025

Tatewaki Kuno had chosen the area near the _Palomino_ for his drop zones, a fact that was noticed immediately by the stalwart crew of the Confederation DropShip. Combine Pathfinders roamed the surrounding desert with their luminescent panels and marking strobes, but had avoided the depression of the wadi for obvious reasons. They needed a broad stretch of flat ground to land so many ships.

Happousai listened to the sounds of aerospace fighters racing overhead from the highest inhabited point on the _Palomino_, a dorsal hatch through the pressure hull aft of the flight deck. The camouflage tarps fluttered in the rising pre-dawn breeze over his head, restricting his view of the sky. From the number of fighters he heard, there was no doubt about the size of the approaching force.

The cover of darkness would spare them from observation, but darkness was going away in under twenty minutes. After that, there was no hope of remaining undetected for long. The tarps and the wadi were meant to conceal from a distance, not right under your nose.

What had that fool Genma done now? he wondered idly.

He considered taking his Locust out to investigate the situation more closely. There was definitely fighting in the city, and who knew what had landed close by. It didn't look like a good idea, but he was feeling restless.

He dropped down through the hatch and confronted the DropShip Captain.

"I'm going to go take a look-see," he told the Confederation officer.

"Be careful," the Captain admonished.

Happousai cackled.

"Careful is my middle name," he retorted. "But for your sakes, I'd have those scrumptious little girl pilots of yours ready to fly on a moment's notice. You might need to make a fast getaway."

"We will not leave Lady Akane behind," the Captain protested.

Happousai regarded him for a moment.

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

His Locust powered up. That long-haired fox, Akari, had really put the fire back into his battlemech. Then again, that hot tamale in tech's overalls could probably put the fire back into a lot of things... He'd have to thank her in his own special way when he returned.

The 'Mech Bay door opened, and he stepped out into the wadi. There was little room to maneuver between the DropShip and the sides of the wadi, and he had to take his time getting clear.

Once he was clear, he ran at a full tilt up the slope and onto the expanse of desert pavement the Combine had chosen for its Drop Zones. The winking of landing strobes was distant, barely on the horizon. That was a relief. At least they wouldn't have any Combine DropShips landing next door.

Brilliant lances of plasma fire from descent engines lit up the desert as the first DropShips set down. He counted at least three Overlords, plus a swarm of Union and lesser ships. That kind of firepower was reserved for major campaigns, not a jerkwater planet like Capra.

He tried to scratch his head in contemplation, forgetting about the neurohelmet that rested upon his aged head.

What in blazes was going on?

There was only one way to find out.

The Locust stomped towards the Drop Zone. It didn't take long for the speedy chicken-walker to reach the Combine pickets. He did the smart thing and held his fire, trusting to the initial confusion of the drop and the efforts at forming up units to keep the pickets from realizing that something was wrong and sounding the alert.

He slowed down to a reasonable pace and tromped past the pickets while flashing his running lights twice in salute. The Pathfinders in their all-terrain jeep gave hesitant waves and watched him go. Suckers...

He was deep within Combine lines now, and though he drew looks from some of the troops he passed, the fact that he was not shooting, and that no one was shooting at him, was enough to convince them that nothing was wrong.

There was no doubt about the forces. They were Furinkan Combine troops. The large green and brown pineapples stenciled upon the surfaces of DropShips, battlemechs, and vehicles made that clear. He spied several ships with the distinctive logo of the Blue Thunder Regiment, and started towards them.

So, he thought to himself. Tatewaki Kuno is here. There was only one reason why that pompous buffoon would even bother with a planet like Capra, and that fact meant that Happousai wasn't the only spy within the Tendo household.

It intrigued him, but as two Centurions were now challenging him over the radio, he had other problems. There was no sense in continuing the charade, so he kicked his throttle fully open and made a dash for the open desert. Long Range Missiles pelted around him as he weaved between DropShips and other transports. Nearby battlemechs began to turn in his direction with surprise as the alert went up.

Tatewaki Kuno walked his Thunderbolt clear of the _Oda Nobunaga_. The sky was getting brighter, and promised good hunting weather. His troops were forming up around him, and there were already encouraging reports from the aerospace fighters that engaged his sister's forces in the city.

It was then that he saw the Locust ducking and weaving around his ships with over a company of 'mechs in pursuit. Frowning, he switched over to the Guard channel and was stricken by the cacophony of shouts and curses from the Locust's pursuers.

"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded over the commo. How had one of his enemies penetrated his lines so effortlessly?

"Gang way!" a wizened voice cackled in reply. The Locust was running straight for him.

Tatewaki Kuno seethed with anger, and drew his Thunderbolt's katana.

"Hold, villain!" he called to the charging Locust. "Dost thou not realize that thy foe is none other than the future First Lord of the Star League; the mighty heir to the immortal samurai traditions of Musashi and Tokugawa? It is I, the great Prince Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine!"

"I don't care if you're Jean Harlow doing a striptease in a feather boa!" Happousai shot back. "Move it or lose it!"

The Locust leaped into the air, its long legs stretched out fore and aft like an olympic sprinter. Tatewaki raised his katana in defense, but not in time to stop Happousai. The Locust planted one of its bird-like feet firmly atop the Thunderbolt's cockpit and vaulted over the 65-ton 'mech. Tatewaki toppled over to crater the hard desert pavement of the ground below.

His troops scrambled to pull the battlemech upright, as others watched the Locust bound for freedom unopposed. Tatewaki Kuno shrugged off his minions, and watched angrily through his telescopic bifocal unit as the cursed foe escaped. His Thunderbolt's head bore the distinctive mark of the Locust's foot in chipped paint and creased armor.

"Fools!" he berated his men. "Why art thou not in pursuit?!"

His troops scrambled to comply, leaving him burning with a shame that only the capture of his sister and the rescue of the lovely Akane Tendo could assuage.

Fort Dettmering had taken a heavy pounding from the missiles and cannon shells of the Black Rose Regiment. The battlemech hangar itself was scored with over a hundred hits, and Ryouga feared the worst. He and Ranma picked their way through a massive hole blasted through the outer wall. The razor wire had been neatly cleared by the explosion, and coiled angrily in a tangled mass of steel to either side of them.

"I hope there's something left," Ranma muttered to him as they passed by the shredded bodies of the mercenary garrison's infantry. A Phoenix Hawk lay smashed through the barracks building, its rear center torso burned and blackened by what looked to be multiple particle beam hits. The footprints of other battlemechs were everywhere on the parade ground, as were bits of armor, and severed limbs from several different machines. An entire corner of the far retaining wall was gone, the edges smooth and glassy, and a column of steam rose from the center of what was apparently a fatal reactor crash-out.

The fighting had moved on from the fort, it seemed. With Combine fighters hunting for Kodachi's troops (exactly why this was happening, Ranma had no clue), the Black Rose Regiment was withdrawing from the city. Even the nearby starport was now quiet, though black smoke obscured most of it from view.

"I have to see for myself," Ryouga replied. These people who lay dead around them had been his comrades, even for only a short time, and anger swelled within him, crying out for revenge.

The hangar was as still and quiet as the rest of the fort. If there was anyone left alive, they were doing a good job of remaining unnoticed. Ranma noted that chunks of concrete and brick facing trickled down the sides of the mammoth building. An entire side could come down at any moment.

"Let's make this quick," he said nervously.

They had to force open a personnel door - it had hung up on its bent frame - to get inside. The 'Mech Bay doors all required electrical power that no longer seemed to be present. It was a quick walk through a hallway before they entered the interior of the hangar.

Ryouga's BattleMaster and Tarou's Hunchback stood apparently unharmed within their revetments. They were dusted with plaster and bits of cement, but it was clear that for all of the exterior damage, the interior had not been breached. Pale emergency lights cast long shadows around them.

"Whoa..." Ranma said in awe for the BattleMaster. While not the heaviest 'mech ever built, it was one of the tallest. Only the four-legged Goliath and the massive 100-ton Atlas were taller.

"It's still here," Ryouga gushed with relief. "Come on, we don't have time to gawk."

The BattleMaster had two seats. One was for the mechwarrior, the other, which sat above and behind the pilot, was for an observer of some sort or a field commander. Ryouga dusted off his neurohelmet and put it on. Ranma took his place in the upper seat, noting that the controls for the two aft-mounted medium lasers were available if Ryouga was otherwise occupied.

As Ryouga powered up, he spied Tarou scrambling up the gantry for his hunchback in his monster form. On the one hand he was glad that Tarou had survived, but on the other hand he didn't like the idea of Monster-boy coming with them. He watched in silence as the Hunchback powered up.

"Hey, isn't that the other guy's 'mech?" Ranma asked him. He had been studying the laser controls, and had not seen Tarou in his monster form.

"Yeah," Ryouga replied. "Lucky him, he made it."

"Well, let's go get him. Two 'mechs have a better chance of fighting their way out of here than one."

There, Ryouga thought. Ranma said it first. It's not on my head.

"Okay."

The BattleMaster waved its arm to the Hunchback, and Tarou, now human thanks to a flask of hot water he kept in his cockpit's food server, appeared on the display.

"What is it?" he asked tersely.

"Good to see you too," Ryouga returned. "We've got a way off this planet. Are you with us?"

Tarou paused. It was clear that he had other ideas in mind.

"Yes," he told them. "But first I need to go to the starport."

"Huh?" Ranma interjected. "There's no time for that. You heard Kodachi, her psycho brother is on the way. We've gotta bag ass now while the getting is good!"

"Then leave me," Tarou grunted.

Ryouga started the BattleMaster out of the revetment. He had no desire to argue with that statement.

"Okay, man," Ranma said, stunned by this refusal. "If you hurry though, you might still be able to catch us. We'll be taking the road heading west out of town. Look for us there."

"Don't wait for me," Tarou told him grimly.

Ryouga walked the BattleMaster to the only Mech Bay door that wasn't closed. It was blasted open from the outside. Piecing the battle together, he realized that the rest of the company had been able to clear the hangar, and that the ground crew must have shut the doors just before power was lost.

He crunched through the twisted debris that blocked his path. The giant battlemech snapped steel girders across its stout torso like twigs. Ranma felt a little jealous. His LAM was pretty cool, but did not compare to the sheer power of a BattleMaster.

Tarou's Hunchback followed behind them, peeling off for the starport as they turned west and toward the center of town. The firing was more distant now. It was clear that the Black Rose Terror Regiment was in full retreat from Tatewaki Kuno's forces.

They stomped along ruined boulevards, taking cover from the occasional Air Lance that streaked overhead looking for targets. Ryouga wisely held his fire, not wanting to draw attention to himself. As he crouched his BattleMaster behind a burned out building, he saw his favorite Japanese hole-in-the-wall below. A missile strike had gutted it, and he wondered if the couple who owned the place were all right. Perhaps the gods had been kind and spared them - while destroying the karaoke machine.

They skirted the government buildings rather than face the Black Rose's guards. This brought them into the open, and a pair of Hellcats dove on them from above. Lasers burned around them, melting streaks in the blacktop at their feet.

"Heads up, Ryouga!" Ranma called.

"I see them."

The BattleMaster raised its hand-held Donal PPC and fired. The four torso mounted medium lasers the Battlemaster carried in front were well suited towards anti-aircraft purposes, and began blazing streams of white-hot light at the two fighters. As they passed overhead, Ranma got into the act with the rear-firing lasers, finishing a Hellcat that Ryouga had crippled. The fighter tumbled towards the ground trailing smoke to crash in a huge fireball of plasma. An olive colored parachute above told them that the pilot had managed to eject.

"Got him!" Ranma crowed.

"I got him first!" Ryouga growled.

"No time to argue! Here comes the other one!"

The surviving Hellcat looped around for another attack. Its lasers burned into their formidable torso armor, scoring it with black streaks, but not penetrating. Ryouga let go with another burst of PPC and laser fire that blew out the nose and sent the Hellcat flying apart in midair.

The flaming debris rained down around them, and Ryouga started the BattleMaster off at a trot before any more fighters could investigate. They were too easy to spot from above in broad daylight, even with the copious amount of smoke that was in the air.

"Hey, not bad!" Ranma said with a grin. "We aren't a bad team."

Ryouga frowned.

"We are not a team," he insisted.

It was Ranma's turn to frown. "Jeez... Calm down, Ryouga. You'll live longer."

Ryouga didn't take the bait. Silence filled the cockpit, and Ranma returned to watching their back. As they cleared the open area without further attack, Ranma spied a curious sight in the rear-mounted gun cameras.

The Black Rose's guard was on the move at the extreme limits of his lasers. In the center of the retreating column was a Black Rose Victor that shouldered a weighty burden - that of a certain black Marauder. The mech's limbs hung limply over the Victor's shoulders, and its cloven-hoofed feet dragged on the broken pavement.

It was an oddly touching sight, and Ranma let them go without so much as a potshot at Kodachi. She deserved to die for wanting to have them all killed, and the Inner Sphere would definitely be a better place without her. It would be easy to squeeze off at least two double laser blasts into the Marauder's cockpit before her guards got wise to them, but Ranma simply couldn't bring himself to shoot.

He decided not to mention it to Ryouga.

Capra City Center

Ten minutes after sunrise

15 March 3025

Shampoo awoke to great pain. She pulled herself upright, feeling the swelling in her jaw and spitting out blobs of clotted blood. She was not looking her usual best. She remembered being knocked unconscious by a blow from Pansuto Tarou. After that she had no idea what had happened. Somehow she had ended up at the bottom of the parking garage ramp.

Kodachi's 'mechs were gone when she cautiously scaled the ramp. The sun was low on the horizon, and the sounds of fighters screaming overhead made her wary of exposing herself to their potential fire. The truck was still there, and Joyful Cloud, all of sixteen years old, was still dead within.

She searched about for some sign of Kima, and shuddered when she saw the dead body of Akane Tendo lying in a pool of water in the street. The water main pressure had subsided in the interim of her period of unconsciousness, and merely gurgled from the fractured flange.

Looking closer at the body, she nearly fainted. Akane was dressed in Kima's uniform, and several white feathers floated on the breeze about her still form. Even stranger, Akane had long blue-black hair...

Oh gods, Shampoo thought, her throat clenching tight in horror.

Kima...

She now understood the significance of her mission to Lightoller, of the body she had watched the two lab attendents stow in the ship's morgue. Kima had been exposed to the Jusenkyo Effect, in a pool that somehow made its victims take on the appearance of the Tendo girl. She remembered Gaido once telling her about how some of the pools had no 'assignments.' They must have found a way to give them one.

Horror gave way to sorrow, and then to anger. From the massive bruise marks on Kima's throat, she had been throttled to death rather than shot or stabbed. Taking care to avoid the water that would affect her own Jusenkyo transformation, she gingerly lifted Kima's body out of the puddle. Her head hung at a grotesque angle, and made a terrible grinding noise as it did so. Her neck had not just been snapped, it had been crushed.

The only people she could imagine having the brute strength capable of doing such a thing were Ryouga Hibiki and, in his suspected Jusenkyo form, Pansuto Tarou. She put her money on Tarou. That bastard could not hope to fathom the pain that he would suffer at her hands before the end.

She took Kima's body in a fireman's carry and started for the starport. If the gods were kind, the _Jade Lotus_ would still be there, waiting for her.

The way was hard. Kima's dead weight would not have posed a problem to Shampoo had she been healthy, but her muscles ached and her body trembled with the pain of her fall down the ramp.

There was little fighting now. Except for the occasional air attack, most of it was distant and to the east.

She picked her way over the ruins of a mangled Dragon and came upon a terrible vista of destruction. A Warhammer, missing a PPC arm and looking as if it had been smashed down with a club, lay splayed and silent beyond the Dragon. A second Warhammer was charred and blackened. The pavement around the 'mech was completely gone, replaced with a jagged crater that exposed power and sewage lines below.

Beyond the second Warhammer was a Crusader. She could tell by the few spots of unblemished white paint on the legs that it had belonged to Mousse. It was wracked with a dozen grievous wounds, the paint blistered and cracked by an intense heat. A jagged scar ran along the left shoulder, exposing the reloading mechanism for the LRM rack.

She felt her knees go weak, and she set Kima's body down before she dropped her. Even Mousse was dead. There was no hope.

Shampoo sunk down to her knees and wept. It was not like her to feel so emotional in a time of crisis, but the pain and the hardship had come too hard and too fast. She tried to will the tears away, that she was a Joketsuzoku of the finest blood, and that she was stronger than that.

It didn't help. Her weakness in the face of adversity only made her cry harder. Kima was dead. Mousse was dead. Little Joyful Cloud, a girl on her first mission for the clan, dead without a chance to even defend herself. The rest of her clanswomen were probably dead as well. What difference did it make if she died too?

"Shampoo?"

She turned, startled, at the sound of the voice.

Mousse stood some distance from her. His bare chest was cut and bruised, and his trouser legs soaked with blood. He limped towards her, his long hair trailing over his shoulder in the hot desert breeze. She could see that his glasses were shattered, with one lens actually falling out in pieces as he moved.

"Mousse?" she called to him. She wasn't sure if she was seeing some apparition instead of the young mechwarrior.

"It's me, Shampoo," he replied. "Are you hurt? I can't see you very well."

She looked down at Kima. Dead Kima with the face of Akane Tendo.

"I'll be all right," she said softly to him. "But Kima is dead."

"Commander Kima?" Mousse cried in disbelief. He tried adjusting his glasses, which only made the other lens fall out.

Shampoo stood up. The wind carried with it the stench of cordite and death, and she flinched at the smell.

"What happened here?" she asked him after a moment's disgust.

Mousse tried to smile.

"I came to save you," he replied sadly. "I guess I ran into a little more trouble than I could handle."

She took a quick inventory. A Dragon and two Warhammers. Then she saw the Combine Zeus that lay shattered through the side of a building, and the half-melted ruin of her sister Recon Lance pilot's Stinger. Three heavies and one assault 'mech, all wiped out at the cost of a Crusader and a Stinger.

"You destroyed all these battlemechs?"

Mousse nodded, his sad blue eyes shining with grief that way she had seen them before she left Lightoller. "It wasn't enough... I failed you. I failed Commander Kima."

There would be no convincing him otherwise, so she changed the subject.

"What about the rest of the company?"

Mousse shook his head. "I don't know. The rest of the Recon Lance must have thought I died in the explosions. I saw them heading back to the DropShip before I blacked out. I sent the Fire and Command Lances to defend the _Jade Lotus_ until we could return, but I don't know if there even is a ship left to come home to."

"We have to find out," she replied. Her courage had returned to her because of him. "I don't hear any fighting from the starport, so that means only one of two things."

She picked up Kima's body once more. "We have nothing to lose by trying, Mousse."

Mousse managed to smile. "I'll follow you anywhere, Shampoo."

Pansuto Tarou could see the wary forms of Commonwealth battlemechs moving through the smoke. They had fought a hard battle against Combine skirmishers from the Black Rose Terror Regiment, and endured a punishing bombardment that included aerospace fighters. Though they had been victorious, they were hurting.

A single Hunchback in pristine condition could do a lot of damage.

He checked his ammunition status. His primary weapon was a monstrous Tomodzuru Type 20, a short-barrelled 210mm autocannon designed to smash armor and fortifications at close range. He carried just ten shells for it, but those ten shells could tear ten wounded battlemechs to pieces. Just one shell in a vital place would blast the DropShip's plasma drive to smithereens, stranding the Amazons on the planet and leaving them to their fate at the hands of the Combine.

He pondered this for a moment, judging whether it was worthy of his hunger for revenge against the Joketsuzoku to let Tatewaki Kuno do all the dirty work.

Tarou decided it was not. He carefully sighted in on his first target optically, not daring to use his radar and give them any warning before the shot came. When he judged the range and set his weapon, he breathed a curse for them and squeezed the trigger.

The massive autocannon belched a cloud of black smoke, launching over one hundred kilos of discarding sabot tungsten-carbide penetrator dart downrange. The fin-stabilized dart was a meter long and 100mm in diameter, and traveling at just under three kilometers per second. It smashed into the target Wolverine's chest, puncturing the damaged armor and sending a rolling shockwave through it that spalled off the aligned crystal steel in huge shards. It penetrated further, deep into the 'mech's internal structure, snapping through supports, severing control cables, and puncturing the Wolverine's pectoral myomers before punching cleanly through the reactor vessel.

The dart managed to overpenetrate through the rear armor and continue downrange for fifty meters before ricocheting off the battered hull of the _Jade Lotus_. This went unnoticed, however, as the Wolverine suddenly

exploded into a blindingly bright ball of silver fusion plasma.

Even before the hot ball of ionized gas could expand into nothingness and fade away, the Commonwealth 'mechs and the DropShip itself began unloading a merciless fire in Tarou's direction. Wildly aimed laser and particle beam fire slashed through his armor and annihilated his covering pile of rubble. The beams came with murderous intensity, forcing him back in shock.

He fired again, taking a Jenner's leg off at the hip and spinning the 'mech to the tarmac. Despite this loss, the Commonwealth fought back with savage intensity. Their beams cut deeply into his left arm and torso, melting the myomer bundles and exploding the elbow actuator.

Tarou had not expected such a massive and single-minded response, and particularly not from the DropShip's weapons. He swore at them through his crazed visor display and retreated at a run. His Hunchback had taken enough damage in mere seconds to make him reconsider another attack.

His vengeance was not a suicidal drive within him, but something focused and purposeful. There was nothing to be gained by dying in this manner. Another chance to punish the Joketsuzoku would come, and he would be ready for it.

Now it was time to take up the foolish Ranma Saotome on his offer of escape.

Pink watched the mercenary Hunchback flee, biting her lip in barely-contained wrath. She wanted to pursue, but her place was close to the DropShip, protecting it until Kima could return. The loss of her battle-sister Pekoe and her Wolverine would go unavenged.

Her twin sister Link broke cover, having obviously lost a similar battle with her conscience. The Dervish leaped over a gutted quonset hut, its jump jets flaring bright blue against the smoke.

Pink threw her own Dervish into action, its jump jets roaring at maximum output. She watched her own battlemech clear her sister's to set down just in front of Link.

"Stop!" she ordered her sister. The Fire Lance commander had been one of the fallen, and she had taken command of the company. Her Dervish's paddle-like hands thrust out to restrain the renegade 'mech.

Link's anguished face appeared on her display.

"Pekoe's death, unavenged, stains our honor! Let me kill that League backbiter!"

The jab pierced, for it echoed her own feelings of shame and remorse.

"No, sister. Our orders are clear. You stain your own honor to put your desires before the good of the clan."

Link swore, and signed off. Her Dervish returned to its position.

Pink, now acting commander of the company, decided she was too young for the job. When would Kima return?

Ranma breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted the truck with his father and Akane waiting for them near the highway entrance. Most of the fighting had left the city as Kuno's Blue Thunder Regiment pursued the fleeing Black Rose. They had their chance to slip away.

"Pull over next to them, Ryouga," he called to the fanged mechwarrior.

"What do I look like, a taxi?" Ryouga called over his shoulder.

The BattleMaster came to a halt next to the truck, and Ranma released the canopy to clamber down the side of the massive war machine. He leaped the last five meters to the ground and landed in the bed of the truck.

"Ranma!" Doctor Tofu said happily. "We were getting worried."

"Ah, it was no big deal," Ranma returned. He looked at his father. "I see the truck was still there."

"Bloody amateurs," Genma grunted. "Are you ready to go?"

"One second." He picked Akane up out of the shotgun seat and set her in the bed of the truck. "Akane, go up and keep Ryouga company."

"What's the big idea?!" she said angrily. "If you wanted to sit there, you could have just asked."

"Fine!" he cried. Women! "Akane, would you PLEASE go up and keep Ryouga company? I need to talk to Pop, and there isn't time to sit here and discuss this."

She looked him over. Why had she even bothered to worry about him?

"As a matter of fact, I'd love to talk to Ryouga. Unlike SOME people I could mention, Ryouga seems like a sweet, polite, and considerate man who would never treat his fiancee like trash!"

She slapped him hard across the face in conclusion.

He watched her climb up the side of the BattleMaster, rubbing the blazing red palm print on his cheek as he did so.

"You ready, boy?" Genma asked.

Ranma plopped down in the shotgun seat sullenly.

"Yeah, whatever. The sooner we're out of here, the better."

Genma put the truck in gear. "You know, son... You'll get more flies with honey than with vinegar."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Ranma groused, still rubbing his cheek. "And what do I want flies for anyway?"

Genma shook his head. In spite of Ranma's surliness and his unrealistic sense of values, he was rather proud of the way he had raised him to be a man. Except for the part concerning women. "Never mind."

"H-Hello, Akane," Ryouga said shyly as she threw her leg over the side of the cockpit and climbed into the rear seat of the BattleMaster.

"Hi, Ryouga," she returned. Her smile seemed a little forced.

He lowered the canopy and sealed it. The battlemech began walking as he focused his attention on where he was going. Displays to the side of the cockpit began to indicate his agitated mental state.

"Um, Akane?" he asked at length.

"What is it, Ryouga?"

"It's, ah, it's none of my business, but I couldn't help but notice you and Ranma getting into a fight down there in the truck."

"No surprise there," she replied. "The jerk always starts something."

Ryouga nodded, then offered a silent prayer.

"So there's, um... There's nothing between you then?"

Akane did not notice the sudden hopeful tone in Ryouga's voice, as she was deeply involved with an internal inventory of her feelings for Ranma.

"He's my fiance," she said, deciding that the term for him was the only way she could describe him without opening herself to questions that she wasn't prepared to ask.

Ryouga's heart sank. Fiance!

"Oh."

"It wasn't our idea," she said, wondering what rock he had been hiding under for the last month and a half. Then she realized that the rock he had been hiding under was the same rock that they strode across at sixty-five kilometers per hour. "It was our fathers who decided."

A ray of hope began to shine once again within him.

"So it isn't like you love each other then," he observed.

Akane didn't answer, and in the silence that followed he decided not to ask again.

Finally, Akane looked up from her seat.

"Ryouga, it just occured to me that you don't even know who I am."

"Uh, what's there to know?" he asked.

She took a deep breath and decided to spill it. Ryouga seemed like a guy who could be trusted with her secret.

"I'm the daughter of Grand Duke Soun Tendo of the Nerima Confederation. You deserve to know at least that much if you're coming with us."

Ryouga was floored.

"You're the Heir to the Confederation?"

"Umm-hmmm."

"Here? In _my_ battlemech?"

"Yep."

He didn't know what to say. Should he bow? Could he bow, given that he was strapped to his ejector seat, and tied in with various cables and cooling hoses? Why hadn't he remembered to clean the cockpit? There was trash and dust everywhere!

She could see his distress at this.

"Don't worry, silly! Just call me Akane, okay? We're supposed to be traveling incognito on this expedition anyway."

"Uh. Okay." He was trying to keep his heart from exploding with delight at being called 'silly' by her. She liked him! She had to like him!

Jusenkyo Commonwealth DropShip _Jade Lotus_

Capra City Starport, Capra City

Forty-five minutes after sunrise

15 March 3025

Pink didn't know whether to be relieved or horrified by what she saw below. Shampoo and Mousse were staggering from the ruins of the city, and Shampoo carried a limp Kima over her shoulders.

She adjusted her telescopic zoom to get a better look, and gasped.

The woman Shampoo carried was dressed in Commander Kima's ornately embroidered Commonwealth Ambassador's uniform cheongsam, but it was not her. Whoever she was, she was obviously dead. Where was the commander?

Mousse apparently had not died in battle, in contradiction of the testimony of the two survivors of the Recon lance that had accompanied him. She wondered how much of their haste to abandon Mousse was because he was a male who did not know his place among the clan rather than the amount of damage his 'mech had suffered in combat.

She ordered the DropShip to send medics out to assist them. Then she flicked her mic over to the external speakers.

"Where is Commander Kima?" she asked fearfully.

Shampoo looked up to face her young cousin. Tears made her violet eyes shine in the early morning light.

"Commander Kima is dead. There are no Joketsuzoku left in the city. I am taking command of the mission. Order the surviving members of the company to return to the _Jade Lotus_ and prepare for emergency liftoff."

What Pink had feared was true. Kima was dead, and the mission had failed miserably.

She had her orders, and though there might be some question of Shampoo's fitness for command, at least someone was taking charge. She ordered the battered survivors of her company to withdraw by lance and board the DropShip.

Pink was the last to come aboard. Her battle-scarred Dervish was craned into its protective cocoon by the noisy hangar gantry, leaving her with one final look at the starport before the 'Mech Bay door closed and locked shut. They had fought an incredible holding action, but had lost several of their comrades doing it.

It was a bittersweet feeling when the _Jade Lotus'_ main drive fired, forcing mechwarrior and crew alike down into their seats with five gees of acceleration. They were leaving Capra, a world Pink hoped she would never visit again - even as a conquerer. They would have to sustain this punishing climb long after they had left Capra's gravity well if they wanted to escape the swarms of Combine fighters that might rush up in pursuit. Their only chance lay in their vast reserves of reaction mass fuel, allowing them to sustain high levels of thrust for far longer than any fighter.

Tatewaki Kuno took the situation report from his 5th Sword of Thunder Regiment's Operations Officer from inside his Thunderbolt. The 5th had turned a Black Rose counterattack, and pursued them all the way to their drop zones - before running into a concentrated barrage of fire from Kodachi's well-trained armored cavalry units. The attack had stalled, allowing more than a battalion of her 'mech forces and some mixed units to escape. Those DropShips were being pursued, but it took away from his available close air support.

The escape of those renegades was infuriating to him. Who knew if they had Akane Tendo in their clutches? He had to trust to the gods of battle and the opinions of his Intelligence staff that she wasn't.

Meanwhile, his company of battlemechs continued to pursue the cursed Locust that had infiltrated his Drop Zones. The damnable mechwarrior had dogged his advance towards the city with pathological determination, approaching, firing at them, and then leading them on a merry chase before escaping from sight. He had lost several reconnaissance 'mechs in the process of running him down, and he knew that this foe was formidable.

His own Blue Thunder Regiment had better news to give, if ill-timed. They had routed his sister's forces in the city after heavy fighting, and one of his Air Lances had reported sighting her personal guards. They were even now in pursuit, while he was an hour or better from the city. It would be up to his troops to deal with her until he could arrive.

He wondered what she would do if she was cornered - which, with his regiment circling the ruins of the city in a cordon of steel, was about to happen. Would she fight?

Though she was his flesh and blood, he vowed that he or his forces would shoot her down if she did. Her bloody rampage across the Inner Sphere had run unchecked for too long, and it was time to end it. He would be First Lord of a united Star League, and it would not do to have old wounds by her hand festering in the new era of glory and enlightenment he had planned.

If she surrendered, it would be in the knowledge that Father would intervene on her behalf - as he had done many times before. Tatewaki knew that he must tread softly in this regard. Kodachi must be sequestered out of the public eye, and above all, Father must not know of it. Once he had her in custody he would send her to the Periphery. She was too dangerous any closer to him.

"My lord Prince," his Mifune Toshiro Company Commander called to him over the tac-net. "We have isolated the renegade guard forces of Princess Kodachi at map reference Lima-One-XRay by Mike-Five-Oscar."

"Doth my sister make claim to have the fair Akane Tendo in her clutches? ...Is there no appeal for pardon and safe passage?"

"No, my lord Prince," the Battlemech Captain replied. "Princess Kodachi has not answered our calls for surrender."

Tatewaki wondered at this. Surely she would not hesitate to play the lovely Akane Tendo off as hostage for safe passage to her ships? It seemed that the gods smiled upon him indeed, for she did not have Akane Tendo! He did not entertain thoughts that she might have already dispatched his fair goddess, for such was unthinkable to him.

"Excellent work, man!" Tatewaki exclaimed. He keyed his command channel mic. "Alert Miyamoto Musashi and Wakayama Tomisaburo Companies to converge on point Lima-One-XRay by Mike-Five-Oscar. Make haste with thee!"

He called up the map reference on a secondary display, complete with the latest intelligence data, and studied it.

The designated area was a ruined high school and a dense residential district, according to his photo reconnaissance. Rubble from the buildings had piled up into veritable drifts of debris, forming a narrow lane that screened them from direct flanking attacks. A jump-capable 'mech could top the debris for a shot at them, or to escape the defile, but the rubble was unstable, and any footholds tenuous. His forces had bottled up his sister within, and more and more Blue Thunder 'mechs arrived with each moment to reinforce the positions.

He had her!

It was now simply a matter of how she would submit. Would she fight, or would she surrender?

His presence could not guarantee one result or another, and he was too far away from the action to make a difference. They might be able to keep her bottled up without incident until he could reach the city, but she might well try to fight her way out first. He had the feeling that if she were going to surrender, it would have to be to him, and him alone.

"Company, come about right," he ordered his personal guard. "To the city, and a curse upon that infernal Locust which snaps at our heels!"

He walked his Thunderbolt to the southern end of the defile, and headed west towards the city.

Happousai frowned. That dunderhead Kuno was running the other way, back to the city, and opposite the direction that Genma and his motley crew would be taking to return to the ship. That is, IF they were returning to the ship. There had been no word from them since they left the previous day.

His game of hit and run was getting tiresome, and for little apparent result. If the mission was already compromised, there was nothing he could do about it. The hard part would be convincing that stubborn DropShip pilot to leave. He didn't put much faith in being able to do that.

As much as it pained him, he realized that he would have to make a run through the city to see if he could find them. It was possible that they were holed up somewhere until the fighting was over. Actually, given Genma's penchant for self-preservation, it was _likely_ they were in hiding.

If he was going to do it, he might as well have some fun in the process.

He throttled up to maximum, and the Locust stretched out its long legs across the expanse of desert. A ridge of sandstone in the distance marked the steady downward grade beyond, to the valley where the city lay, and he'd really make good time then. The line of Kuno's battlemechs were an obstacle to his progress, though not a very effective one.

They were watching for him, which he was expecting, and a full lance stopped and turned to face him. He cut across at an angle to them, keeping out of range from their array of medium lasers - the mainstay of a 'mech's armament. Long Range Missiles flared up at him, as did a few beams of blue and yellow light from heavy lasers.

The beams sizzled around the Locust, utterly failing to connect, and the first volleys of missile fire exploded impotently at his heels. The Combine 'mechs began to move now, realizing that he was in a position to outflank them if they didn't.

He watched them through his canopy as he continued his headlong charge forward and to the right of their positions. When he judged the moment had come, he cut his turn sharply to the left, and pivoted on the springy sand with a remarkable agility. The abrupt turn threw off the range estimates of the Combine 'mechs, and their next missile volleys fell long.

The Locust skittered across the sandy ground past the left anchor 'mech of the Fire Lance. Happousai held his fire, knowing that a medium laser and a pair of SRM twin-racks wasn't much against an Archer. The heavy missile 'mech tried catching him with its own laser array, but the beams crazed only the empty air around him.

He was in the middle of the company now, and quickly spied his target. He cut right once again, avoiding a salvo of Short Range Missiles that threw enough sand and smoke into the air to obscure any further attempts to spot and destroy him before he could accomplish his objective. Mass confusion reigned as the remainder of the Combine 'mechs halted their advance to deal with him.

The Locust sprang into the air once again, landing upon the Thunderbolt of the ineffable Tatewaki Kuno, would-be First Lord of the Star League. The heavy battlemech once again toppled over into the sand, and Happousai sailed on to dart away unscathed. Fellow Blue Thunder Regiment pilots swore that they heard a cackling sound emanating from the Locust's external speakers as it dashed off towards the sandstone ridge.

Tatewaki Kuno noted the fine grains of sand displayed in his visor while suspended nearly upside-down in his ejector seat straps. The local equivalent of an ant lion angrily burrowed itself out of the sand before his cockpit, and sprayed the visor with an obscenely green fluid. Tatewaki sighed to himself, wondering if General Kerensky had ever faced such ignominious circumstances on his path to victory against Amaris the Usurper.

"Hey, Pop, we've got company ahead," Ranma called to his father.

Genma squinted at the rough sandstone ridge. There was movement, but whatever it was, it was well camouflaged to the local color scheme.

"Better prepare the welcoming commitee," he told his son.

"Gotcha."

Ranma reached behind him into the bed of the open-topped truck. Concealed beneath a few ratty old blankets was a plastic crate. Doctor Tofu helped him pull the blankets off, allowing him to draw a shoulder-launched SRM twin-rack from within.

He made a quick check of the weapon's batteries, and pulled the safety ring from the trigger mechanism before propping the launcher into position on his shoulder. The boresight glowed green in his eye, and the targeting sensor's chin rest vibrated a soft high-pitched tone through his jawbone to his eardrums.

"One persuasive argument, ready to go."

They could now see that it was a Locust, moving fast through the canyon cut into the sandstone ridge for the highway. It was headed straight for them.

Ryouga's BattleMaster flashed its running lights twice, letting them know that he had seen the Locust as well. Ranma did not expect the small chicken-walker to put up a fight. The smart thing for it to do would be to run like hell.

The SRM launcher's chin-rest began to warble in his ears as the sensor fixed on the heat pouring out of the Locust's radiators. The tone became steady and low when he was in range to shoot.

"Say the word, Pop," he said to his father. The missiles wouldn't stop the battlemech in one salvo, but were enough to give any light 'mech pause before deciding to attack.

"Hold your fire, Ranma," Genma replied. "It's the Master's Locust."

Ranma's finger tensed ever so slightly on the trigger before he lowered the weapon.

"Whatever you say." He turned to instruct Ryouga not to shoot. "Hey Ryouga! Don't shoot, okay?"

Ryouga Hibiki zoomed in on the approaching Locust with his telescopic unit. Ranma was waving his arms below and yelling something, but it was difficult to hear him over the sounds of both 'mech and truck moving along the broken pavement.

"What's Ranma saying?" Akane asked. She held half of a headset up to her ear that was tied into the external microphones.

"I think he's telling us not to shoot," Ryouga replied. "Do you know this Locust pilot?"

Akane put the headset down. "Unfortunately, yes, I _do_ know Master Happousai."

Ryouga made a noise that sounded rather like being strangled.

"D-Did you just say: H-Hap-Hap-Happousai?"

"Why, do you know him?" she asked innocently.

Ryouga clenched down on his controls.

"THAT RAT BASTARD!!!"

The BattleMaster fired a blast from its Donal PPC. The bolt of charged particle fury leaped across the empty space that separated the two bitterest of enemies with a deafening thunderclap. Ranma fell down in surprise and shock in the truck bed below.

"Ryouga!?" Akane cried in surprise. "I thought you just said Ranma told us not to fire?"

"That... That... Oooooo," Ryouga snarled, oblivious to Akane's cries. "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU NOW, HAPPOUSAI!!!"

Happousai felt the bolt slam into his Locust's right torso, instantly annihilating the armor and blasting deep inside the 'mech. Damage lights flicked on, and a litany of computer warnings filled his headset. The Locust careened out of control for a moment as he rubbed at the spots in his vision caused by the blinding particle beam.

"What's the meaning of this?" he demanded. Then he finally recognized the BattleMaster that trailed behind Genma's truck. Ryouga's hate-filled voice rang in his ears over the radio a moment later, confirming his dire suspicions.

"Idiots!" he called to them, putting his 'mech into a full evasive zig-zag run away from them. "Here I am, trying to warn you about Kuno, and THIS is how you repay me!"

"What the hell is going on back there?" Genma demanded.

"That's what I'd like to know!" Ranma replied. "Ryouga's blown a fuse or something!"

They watched the Locust run away to the south, trailing smoke and sparks from the particle cannon hit. More bolts of lightning followed the 'mech as Ryouga's BattleMaster lurched off the highway in pursuit.

"Still, I wouldn't lose any sleep over the Master's death," Genma observed.

"Me neither," Ranma agreed. "But this ain't the time or place for it." He picked up their small field radio set and turned it on. They had been under a strict policy of radio silence thus far, but this ugly situation demanded immediate clarification. "Hey, Akane! Would you mind talking some sense into that lame-brained idiot up there? I told you guys not to shoot at the Locust!"

"I'm trying, Ranma, but he won't listen!" she responded. He could hear Ryouga's growling curses in the background.

"Keep trying!" Ranma said lamely. There was nothing else he could say.

"Ryouga!" Akane cried at the top of her lungs. "Stop shooting this instant! Do you hear me?!"

Ryouga abruptly let off on the weapon trigger. He turned around as if coming out of a trance.

"Did you say something, Akane?"

She gave him a flustered look. "I've only been yelling at you for the past minute. What's with you, Ryouga? Ranma told you not to shoot."

Ryouga brought the BattleMaster to a halt, and watched the smoking Locust flee out of range.

"I'm sorry, Akane," he said to her softly. "I don't know what came over me. When I realized that it was Happousai I just..." his voice trailed off, and he looked at his trigger finger as if for the first time.

Her expression softened into pity. "I don't blame you for not liking Happousai," she said to him consolingly. "No one else does, but since he is the Master of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts, we just have to tolerate him, okay?"

Ryouga looked down at his lap in shame.

"For you, Akane."

"Hmmm?" she asked in puzzlement.

"For you, I will try to control my temper. It won't be easy. Because of Happousai, I've looked into the abyss of Hell itself, and that abyss has looked back at me ever since."

He started the BattleMaster up again to rejoin the truck on the highway, leaving Akane hushed and still with wonder over just what Happousai had done to the poor dear.


	3. Chapter 3

"I don't hear any more shooting," Ranma observed. He looked back to Doctor Tofu. "See anything, Doc?"

Tofu scanned the desert with a pair of magnigoggles.

"They've stopped shooting," he said. "There, they've turned around. It looks like they're coming back. I don't see Happousai anymore. He must have got away."

Two sets of fingers snapped in regret. Father and son looked at each other for a moment, then began to laugh at their unspoken show of solidarity.

"Better luck next time, I guess," Genma chuckled, looking behind to the desert in the east and the pall of smoke on the horizon that marked Capra City.

"You said it. You know what, Pop? I'm liking Ryouga more and more, even if he IS a blockhead."

It was at that point that Genma had to throw the truck into a hard swerve to avoid the towering battlemechs of Tatewaki Kuno and his guards. The truck sideswiped the sandstone cliff at the edge of the highway and bounced back into the center lane. Ranma, Genma, and Doctor Tofu were stunned by the impact with the cliff. The two mechwarriors in the front seats were secured by their lap belts, whereas the good doctor was thrown against the side of the bed with a yelp of pain.

The truck came to a shaky halt in front of Kuno's Thunderbolt as the engine stalled.

Ranma regained his senses as the dust cleared, just in time to face the razor sharp tip of an enormous katana pointed between his eyes. The sword was held in both hands of the Thunderbolt in the manner of a samurai from late in the Period of Warring States.

"So," an amplified voice declared from the Thunderbolt. "Thou art the Ranma Saotome I have been told of?"

Ranma edged away from the diamond-hard tip of the battlemech-sized katana. Tatewaki moved it close again, to the point where Ranma didn't have any further room to squirm away from it.

"Uh, yeah, that'd be me," he replied.

"Silence, wretch!" Tatewaki cried over the speakers. "Know thy place, callow cur, and speak only when spoken to!"

"But you just asked me a question!" Ranma protested.

"Simpleton!" Tatewaki thundered. "Even a child could have determined that my question was in fact rhetorical!"

Beads of sweat began to form on Ranma's brow as the tip of the sword moved ever closer to him, until it was just touching the end of his nose. He felt a tiny bead of blood well at the spot, to dribble down his lip and into his mouth.

"In truth thou art far more pathetic than I imagined," Tatewaki announced from on high. "To think that Akane Tendo should be shackled to such a low-born and as base a cretin as you. It wounds me to the quick."

"Come down outta that 'mech, and I'll wound you to the quick..." Ranma growled quietly.

Ryouga's BattleMaster stomped around the curve of the highway in that moment, to face an angry array of weapons from Tatewaki's guards. He came to an abrupt halt, his handheld PPC at the ready.

"What should I do?" Ryouga asked Akane. There were at least three heavy battlemechs that could shoot at him without hitting their peers, and another nine behind them waiting for their chance.

The only thing Akane saw was the huge sword of Tatewaki Kuno pointed right at Ranma's head. At their height and distance from the truck, she could not be sure if he wasn't already skewered.

"P-Put the gun down," she said, barely able to speak.

He let out a deep sigh, and lowered the PPC.

Tatewaki Kuno was a man well pleased with himself. Ranma Saotome and his detestable father were his prisoners. Akane Tendo, so fair and noble, was finally his. He had just received word that his sister was in the custody of his troops. All the failures and setbacks he had suffered in getting to this great moment were put well behind him.

For some peculiar reason, Akane Tendo had chosen to stand with the prisoners rather than take her rightful place by his side. It defied explanation, other than through some foul act of mind-control, or even sorcery, on the part of the cursed Saotomes. He was confident that once she was removed from their fell grip, she would come around to her better sense.

They had a good twenty minutes before a flight of helicopters from the Drop Zones could arrive to take the prisoners away to detention, and his lovely bride to the chambers aboard the _Oda Nobunaga_ that had been prepared for her. Tatewaki saw this as an opportunity to lord his greatness over them.

He started with Ryouga, as Doctor Tofu had a broken ankle from the crash, and was unable to stand with the rest of the prisoners.

"It pains me to know that a mongrel mercenary such as yourself has been placed in a position to look after the fair Akane Tendo in these troubled times."

Ryouga's face twisted into an angry snarl, but he held his tongue. Tatewaki sneered at him and turned to Ranma, his enemy of enemies. The fool would indeed make for a splendid trophy when mounted upon the prow of the _Imperator_. After he had been suitably broken, of course...

"Tell me, O hated foe; what brings thee to this wretched place?" he asked Ranma.

The pig-tailed mechwarrior, securely bound with nylon ropes and facing certain death under the guns of battlemechs if he tried anything uppity, stared straight ahead, ignoring him.

Tatewaki snorted his contempt and moved on to Genma.

"And you, O corpulent one. Didst thou believe that the Blue Thunder wouldst allow thy roguish machinations to succeed? For it is written in the stars themselves that the bride of Tatewaki Kuno wouldst be none other than Akane Tendo, and together with their superior progeny, they wouldst rule with a firm yet benevolent hand over the Inner Sphere as First Lord and Lady of the Star League."

Genma said nothing at this bit of fantasy. Akane made a retching noise that pained Tatewaki considerably to hear from her.

He faced her next. She would not make eye contact with him.

"Ah, my fair and lovely flower, yet so like a tigress! It will please you to know that my twisted sister will never again bring woe to your people, for I have captured her this day, and shall put her away in a place where she can do no harm."

She looked up at him, her face tearstained and clouded with both despair and contempt. "You or Kodachi... What difference does it make?"

He flinched at her words.

"Speak not these things to the man who loves you," he begged her softly.

"What do you know about love?" she replied bitterly.

"I know that it drives me in all things," he said to her. His face became haughty again. "All that I do is for thee, my love. If I could not rule the Inner Sphere with thee at my side, then I would wish for none of it!"

She regarded him for a moment, an idea forming in her head.

"If you love me, Kuno, you'll let these people go."

Tatewaki'e eyes bulged.

"Akane Tendo! You ask the impossible of me!"

She turned on him. "What's so impossible about letting them go? You hold all the cards, Kuno! All you have to do is say to your men, 'release them,' and they'll do it."

"They are enemies of the Furinkan Combine," he declared. "I cannot."

She closed her eyes and looked away. "Then I can never love you," she told him. "You might as well kill me now, because if you won't, then I'll do it myself the first chance I get."

"Akane Tendo!" Tatewaki exclaimed in horror. "Say it not!"

"Stop telling me what to say and what not to say!" she cried. "I'm not some animal you can train to do tricks, and I won't let you dictate how I should feel!"

Tatewaki lurched away from her, his heart nearly shattered by her protestations. Ranma and the others looked on in uneasy silence.

"Of course. Thy words ring true," he said to her at length. "I could never hope to contain the burning flames of thy passion, nor would I, knowing that thy fiery spirit is at the crux of why I love thee so."

The chop of rotor blades echoed in the distance.

Tatewaki turned to one of his dismounted mechwarriors. "See her aboard the first helicopter. These others are to go in the second."

The mechwarrior saluted. "As you command, my lord Prince."

"Hey!" Ranma protested.

Tatewaki turned to strike him across the face.

"Did I not tell thee to know thy place?" he roared.

"There ain't no way I'm gonna let you take Akane away from here!" Ranma shot back. A trickle of blood ran down the corner of his mouth where Tatewaki had struck him.

"What makes thee believe that thou hast any right to make such bold and yet hollow ultimatums?" the Blue Thunder demanded of him.

Ranma's eyes darkened with animus.

"Let me spell it out for you, since you're such a moron," he began. "Akane Tendo is MY FIANCEE, got it?! If you lay one hand on her, I swear that I will hunt you down - even if I have to search the entire goddamned universe to find you - and then I'll kill you! Do you savvy me, you stupid dipshit?"

Tatewaki Kuno's blood pressure spiked a full forty points above normal.His face swelled red with anger, and his body tensed with such a wrath as he had never before felt in his life. Akane's gasp of surprise at Ranma's declaration went unnoticed in the passion of the moment.

"THY FATE IS SEALED!" Tatewaki bellowed, drawing his personal sword and preparing to cut Ranma down where he stood. Ranma looked on defiantly, knowing he was going to die and suddenly not caring. He was not going to end his life begging for mercy that Kuno would not give.

"Kuno, NO!" Akane screamed as he drew back the sword. "I'll marry you,I swear! Please don't kill Ranma!"

Even Ryouga started at her plea. Why was she doing this for him?

Tatewaki paused. This was music to his ears.

"You don't know what you're saying, you stupid tomboy!" Ranma said angrily. "You actually want to marry this creep?!"

"So that a thoughtless jerk like you won't die, yes!" Akane shouted, her eyes wet with unshed tears.

The Blue Thunder raised the sword again. "'Tis the last time thou'lt ever speak to the fair Akane Tendo with such disrespect!"

"KUNO!" Akane screamed once again.

He held his blade back a second time. The sound of the helicopter was closer now, giving him the opportunity to send her away first. If the cretinous Ranma Saotome should choose to insult him once more after that, there would be no plaintive cry to spare his life. O how the black sorcery of Ranma Saotome had enspelled poor Akane Tendo! Killing him could be the only possible release for her, Tatewaki was now certain of it.

Kodachi Kuno was adrift in an unnatural darkness.

She paled in fear with the knowledge that somewhere in that darkness was her brother. She could hear his voice, could hear his stern words of reproach for her. She could almost feel the sting of his hand, though he had not yet struck her. Intense pain knifed through her then; the anguish of imminent and unavoidable suffering.

Her cooling vest burst suddenly around her waist, drenching her legs not in icy water, but in her own hot blood.

As she looked down at her belly with a detached sense of horror, all she could think about was; what had she done wrong this time?

She drifted on, streaming blood from her belly through the darkness as images of their late mother filtered past. Kodachi had never known her mother, though numerous photos, stereographs, and paintings of the Kuno Matriarch existed in the palace. The face in the photos seemed kind and patient, and Kodachi missed her terribly.

Tachi was closer now. His voice was loud and imperious in the void.

Kodachi knew that no matter what she did wrong, Tachi would always hold her responsible for one crime: the death of their mother. When he beat her for breaking a favorite toy, or defeating him in a game of skill or chance, he was really punishing her for killing Mother.

Why was he so mean to her?

The blood that pulsed from her turned dark and lumpy with clots.

Where was father? He would protect her. In his arms - which always smelled faintly of pineapples, the coconut oil of sunscreen, and fresh surfboard wax - she would be safe from Tachi. He would play his ukelele for her and sing songs by the great bards Don Ho and Willie K., and Tachi would flee from them while clutching his ears in pain.

Where was father? Why wasn't he around anymore? Was he tired of always protecting her?

Tachi's voice was even louder now, even closer. She cringed in anticipation of his wrath, for she remembered why he was mad at her this time. She had murdered Akane Tendo, and now Tachi was going to punish her forever for killing both Mother and the Tendo girl.

This one time she had done something for which she was truly guilty. Would that make the blows of his hand sting any more? She was afraid that it would, and began to tremble at the sound of Tachi's approaching footsteps. Her wound ached, and she could feel a white hot spear of pain under her ribcage, making it hard for her to breathe.

He appeared before her, wooden bokken in hand, and a cold and wrathful fire lit in his eyes. When she was old enough to defend herself against his hands, he had switched to the bokken. On those rare days when Father was home, Tachi would wrap it in a towel first so that it would not leave any lingering bruises on her skin.

She tried to run, but she was backed into a corner now, with nowhere to go. Tachi loomed over her, bokken poised to strike. He would hit her high first, on the crown of her head usually, to make her double over in pain so that he could continue unopposed against her thighs and buttocks, where it would really hurt. Even if he didn't connect with her head the first time, the threat of it was enough to make her do as he wished and double over, arms cradled protectively around her head.

Fresh spurts of arterial blood began to flow as she waited with dread.Before he could land the blow, a flash of red and black appeared between them. She looked up through teary eyes to see Ranma Saotome standing over her, his arms spread wide to protect her from Tachi's bokken, his eyes flashing with contempt for her brother.

It was foolish of him, for Tachi would merely beat him senseless and then cast him aside, but Ranma stayed firm, and Tachi stayed his hand.

Her brother demanded that he step away from her, but Ranma refused, saying that he would rather die than see her hurt once more. Her heart began to burst for this brave angel of mercy and kindness, and she begged him not to sacrifice himself. He turned to her then, taking her hands in his, and she looked up into his clear blue-grey eyes. In that moment she lost her soul to him. In that moment her wound closed, and the pain was gone.

Tachi sprang at them then, but Ranma stopped the bokken without turning away from her eyes. He wrenched the horrid thing out of Tachi's hands, then released her with a loving look and turned to face her now disarmed brother.

Tachi quailed in panic as Ranma came at him, lashing out with the bokken. Full many a blow landed upon her brother in the places that had hurt her so when the pain was hers to bear. Tachi did not bear his stripes nearly as well, wailing, and flailing his arms like a child. Ranma gave him a final blow to contemplate, then sent him on his miserable way with a kick to the rear.

Ranma let the bokken fall from his hand. He turned to her, eyes huge and bright with devotion, and she rose to him. His arms were strong, his embrace warm. The musk of his exertions thrilled her, and she kissed him passionately. He returned her kiss with boundless ardor, and for the first time in her adult life, Kodachi felt loved.

"...BLOOD PRESSURE NINE-ZERO OVER FOUR-ZERO AND DROPPING..."

The clatter of surgical steel echoed in the cramped operating theater of the Blue Thunder Regimental Mobile Army Surgical Hospital as the calm, reassuring voice of the medical computer advised the attending physician on the appropriate indications. The theater's real-time Functional-MRI display glowed a soft blue in his safety visor.

The grisly wound channel carved through Kodachi's flesh by Kima's bullet showed in false color on the display, stretching from a point just above and to the right of her navel, to the brightly glowing lump of metal lodged in the diaphragm, and disquietingly close to a weakly pulsing artery. The dark fibrous blotches of internal bleeding were numerous and widespread on the display.

"...PULSE RATE DROPPING...RESPIRATION RATE DROPPING..." the automated alarm declared. "...ABNORMAL SINUS RHYTHM... BLOOD PRESSURE EIGHT-FIVE OVER FOUR-ZERO...10CCs EPINEPHRINE INTRACARDIAL..."

"She's dropping out," the surgeon noted grimly. The nurse anticipated his request for the loaded syringe that he would need. "Prepare the table to flatten her for medevac spaceside."

"We're losing her!" his assistant cried. "There isn't time."

"We're not going to lose her," the surgeon barked. He was not going to face the wrath of Prince Kuno for failing to save his sister's life. If only the fools in her personal guard had surrendered sooner, he would have had a better chance of it. She had lost a lot of blood, and he had very little in the flavor she required on hand to replace it.

Rural East-West Highway 1

Twenty kilometers west of Capra City

Planet Capra, Capra System

the League of Five Nails

15 March 3025

The helicopters were arriving ahead of schedule, throbbing noisily in the dry desert air as they approached from the southwest. Tatewaki noted their approach, though he did not take his eyes from the wretched sorceror Ranma Saotome and his churlish companions. How he ached to cut them down, and end at last the charade of Akane Tendo's betrothal!

His heart was close to breaking at her rejection of him. Her promises to marry were predicated solely upon the welfare of Ranma Saotome. Only his unshakable belief that she was the victim of some arcane spellcraft had kept him from a nervous collapse. Though he was a man of technology, he was also a man of deep superstition - a sentiment fostered no doubt by his equally superstitious father.

Part of him wanted to grasp Ranma Saotome by the throat and demand that he release his hold upon Akane Tendo. He longed to entertain that notion, but tempered it in the knowledge that Saotome's continued defiance was assured. Better that it came out under the most exquisite torture, and though Tatewaki personally knew little of the procedures involved, he was in a position to retain the best breakers of body and mind in the Inner Sphere. The hardest part would be the wait, for he did not have them at hand.

If the fool knew what was in store for him, Tatewaki noted ruefully, he did an admirable job of not showing it. He had hoped for a bit of anxiety on Saotome's part, perhaps even a plea for clemency, but it seemed that the cretin was made of stronger stuff. No matter, he decided. Every man has his breaking point, and the stronger a man was, the more spectacular his final collapse would be.

Ranma Saotome could feel the hatred of Tatewaki Kuno burning into him with each glance in his direction. It pained him to think that he had the undying emnity of one of the most powerful men in the Inner Sphere, and he hadn't even done anything to deserve it. Of course, as far as Tatewaki Kuno was concerned, getting engaged to Akane was more than enough reason to hate him.

Way to go, Pop, he sighed silently to himself. You've done it again...

What Kuno felt for him, he now reciprocated. It was nothing personal, he would feel the same way about anyone who came twice within an instant's pause of chopping him up into ground round. If not for Akane's stupid plea bargain, Kuno would certainly have done it.

What was she thinking, anyway? he wondered. Who would possibly want to marry a stuck-up idiot like Tatewaki Kuno? She had said it was for his sake, but why?

He stole a glance in her direction. She stood face forward, with the kind of military stoicism he had seen on many a young mechwarrior cadet - himself included, he supposed. Her eyes were wet, however, shattering the brave facade she meant to project for her captors. He could see that much from the glint of the early morning sun shining on her tear-stained cheeks.

The sight of her in tears pained him even more than the thought of being a doomed captive of the heir to the Furinkan Combine. Why was she crying?

It didn't make any sense. Akane didn't care about him at all beyond the sense of obligation their engagement had fostered. She definitely didn't like him. So what was the big deal?

It came to him then. She was worried that without him and Pop, there would be no chance of finding Ryuugenzawa. Her tears were reserved for the fate of her people, not him.

Fine! he thought moodily. His fists began to crackle behind his back, and the nylon ropes strained to contain him. If that's how you feel...

Tatewaki Kuno could see and hear the helicopters approaching, and knew that soon his time on this cursed planet would be at an end. There was but time to taunt his hated foes once more. He stepped up to Ranma Saotome, his face haughty and filled with triumph. He wanted the cur to remember that look, and to remember the face of the man who would break him.

As the lead helicopter flared-out west of them on the strip of battered highway, a cloud of dust blew over them, obscuring Saotome's face for a moment, and nearly drowning out the cackling voice that called down to them from the sandstone cliffs above.

It was a voice he had heard before, on the Drop Zones. It was the voice of that thrice-damned Locust pilot, the one who had made mockery of him!

"Heads up, Ranma m'boy!" the voice cried. The cold splatter of water misted Kuno's face and arms through the swirl of dust. "It's up to you now, Hot-Stuff; I'm outta here!"

When the dust cloud from the helicopter had passed, he was no longer facing the despicable Ranma Saotome, but a vision of beauty with hair of crimson red!

So lost in rapture at beholding this vibrant woman was he, that he did not realize that she was making a move for his throat.

Ranma felt the water splash on top of her head and the ensuing change before she even realized that the strange voice from above belonged to Happousai. The next thing that she realized was that the nylon ropes that once held her in check were now loose. She was much smaller physically in her girl-body, and Happousai must have known that when he splashed her.

As she leaped at Tatewaki Kuno's throat, she knew that she owed the little freak big-time for this.

Her hand locked around Kuno's throat, and she could feel his larynx in her grasp. It would be so easy to crush his windpipe, she realized, and an unnatural bloodlust came over her that was difficult to check. The bastard had been ready to fillet her in the middle of the road, so why shouldn't she return the favor?

The only thing that kept her from doing it was the fact that they would be turned into burnt hamburger by Kuno's mechwarrior guards a few seconds after their lord's corpse hit the pavement. Instead of killing him, she spun the idiot around, knocking his legs out from under him with a shot to the back of his knees, and putting him in a headlock that made it clear to the mounted guards just how easy it would be for her to snap his neck.

"Back off!" she cried to the battlemechs, and once more to the soldiers who jumped from the open door of the helicopter. "Any closer and your prince turns into a frog! A DEAD frog!"

Kuno squirmed half-heartedly in her grasp, but a few more grams of pressure on his creaking spinal column made him cease his struggles before it became necessary to make good on her implied threat.

"Unhand me!" he spluttered weakly.

"Shut your pie-hole, jerk!" Ranma growled.

Next, she turned to the dismounted mechwarrior who had been attending his liege. The man was clearly in shock at this sudden and inexplicable change in their pig-tailed prisoner.

"You, cut my friends loose. Move it!"

The mechwarrior hesitated. Ranma jerked Kuno's body around like a rag doll, the Combine prince gagging and spluttering in her choke-hold.

"Do it!" she commanded once again.

He took a step forward with his dagger, headed for Genma.

"You be real careful now," Ranma advised the man coldly. "Not a scratch, or else..."

The man cut Genma's bonds, and was promptly body slammed face-first to the pavement by the elder Saotome. Genma relieved him of his dagger and began to free the others. The soldiers from the helicopter watched them carefully over the barrels of their weapons from a distance of forty meters, but none dared to come closer or to fire.

"Now what?" Genma asked Ranma as the remaining battlemechs with pilots tracked them with their anti-personnel guns.

"Get the truck going, Pop," Ranma growled. "We're taking this clown with us."

"See here, Pig-Tailed Girl!" Tatewaki said suddenly.

"What did you call me?" Ranma demanded.

Tatewaki was at a loss to explain why he had called her by such an unflattering name, but as they had not been formally introduced...

"Release me," he said to her. "The great Tatewaki Kuno is a generous man, and would see to it that thy life is spared in return. My quarrel is with the cursed Ranma Saotome, and not with thee."

Ranma blinked twice in surprise. The idiot didn't realize that she and her normal body belonged to the same person!

"Not interested," she returned, jerking him off his feet and dragging him towards the truck. As expected, the Combine soldiers were at a loss to do anything to free their liege. Genma had the truck started, and Ryouga and Akane had managed to lift the injured Doctor Tofu into the truck bed.

She looked to the fanged mechwarrior. His face was a blend of shock and relief at their sudden turn of fortune.

"Mount up," she called to him. He nodded once and started for his idle BattleMaster. Ranma looked up at the Combine battlemechs that stood over them, and wrenched Kuno painfully to his feet. "No one shoots at the truck or the 'mech - or else! Got it?"

There was no reply over any external speakers. They would either honor her demands or they'd open fire - probably against Ryouga - and the fire of so many heavy 'mechs at such a close range would probably do him in within moments. Ryouga had to know that when he agreed to mount up, so at least he'd be ready take a few of them with him if it came to that.

Akane had Kuno's sword now, and she held it to the prince's throat as he was hoisted up into the bed of the truck. Ranma eyed her for a moment, wondering if she had the nerve to slice him open if necessary, and decided that she did. Akane looked back with a grim nod, confirming her suspicions.

"Step on it, Pop!" she called to her father when they had Kuno secured face down in the bed of the truck.

Genma put the truck in gear and started forward hesistantly. The Combine battlemechs edged out of their way, keeping their guns trained on them in the unlikely event that Kuno should somehow escape the truck and give them a clear shot. Ryouga's BattleMaster began to thump behind them, and they parted for him as well.

Ranma watched with relief as Ryouga's 'mech advanced unhindered. The roar of aerospace fighters was high overhead now, and he knew they'd be under surveillance the whole way back to the _Palomino_. Would they be forced to keep Kuno as a hostage all the way to the Jump Point?

"What do you suppose we do with him?" Tofu asked, vocalizing the question that already burned within Ranma.

"We keep him," Akane declared coldly. She kept the katana pressed against the vulnerable flesh of Tatewaki's throat. "He's going to call off his war against the Confederation, and pay reparations for all of the death and destruction he and his sister have caused."

"That ain't a bad idea," Ranma agreed. She hadn't thought much farther ahead than getting to the DropShip.

"I agree," Tofu added. "Well done, Akane."

"Never," Tatewaki mumbled. It was difficult to hear him when his face was pressed down into the cracked plastic bed-liner. "Tatewaki Kuno doth not capitulate, even to the lovely Akane Tendo! If my fate is to die, then so be it, but never surrender!"

Akane's hands tensed on the hilt of the sword. "Don't tempt me, Kuno!"

"Easy, Akane," Ranma soothed. "We need him alive - at least for the moment."

She took a deep cleansing breath and let it out slowly. Anger still burned behind her reddened eyes, though her wrath was tempered for the moment. It was one more reminder for Ranma to stay on her good side.

Genma looked over his shoulder at them as they considered Tatewaki's fate. "Get on the radio to the _Palomino_ and tell them to prepare for lift off."

Ranma nodded, and pulled the radio set into the bed of the truck.

"No problem, Pop," she replied.

"What about the key?" Akane asked worriedly.

"What about it?" Genma returned.

"We have to get the key before we go!" she protested. "We can't just leave it here!"

"It ain't going nowhere," Ranma countered. "Besides, we don't know for sure if it's even where we think it is. It might just be another clue, and we ain't got the time right now to go looking."

"The boy's right," Genma affirmed, drawing a puzzled look from Kuno as he lay with his nose pressed down into a depression in the bed-liner. "Our first concern is getting off this planet and safely back to our JumpShip. It's a stroke of luck that we have such an important hostage, but who knows what the Combine army will be capable of once they've had enough time to react to the situation?"

"Who knows when we'll be able to come back here!?" Akane returned. "We can't just leave without it!"

"That's crazy, Akane!" Ranma cried. "Pop's right. Every minute we spend on this rock is a minute that the Combine can use to come up with a way of stopping us - royal hostage or no royal hostage."

Akane shot Ranma a look of betrayal that wounded her more than any of her previous insults.

Ranma turned away, and spied a battered Locust approaching from their flank. It was Happousai, back inside his 'mech after freeing them. She set the radio to the frequency that Ryouga would be monitoring to tell him to hold his fire. They did not need a repeat of their previous encounter.

"Hey, Ryouga," she called to him. "Don't shoot, okay? This Locust is on our side."

"I know that," Ryouga replied, bitterness evident in his voice. "I already promised Akane that I wouldn't shoot him."

Ranma gave Akane a puzzled look, which she pointedly ignored.

"Whatever," Ranma said at length. "How are things looking from your end?"

"They're following us just out of weapon range," Ryouga answered. "And I can see at least a squadron of fighters at high altitude keeping an eye on us."

"No surprise there. I guess I better tell those jokers to leave the DropShip alone too. If I was going to stop us from escaping, that's how I'd do it."

She adjusted the radio to the Combine tac-net frequency and made her demands. Several moments of silence followed before a man identifying himself as a colonel acknowledged her, and asked for negotiations to be held at once. Ranma knew that stalling worked in favor of the Combine, and so ignored the officer's plea.

"You would do well to negotiate," Tatewaki muttered from the truck bed.

"And you would do well to shut your mouth," Ranma shot back. "Got it?"

"Aye..." Tatewaki replied, though by his tone it was clear that he was not agreeing with her. "Thy tongue is sharp, so like that of my lovely Akane Tendo, and yet so boisterous and unmaidenly."

Akane stifled a snicker at this.

"Yeah?" Ranma replied. "I'll show you unmaidenly..."

Genma slowed for the turn off the highway and onto the dirt road that would take them close to the wadi where the _Palomino_ hopefully remained unmolested. The ride became rough and jarring, and Akane was forced to withdraw the sword from Tatewaki's throat before she accidentally slit him open.

They could see more fighters overhead. So far the Combine fighters remained out of range to attack. How the _Palomino_ would get past them and into orbit, Ranma did not know. The Combine could reach the point of desperation at any time.

League of Five Nails DropShip _Long Lance_

In final descent towards the planet Capra,

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

15 March 3025

Hikaru Gosunkugi did not like combat drops. He did not like planning them, and he liked participating in them even less. Kuno had forced his hand however, and if he wished to have any chance at all of repelling his rival from the planet, this was the time to act.

His Intelligence staff had been collecting Combine signal intelligence for many hours now, and with the available data had painted a fascinating picture of betrayal on the part of the Black Rose. Tatewaki had obviously sent such a large force to Capra to deal with her. They were even now fighting a pitched battle against each other, with several of Kodachi's DropShips escaping into deep space.

Kodachi had lost this battle, it was clear, but she had left Tatewaki's forces vulnerable to a surprise counter-attack. Hikaru knew that he would not get the chance to bloody his Combine enemy again so soon, and felt compelled to act. His own forces numbered just over a regiment, but they would be facing a Combine army that had been weakened by fierce combat against one of the most feared and respected regiments in the Inner Sphere. Their numbers were hollow, the stars assured him.

"My lord," his adjutant addressed him over the command-channel. He was currently strapped into the cockpit of his Hermes II battlemech, yet another thing he strongly disliked, but it was safer on the ground than in low orbit with marauding Combine fighters on the prowl.

"What is it?" he asked him.

"We have effected penetration of the Combine orbital defenses," the adjutant declared. "Their fighters have been drawn away from a static defense of the battlefield to pursue the fleeing Black Rose Terror Regiment ships."

Hikaru smiled to himself. How thoughtful of Tatewaki Kuno to leave the door wide open behind him! He began rubbing gleefully on his prayer beads as the _Long Lance_ bucked into denser atmosphere.

The _Palomino_ was only half a kilometer away, and Ranma could see the crew folding and stowing the camouflage tarps as they approached. Combine aerofighters shot overhead, threatening the Confederation crew, and practicing gun attacks for the moment when they might get their chance.

Ranma watched the fighters peel off from their simulated low-angle gun attacks and streak skyward, engines blazing. Bolts of incandescent hell rained down moments later, pelting the desert with great plumes of rock and sand, and throwing up great clouds of dust and smoke around them. Lances of return fire from the horizon spoke of the Furinkan Combine's counterbattery at the unseen foe.

Genma swerved to avoid a freshly smoking crater that took out half of the dirt road they traveled upon. Clods of rock were still falling from the sky from the impact.

"What the hell...?" Ranma gasped.

"I'm painting numerous high altitude targets," Ryouga broke in over the radio. "They look like DropShips."

"More Black Rose ships?" Ranma asked him.

"The League?" Akane added to the speculation.

Another stray bolt screamed down at them from above like Jove's own lightning, and blasted the roadbed into a molten mass of gravel, sand, and virgin glass before them. There was no time to avoid the blast, and Genma drove right through it. The truck bucked savagely as it was torn apart by the swirling eddies of concussion and heat convection, to tumble end over end, and throw the occupants clear.

Ranma shook herself back to coherence after what seemed like hours, but could only have been seconds - judging by the bits of rock and dirt that rained down around her. The truck was a ragged mass of twisted metal, scorched and scored with shrapnel, and starting to burn. The front end in particular was gutted. No bodies were apparent within the wreckage as she watched it burn with ringing ears.

"Akane?" she called out to the burning wilderness. "Pop? Doctor Tofu?"

Ryouga's BattleMaster had stopped short of the wreck, and the canopy was coming up. Ranma painfully drew herself up and looked in the direction of the battlemech. Akane lay there motionless in the sand at its feet.

"AKANE!"

Despite suffering what were probably a few cracked ribs and numerous bruises and contusions, she beat Ryouga to the scene. The fanged mercenary had a small aid-kit with him, and he opened it as she knelt over the girl. More streaks of fire lashed the desert around them, and the thin scream of plasma drives filled the air.

Akane's eyes fluttered open as she mustered up the courage to try and rouse her.

"...What...?" she managed to the relief of both Ranma and Ryouga.

"Are you okay?" they both asked her.

"I... I think so," she replied.

"Can you walk?" Ranma asked.

Akane sat up, wincing with the pain of pinched nerves and pulled muscles in her neck and shoulders. Ryouga placed a steadying hand on her, and she smiled for him. "I think so."

Ranma ignored the look she had given Ryouga, and gazed up into the sky. League of Five Nails DropShips descended on their plasma drives as fighters wheeled and dove around them. The Combine, current masters of Capra, now faced a fresh enemy, and their forces recoilled with surprise and alarm. League battlemechs were already forming up for a drive on Kuno's Blue Thunder Regiment Drop Zones.

"Looks like this party has some gate crashers," she observed.

"It's our cue to leave," the ragged voice of Genma Saotome declared behind her. She spun around to see him supporting the wounded Doctor Tofu. Getting thrown from the truck had not done his broken ankle any favors, and his face was wracked with barely contained agony. Both bled rather freely from cuts on their heads.

"You okay, Pop?" she asked her father.

"Remind me to stop rolling our transportation all the time," Genma replied with the hint of a smile.

"I would," Ranma returned a grin. "But I don't think it'll help."

Happousai's Locust stomped up to them moments later, kicking up a cloud of dust as it slid to a halt. The wizened mechwarrior's head appeared from the top of the chassis as the dust settled.

"Everyone all right?" he asked. "Good, 'cause it's five hundred meters to the ship."

Ranma threw a rock at him, which bounced harmlessly off the armor plating. "Why don't ya go tell them to send us a truck or something?" she barked. "Can't you see we're all hurt?"

Happousai made a face at her. "No appreciation for all I've done for you," he groused. "This is going to come out of your hide later, Ranma m'boy."

"If there IS a later, ya old fart! Go get us some help!"

Happousai ducked down into his cockpit and sealed the hatch. The Locust stomped away from them and towards the exposed _Palomino_. Though a battle still raged in the air around the League's Drop Zones, enemy fighters had thus far left the ship alone.

Ranma turned to Ryouga. "Take Akane to the ship. She'll be safer up there than trying to walk back."

"I don't need your help, Ranma," Akane protested. "I think I can handle the risk."

Surprisingly, Genma nixed her protest. "The boy's right, Akane. It would be better if you were in the BattleMaster."

Akane turned to Ryouga. "No offense, Ryouga, but right now, your 'mech is a walking eighty-five ton target. I'll be safer on the ground." She started towards the _Palomino_ on foot.

"Can't say we didn't try," Ranma observed. Ryouga nodded with no small amount of disappointment on his face, and turned back to the BattleMaster to mount up.

"Has anyone seen Kuno?" Doctor Tofu observed as they limped after Akane.

Ranma hadn't thought about the clown since the wreck. She looked around the piles of rock and scrub vegetation, but there was no sign of the Combine Heir.

"Beats me. Maybe he didn't make it." She snapped her fingers and shook her head. "Aw, shucks. Too bad for him, I guess."

"I can tell that you're really broken up about this, boy," Genma cracked.

"Heartbroken, Pop," she returned. "Absolutely heartbroken. It woulda been nice to have seen that jerk sign a peace treaty with the Confederation, though. Then we wouldn't need to continue this stupid wild goose chase."

Genma frowned. "Oh yes we would, Ranma. How long do you think someone like Tatewaki Kuno would keep his word?"

"About as long as it took him to find a nice legal way out of it," she admitted.

A truck appeared for them within ten minutes, its driver and an accompanying medic escort grimly aware of the firefight heating up only a few kilometers away from them. The rumble of weapons and explosions carried well in the desert air.

"Is the ship ready to go?" Genma asked the driver as they were helped into the truck.

"We were just waiting on you, Commander," she replied. "You don't know how relieved we were to finally hear from you."

"It was regrettable, but that's in the past."

The driver put the truck in gear, and turned around for the wadi. Waves of heat rolled up from the Palomino as the main drives prepared to lift the 1700 ton spacecraft into the air. The truck pulled up the ramp to the last open hatch on the ship, where one of Akari's techs was waiting to shut it behind them.

"We have to make room for Ryouga's BattleMaster," Akane said to the tech as they screeched to a halt within the hold.

"A B-BattleMaster?" the tech stammered. "We could probably squeeze it into Bay Four with the Locust, but we'll have no cocoon for it. He'll have to stay mounted to steady the thing until we can clear the atmosphere."

"Open Bay Four door then," she ordered him.

"Yes ma'am!" He reached for a bulkhead-mounted telephone. His request to the Captain to open the door went denied for just as long as it took Akane to take the phone from him.

They could hear the rumble of the Bay Door opening, though it was in a compartment well aft of the hold and could not be seen. The entire DropShip seemed to list to port as the BattleMaster stepped inside.

"I hope we can get off the ground," Ranma remarked.

"You wanted to bring him along," Akane returned.

"No, I just wanted to see a BattleMaster up close. _You_ were the one who wanted to bring him along."

"Quit arguing and get up to your launch stations," Genma called to them.

Ranma and Akane both stared at each other for a moment, each waiting for the other to blink.

Finally, Akane gave way. "This is not how I wanted to leave this planet, Ranma. We don't have the key, and we lost Kuno. We still don't know if we can even get out of here alive."

"This ain't over yet, Akane," Ranma said to her quietly. A grim determination seemed to light across her face. "Not yet."

She turned and started for the elevator without Akane.

The _Palomino_ rose from the shelter of the wadi on four columns of plasma flame. The pilot was a cool hand on the stick, and turned the huge spacecraft neatly on its axis before engaging the horizontal drive. The ship began to accelerate forward, keeping just a hundred meters off the ground to stay out of sight on hostile radar displays.

Ryouga's BattleMaster was less of a problem than anticipated, since it was berthed in the same bay as Happousai's Locust. The two 'mechs barely massed over a hundred tons, which still kept the total 'mech load under the maximum permissible four hundred tons. The real problem lay in the volume taken up by the assault 'mech. Bay Four was now a cramped space, with barely enough room for Ryouga to steady the huge 'mech against the swaying motion of the DropShip.

Genma watched from his seat on the Flight Deck as the pilot guided the _Palomino_ over dunes and jutting slabs of sandstone and dark volcanic basalt. They were putting as much distance between themselves and the raging battle between the League and the Combine as practical. If everything went well, they would be able to ascend through the atmosphere from a point on the planet where they would not be detected until it was too late to pursue them.

The Flight Deck crew were a tight-lipped group, speaking only when it was necessary to give orders or to make note of something vital to the ship's welfare. The Captain himself was nearly silent. His pilot knew what needed to be done, and did not require much in the way of guidance.

It was going so smoothly that the sound of an alarm from the co-pilot's station nearly startled the wits out of the elder Saotome.

"Number Two 'Mech Bay Door indicates intermediate," the co-pilot declared, his hand sweeping over the annunciator panel to silence the alarm.

"Check it shut," the pilot ordered. The co-pilot watched his display as he reached for the sound-powered telephone to the lower decks.

"Number Two 'Mech Bay Door indicates open. I've got a local override light indication on the door."

Genma leaned forward in his acceleration chair as the Captain took interest in the situation.

"Ranma..." he muttered to himself.

"Shut Number Two 'Mech Bay Door," the Captain ordered. He picked up a microphone from his station. "All hands re-verify spaces for Condition-Alfa and the Rig-for-Space," he commanded over the 1MC intercom circuit.

The _Palomino_ swayed from side to side as its load was lightened by about fifty tons.

"Number Two 'Mech Bay Door indicates intermediate," the co-pilot declared. "Number Two 'Mech Bay Door indicates shut."

"Radar paints new contact Romeo Three-One at close range, bearing two-four-five, and turning left at a high rate," the sensor operator followed. "Range to target is opening to three thousand meters... Romeo Three-One classified as a Phoenix Hawk LAM..."

"Captain," the co-pilot said, clutching the phone. "Technician Grijalva reports from 'Mech Bay Two that Ranma Saotome's Phoenix Hawk LAM has left the ship."

Genma closed his eyes and tried not to think about what a stupid thing his son was doing, and all for a woman. Upon realizing the deeper implications of this, he began to smile.

That's my son! he thought proudly.

ANAMAX Corporation Red Butte Mine

Planet Capra, Capra System

The League of Five Nails

15 March 3025

The Phoenix Hawk LAM raced over the hard stone mesa towards Red Butte Mine. Distant flashes of light and columns of black smoke filled the sky in the direction of Capra City, and Ranma knew the battle for the planet was not even close to being over. Warnings over the enemy tac-nets confirmed his worst fears: that the Combine and the League were taking their slugging match in his direction. He would not have much time to look for the key - and that was assuming their hunch about the nameplate was correct.

He and Akane had scouted the Red Butte Mine from the Boomerang the first day on the planet, and he remembered where the junkyard was located. That old bastard, Chance G. King, or whatever his name really was, must have hidden the fifth key on one of the stripped vehicles, as anywhere else would have put it in danger of loss or discovery when the thing was moved or stripped for parts.

He figured that at the current rate of the battle, the enemy 'mechs would be near the mine within thirty minutes - not a lot of time to search when he still had to get to the mine himself.

He could see it ahead in his HUD, a large open pit mine that had once made the people of Capra wealthy and proud, and was now an eyesore and a bitter reminder of a faded glory.

The Phoenix Hawk circled the place once to make sure there were no enemies about. The mine was as deserted this morning as it had been the last time he looked. His radar warning receiver chirped a few times as stray beams of hostile microwave energy from the battle played across his hull.

He was still wet from the change back into a man, and he hadn't had time to don a flight suit. Akane's angry voice was still ringing in his ears, reproaching him for being a fool for wanting to do this by himself. When was she going to get it through her head that doing it by himself was the way he preferred things?

The Phoenix Hawk LAM dove for the open pit copper mine, barrel-rolling into Airmech mode and settling down upon the loose gravel floor with a roiling cloud of dust. He raised the canopy and hopped out, noting ruefully that the wreck of the truck had hurt him more than he was willing to admit. He would have to get checked out just as soon as Doctor Tofu was done patching up his own injuries.

The earthmovers and massive excavators were stripped wrecks. The only reason they weren't rusty carcasses was because it hardly ever rained here. He paced up and down the rows of dead machines, searching for the tag number of the machine where the Scout had supposedly hidden his key.

The sounds of the battle were closer now. The air shook with random explosions and sonic booms from aerofighters. He would have to cut and run pretty soon if the stupid thing didn't turn up, but he was not going to blow this. If the damn key was here, he was going to find it. It was stupid and stubborn of him, but he was never the type of guy to let something like common sense stop him from doing what he thought needed to be done.

He almost walked past the wrecked earthmover while thinking about how close the battle sounded. The dirty yellow machine was stripped almost to its metal bones. How hard could it be to find something on that?

Harder than it looked, apparently.

The damn thing had more nooks and crannies than he had thought possible, and he resigned himself to climbing inside the giant maw of the excavation shovel to the material bin. It was dark inside, and he cursed his lack of light. All he had to work with were the tiny pinpricks of sunlight that shone through popped rivet holes.

He bumped against something in the darkness, and he set his hands upon a military surplus canister of small arms ammunition. The drab olive metal can rattled when he shook it. He worked feverishly at the catches, and opened the lid to reveal an ancient and tattered Star League Defense Force flag and a small velvet jeweler's box.

The flag was stuffed into his battered mandarin blouse. He took the velvet box and opened it.

"Sonofabitch..." he murmured softly.

The fifth crypto key, a small red plaque of indeterminate material, lay quietly upon the satin cushion of the box, as it had for years.

He closed the box carefully and stuffed it into his shirt with the flag. It was time to bag ass and hope he could catch up with the _Palomino. _He figured they wouldn't go far once they realized he was gone, and that probably wouldn't take long after Akane squealed on him.

He squeezed out of the earthmover's maw and stamped across the dry desert floor of the copper mine to his Phoenix Hawk. Tracer fire arced over the rim of the open pit, and he knew that his time had just about run out.

The Phoenix Hawk LAM surged aloft on twin columns of blue flame. Ranma cleared the rim of the pit with a mind to transform to fighter mode and tear out of there at full overthrust. The sight of a BattleMaster, a Warhammer, a Griffin, and even a battered Locust duking it out with a company of League battlemechs left him still and speechless in his cockpit.

Akane grit her teeth as a volley of missiles slammed into her 'mech. She had ducked most of the barrage, but enough had connected to rattle her in her cockpit for a moment. Her gunsight glowed red in her HUD, and she decided to pay the offending Shadow Hawk back in kind.

Twin blasts of PPC fire caught the 'mech in the torso, and she followed up with her six-rack SRM launcher. The missiles burst against the reeling Shadow Hawk in bright sprays of flaming metal, pitching the hapless League battlemech over in a plume of black smoke.

What was taking Ranma so long? she wondered impatiently.

Her Warhammer advanced into the center of the enemy company's line, firing its PPCs in alternating blasts to keep them from overheating. It felt good to be back in combat as a participant rather than as a hapless victim. She only wished they had not foregone bearing the proud purple and white fishcake device of the Confederation on their 'mechs. Wouldn't that make a few heads swim when the League realized that even the Nerima Confederation was fighting on Capra!

Mister Saotome's Griffin stayed at their backs, bombarding the League troops with Long Range Missile and PPC fire. It was in keeping with the nature of the battlemech's armament to act as a support unit, but there was something about the man that made her wonder if he actually preferred it that way. How he could be Ranma's father was difficult to imagine sometimes. At least when they were away from the meal table...

Ryouga, the dear, was holding up an entire lance on his end. He was taking fire, but his massive BattleMaster, already scarred from fighting in the city, was still unbreached. A single barrage from his weapons array was enough to give any mechwarrior pause.

Happousai, on the other hand, was more of an annoyance. About the only thing he was good for was acting as a distraction. She watched him prance about the enemy's lines of fire, daring them to shoot, but hardly bothering to return fire. His LCT-1S variant had far more firepower than the standard Locust, but he seemed reluctant to use it.

"Come on, Ranma," she muttered to herself. They were doing an excellent job of keeping back the League forces from the copper pit, but all this destruction of valuable League property was bound to attract more attention.

A sudden chill came over her, and it was not a temperature transient from her cooling vest. Had the League or the Combine managed to sneak up on him from the other side of the pit while they were occupied?

"Mister Saotome!" she called over the tac-net.

His fat face, pinched by his ill-fitting neurohelmet, appeared on her commo display

"What is it?"

"Can you see Ranma yet?" she asked him.

Genma looked away from the camera for a moment, apparently checking his sensors.

"No. His Phoenix Hawk is still down there, but I don't see him."

"What's taking him so long?"

"Patience," Genma assured her. "This was your idea to come back for him. The least you can do is have a little faith."

"If we hadn't come back, he would have been overrun and captured by now, maybe even killed! You saw how those League 'mechs were headed straight for this place!"

"True," Genma admitted. The arrival of the _Palomino_ and its 'mech complement had probably saved his son's life. He'd be sure to remind the boy of that later, while he was busy chewing him out.

Akane was busy with a League Ostroc then, stifling their conversation. A timely bolt of charged particles from Mister Saotome, as well as her own considerable firepower, helped put an end to the distraction.

"I'm going down to see what's keeping him," she declared.

"Don't be an idiot!" Genma shot back. "Your Warhammer is too important up here on the ridge. Hold your position. The boy can take care of himself."

She switched him off and swore to herself.

"Hey, Macho Chick!"

It was Ranma's voice, and her radar confirmed an aerial target hovering above and behind her. She panned her periscope camera around to see his Phoenix Hawk LAM waving to her in airmech mode.

"Don't call me that!" she cried. It would figure that the first thing he said to her would be an insult!

"What if I call you 'Tomboy' instead?" he chirped.

"What if I break your nose?" she riposted.

"That's the spirit," he said to her, appearing on her display. "Guess what?"

"You're an idiot?" she asked him in a sweetly mocking tone.

"Close," he admitted. "You were right about the key."

"You've got it!?" she cried in amazement. "Oh, Ranma, you're absolutely wonderful!"

Ranma actually turned red on her display for a moment.

"Uh... I am?"

"Of course you are!" she said, beaming. "Any time when you're not being a total jerk, that is."

"Cut the chatter," Genma broke in. "Ranma, if you have what we came here, then there's no more reason to stay on Capra... Everyone fall back to the _Palomino_. Move it!"

The remaining League 'mechs were only too happy to see their enemies withdraw from the field, and let them go with only a little harrassing fire. The Palomino waited for them a kilometer away, hovering on its plasma drives for a speedy escape from the planet.

Akane noted a strange battlemech already waiting for them in the Number One Bay. It was a Hunchback, and it had seen better days.

"What gives?" she asked.

"It looks like Ryouga's pal was able to catch up with us after all," Ranma observed.

"Terrific," Ryouga groused over the tac-net.

"That wouldn't happen to be who I think it is, would it?" Happousai asked hesitantly.

"It would," Ryouga replied, his voice dripping with an unexpected dose of menace.

The Locust seemed to falter for a few steps before pressing on towards the _Palomino_.

"Hey, Tarou hates the old geezer too?" Ranma chirped. "Outstanding."

"I guess we could see our way towards getting this Tarou fellow off the planet," Genma agreed.

"It would be a very bad idea," Happousai disagreed. "Genma, I'm afraid I'm going to have to pull rank on you and order you to tell him to take a hike."

"B-But Master... You don't have any rank."

"I'll say," Ranma piped up. His Phoenix Hawk was in battlemech mode now. "No one invited you along on this mission in the first place."

"How dare you talk to your master that way?!"

"Enough!" Akane cried angrily. She pulled her 'mech up into the designated Bay. "If he's Ryouga's friend, then Tarou can come with us. The last thing we need is a riot."

Akane was waiting for the other mechwarriors as they stepped through the airtight door to the Palomino's staging area. The first to appear was Genma, who quickly doffed his cooling vest and helmet, and waited for Ranma.

When Ryouga stepped through, Akane leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him gently on the cheek.

"Thank you for everything, Ryouga. We're in your debt," she said to him sweetly. He burbled something incoherent about dying a happy man, and staggered away without stowing any of his gear.

She watched him go, thinking about how thoughtful he was, before realizing that he was headed down the wrong passageway. She decided to let it go for the moment. It was a small ship, really, and he couldn't get too far.

When she turned back to the door, she saw Ranma standing halfway through, frozen in dismay.

He must have seen me kiss Ryouga, she realized. Was he actually jealous?

"Don't mind me," he said, coming to life, and brushing past her to drop his neurohelmet in its padded case. "Make a hole for the Dispossessed freeloader, coming through."

"Ranma...!" she called after him. Damn him for being such a childish jerk!

Genma stopped him at the airtight door on the opposite end of the compartment. Ranma seemed to tense up, as if expecting the two of them to come to blows over his treatment of her. Instead, the elder Saotome held out his hand.

She watched Ranma relax a bit, then fish inside his ripped shirt for a small velvet box, which he handed without comment to his father. Genma looked at the box for a moment, grunted with satisfaction, and proceeded to the Flight Deck. Ranma started to follow him.

"Ranma," she called to him again. "Wait."

He stopped short.

"Yeah?"

"I just wanted to say thank you," she said softly.

He turned around, his face taut with emotion. Was he angry, or hurt? She couldn't decide.

"That's it?" he asked her tersely.

Her fists clenched at her sides. Who did this guy think he was? "Yeah, Ranma," she replied. "That's it. Sorry to bother you."

"Whatever." He turned back to the door and stepped through it. The soft padding of his slippers on the ladder rungs beyond the door was the last thing she heard before a cold chill ran down her spine.

Happousai was there, clinging to her bosom.

"Poor Akane," he muttered from the depths of her cleavage. "Spurned by an insensitive clod like Ranma... Oh, the fool! He doesn't know what he's missing..." he looked up at her as she trembled with anger and disgust. "Don't you worry, my dear, I'm willing to see you through this painful moment. Forget Ranma, and think only of m -"

The sound of an old man being forcefully stuffed into the padded caddy of a neurohelmet locker echoed throughout the ship.

By pure chance, Ryouga stepped into the _Palomino's_ Crew's Mess in time for a quick bite to eat before they lifted off for wherever it was that Akane and the others where going. They hadn't told him anything about why they were here, or where their next destination was, but he didn't care. They were leaving Capra, and they were taking him with them.

He took a few cookies from a plastic bin near the coffee mess by the door and munched on them. Pansuto Tarou sat at one of the tables, staring at a cup of tea. A shadow hung precipitously over his handsome features, and Ryouga stopped short of joining him at the table.

"Glad you made it," he offered to the _bishonen_ mechwarrior. "How did you get aboard?"

Tarou looked up at him, a thin smirk of contempt fading from his lips as he replied. "It was luck that saw me to the ship in time to get aboard," he began. "I told them that I was your comrade, and that Ranma Saotome had promised me a way off the planet. That and the fact that I wasn't shooting at them when I had the chance was good enough for the crew."

Ryouga nodded.

"Did you do what you needed to do at the starport?"

Tarou's eyes flashed in the fluorescent light of the Crew's Mess. "No. Not exactly." He looked away as the sounds of the ship's drives increased, and the Captain ordered the ship's complement to their launch stations. "But it wasn't that important anyway."

He collected his teacup as he rose, and brushed past Ryouga to dump the contents in the scullery sink.

"It will be good to get off this stinking dustball," he remarked to the fanged mercenary.

Ryouga nodded. A voice in the back of his mind told him the trip would not be a pleasant one so long as Pansuto Tarou was aboard, and did not ask him of his future plans in the hope that he would simply walk off the ship at their destination, and never return.

"Yes it will."

He then followed Tarou to their launch station.

NCDS _Palomino_ took its leave of Capra in a rush of superheated plasma. The ship was climbing at the maximum rate to avoid attack by patrols of aerofighters and GunShips, which were in abundance in low orbit. They had chosen their departure point wisely though, and were on the far side of the planet from the scenes of battle.

They achieved planetary escape velocity and began the long transit to the Jump Point. To avoid detection and pursuit, the Captain had opted for a much longer course, one that would keep their thrusters pointed away from Capra for most of the acceleration phase, and away from the Jump Point for the majority of the deceleration phase. As long as they could rendezvous with the _Dragonfly_ without incident, they were home free.

Near the former hiding place of

NCDS _Palomino_, Planet Capra,

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

15 March 3025

Tatewaki Kuno awoke to find himself tangled in a mass of scrub sage and bleeding from numerous scratches and cuts. The sounds of battle had stirred him to wakefulness, and he pulled himself painfully from the brush to realize that he was within a stone's throw of the League of Five Nails outer perimeter. On top of this insult, the cretin Ranma Saotome and his demon familiar father were gone, and they had taken Akane Tendo and the mysterious Pig-Tailed Girl with them.

Oh, the Pig-Tailed Girl! he exclaimed in his heart. What beauty! What ferocity! How boisterous, vigorous, and unashamed in all her glory! How he wished he knew her name!

Where had she been hiding? he wondered to himself. Perhaps it was more of Saotome's sorcery, and he had conjured her in his moment of need. Damn him to the Nine Hells for enslaving not one, but _two_ angels of light to his foul cause!

The thumping gait of a battlemech dispelled his conjecture on the origins of the Pig-Tailed Girl, and made him wary. It was a League of Five Nails Wolverine that began to investigate the wrecked truck, curse them all! The Gosunkugis had decided to strike him when he was unable to defend himself, and his blood began to boil at their inexhaustable supply of treachery.

He waited until the Wolverine had passed him by before taking his bearings and starting for the Furinkan Combine lines. Though his course would take him perilously close to the League Drop Zone, Tatewaki was unafraid. A spare battlemech awaited him aboard the _Oda Nobunaga_, and then he would mete out swift death to the hated League.

Things were going Hikaru Gosunkugi's way so far. His troops had driven within sight of the Combine Drop Zones, allowing him the luxury of staying well away from the battle. His Hermes II stood silent and still over him as he examined the latest maps of the action from a command car.

Whatever squabble had blown up between the Kuno siblings appeared to be over now, with Tatewaki the clear winner, as 'mechs and troops from the Blue Thunder and 5th Sword of Thunder regiments withdrew from the city and the former Drop Zone of the Black Rose Terror Regiment. They were pouring back towards his lines of attack against the Combine Drop Zones, and it was the League Army's task to intercept them in transit, before they could mass for a counterattack.

That part of the plan wasn't going as well. The Combine enjoyed a greater number of fighters to use against him, and they were returning from their pursuit of the Black Rose DropShips to attack him on the ground. He was having trouble ambushing the Combine 'mechs while they were around, and his own fighter assets were having some difficulty dealing with them.

There were also unsettling reports concerning the third regiment of Combine battlemechs. It was believed that the seasoned 9th Sword of Thunder was being held in reserve, and now that the League had stepped into the fray, they were to be dropped on top of his forces in much the same way as he had ambushed the Combine Drop Zone.

He was getting a sick feeling in his stomach that this time he had pushed his luck too far. The auguries he had cast prior to the drop had been unclear on this point, allowing him some leeway, he hoped, to avoid a disaster. If the 9th Sword of Thunder showed up, escape was the only option.

He looked around the busy command car, regretting that he had left his stock of pigeons aboard the DropShip. A quick sacrifice and divination of the birds' livers would tell him the best course to take. Until he could return to the ship, the data from the battle reports and the opinions of his staff were all he had to go on.

"My lord," his adjutant addressed him.

"What is it?" he asked, trying to sound imperious when he was really feeling ill from the drop and the persistant smell of cordite that permeated the car.

"We're getting reports of breakthroughs in our lines," the man said gravely. "From elements of the 5th Sword of Thunder and the Blue Thunder Regiments."

"How bad?"

"We will have to draw upon our reserves to plug the gaps, and that will delay our next push up the middle."

Hikaru understood. The 5th Sword of Thunder regiment was a crack unit, and thanks to Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thunder regiment was almost fanatical in its zeal. His own troops had neither the morale nor the experience to hold against such a superior breed of mechwarrior. It was one of the reasons he had despised direct confrontation...

The urge to vomit became compelling to him.

He realized his error at last, and it was one of pride. He had forsaken his own wise estimates of the League Army's fighting ability, and had assumed that because the League Navy was hungry for victory and had provided it, that the Army would do the same. He was a fool for falling into the trap of overconfidence!

"Order a full retreat to the Drop Zones," he said to the man. "Notify the DropShip Commanders and the Air Wing of our imminent withdrawal from the planet."

"My lord?"

Hikaru tried not to get sick all over the maps. His stomach was hurting even more. "Do it while we can still save the troops," he said to him. "We have chosen the wrong battle to fight."

"A-At once, my lord."

Hikaru stepped out of the command car and emptied his stomach upon the sandy ground of Capra. His parents were going to hear about this, and demand a full explanation for his retreat. If he allowed the battle to continue, the Combine troops would certainly rout his forces and massacre them, but it would justify the retreat in any event. While that would take some of the heat off him in the eyes of his parents, it would leave the League Army even weaker than it already was.

He needed them at their best, not beaten and demoralized by a massacre. An organized retreat now, while there was still order and discipline, would not hurt their morale as much as a desperate pell-mell dash for the DropShips with the Combine's forces nipping at their heels. He could even claim a moral victory in getting the Combine to withdraw completely from the city to deal with his attack.

He heaved once more, and nothing came up. The desire to continue heaving was strong in him though, and he leaned against the warm armor plating of the command car, wishing it were cool and soothing to the touch.

He should have known never to set foot on this miserable planet.

Tatewaki Kuno watched angrily as the DropShips of the League of Five Nails soared aloft on their plasma drives to escape his wrath. The heat of the desert sun was nothing compared to the fierce rage that burned in his heart. Like vipers the League had come, striking at his heels from hiding, and then fleeing before retaliation could come.

He shook his fist at the DropShips, cursing them one and all. Though they had left him victorious on the field of honor, he felt cheated of his rightful triumph. His hand was stayed, and others had assumed the task of driving out the enemy. It did not occur to him that the League's arrival had spared him from the ignoble fate of being brought before the Grand Duke of the Confederation as a hostage and a prisoner.

All he knew was that Akane Tendo had been in his grasp, and that the cretinous Saotomes had been his prisoners awaiting lingering deaths. Now they had escaped, and in the process had shamed and humiliated him. Though Capra was his, the only victory of this day was the capture of his traitorous sister.

Sweatdrops cascaded down his nose from his brow. The sweat was tinged pink with blood from his injuries, which, though minor, ached for attention. Misery swept over him, though he was a Kuno, and did not sink into the mire of self-pity.

NCDS _Palomino_

16 March 3025

Though he would never admit it, Happousai feared only one thing in his life, and that was Pansuto Tarou. The _bishonen_ mechwarrior was a pansy in his human form, but in his monstrous Jusenkyo body he knew that Tarou was not to be trifled with. His keen senses had detected this from the very moment Tarou had revealed himself in his barracks room almost two months previous.

His instincts had never failed him before. That was why he had run rather than face him. It was why he was currently making every effort to avoid the man. It was just a matter of time before the psychopath learned of his presence on the ship, but Happousai intended to use that time to come up with an adequate countermeasure for him.

In a way, he hoped that the eventual confrontation would be very public. It would give him the moral support of the crew when he sent Tarou tumbling out of an airlock. No one would question his disposal of such a monster.

He climbed down the ladder into Number Four 'Mech Bay thinking happy thoughts of killing Tarou. As if to remind him that the odds of being discovered were completely stacked against him, at the bottom of the ladder was Ryouga Hibiki.

He didn't know what to make of Ryouga. The man seemed smitten with Akane, but who could blame him for it? While he was Tarou's companion, there seemed to be no love lost between the two. Would he tell the guy just to watch him explode?

The fanged mechwarrior took note of his arrival, and his face grew taut. His promise to Akane was known to Happousai, and he planned on using it for all it was worth.

"How's it going, Ryouga?" he asked spritely.

Ryouga ignored him.

"I said, how's it going?" he pressed.

Ryouga realized that Happousai would keep pestering him all day if he didn't respond, and relented.

"Everything was fine until you showed up," he grumbled.

"I just want you to know that there's no hard feelings between us," Happousai said magnanimously. "I've put that recent incident in the desert behind me."

"Terrific," Ryouga spat. "It's too bad that I have to live with what you did to me for the rest of my life."

Happousai frowned. "Still harping on that Commonwealth contract, eh? Don't waste your time. I didn't have anything to do with what happened to you."

"That's not what I've heard," Ryouga returned. "According to Tarou, you set us up."

Happousai snorted contempt. "And you believed him? That clown is three cans short of a six-pack. I'm sure even _you_ have noticed that by now."

"Well..." Doubt formed in Ryouga's mind.

Happousai pressed on before Ryouga could think things through. "The fact is that all I did was to set you up with a sweet contract with the Commonwealth. Whatever happened to you after that was just dumb luck, not some crazy conspiracy."

Ryouga frowned. "What about all those tests they gave us?"

"They were testing you for compatibility for a little breeding project the Joketsuzoku Matriarch has going," Happousai supplied for him. "They wanted some outside talent to beef up their gene pool."

"Huh?"

"Did I stutter?" Happousai carped. "They wanted to know if a little Hibiki blood would be just the ticket towards creating a master race."

"And the Jusenkyo Labs? What were they, some kind of amusement park?"

"Calm yourself, Ryouga," Happousai replied. "That had nothing to do with it. If you were found to be a viable candidate, they would have used you in the traditional manner. The Jusenkyo Labs wouldn't even enter into the picture."

Ryouga's brow furrowed.

"What do you mean, 'the traditional manner'?"

Happousai affected a dreamy look. "Why, a week or so of heaven, Ryouga, m'boy... A new girl each night, and each one lab certified to be fertile soil, ripe for your mighty seed."

Ryouga flushed beet red. "W-What?" he stammered. "A-Are you s-s-saying that they would...? With me...?"

"You don't get laid much, do you, kid," Happousai observed. What was with this younger generation? If they didn't loosen up, and soon, there wouldn't be anyone around to replace them!

Ryouga ignored the slight, still reeling with the idea of what the Commonwealth had planned for him, and what he had apparently missed.

"B-But why me?" he asked.

Happousai looked him up and down. "What kind of question is that? A husky stud like you? They couldn't get enough. You'd have to beat those Amazon girls with a stick. Literally."

Ryouga took this appraisal of his manliness in stride. It was one of those issues that had never bothered him - mostly because he tried not to think about sex very often. It gave him nosebleeds.

"But what happens... you know... after?"

Happousai shrugged. "You become a daddy about six or seven times over, and when your contract expires, you go on about your merry way as if nothing happened."

Ryouga's nose was beginning to itch with an impending nosebleed at the prospect of impregnating six or seven different women.

"But I couldn't just leave them behind..." he said at length.

"You think those crazy Amazons will let you have anything to do with those kids of yours?" Happousai cackled. "Ha! When I said they'd use you, I meant that they'd _use_ you. To them you were nothing but a tool for adjusting their breeding program. The only reason they don't collect your sperm in a more clinical manner is because getting it the other way is supposed to make you more amenable to and less suspicious of the process."

He left Ryouga with those thoughts for several minutes.

"But talking about your prospects as a ranch stud isn't why I'm here," he told him. "I'm here to talk about Tarou."

Ryouga blinked twice, coming back to reality. "Don't think for a moment that you can convince him of anything."

"I won't even bother," Happousai admitted. "All I want are assurances from you that you won't jump in on his side if anything happens between us."

"Why shouldn't I?" Ryouga challenged.

"Because I'd like to think that you're smarter than that," Happousai replied. He stroked at his wispy little moustache. "Tarou's a basket case. You know it now, and I knew it before he even left for Lightoller. Pretty soon, Akane and the others will figure it out as well." He watched Ryouga's eyes when he said her name, and the response was as he had hoped. "Now riddle me this, Ryouga, m'boy: whose side do you want to be on when everyone else is against Tarou?"

Ryouga closed his eyes.

"I see your point."

"Good," Happousai purred. "I knew I could count on you to make the right decision. Now where can I find him?"

"You don't know?"

"I've been staying out of sight so far on this trip. I'm sure you can imagine why."

Ryouga nodded. "I guess so. All the normal bunks are taken, so they put him in a cot in the forward storeroom. I haven't seen him since we left, so I guess he's just sulking there or something."

"Where did they put you? The same place?"

Ryouga gestured to a folding cot set up next to the foot of his BattleMaster. "They have me sleeping here for now."

Happousai nodded, at once spying Akari Unryuu. The young senior tech swept back her pink-streaked black hair from her shoulders and put it up into netting to keep it out of her work. Ryouga followed his eyes over to her and blushed.

"I'll trade you," he offered Ryouga.

Ryouga shook his head slowly. Akari was preparing to weld something, presumably armor plate, onto Happousai's damaged Locust. Somehow she made the process of preheating the slabs of aligned crystal steel and preparing them for welding look graceful.

"Uh, that's okay. I'm comfortable here," he replied.

Happousai nudged his ribs. "Good luck," he cackled, knowing that Ryouga Hibiki would need a great deal of it concerning women. Like Ranma, he was his own worst enemy in that regard.

Furinkan Combine DropShip Oda Nobunaga

Transitting to the Capra System Zenith Jump Point

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

17 March 3025

The soft sigh and hiss of a respirator filled the small compartment; the sound was an audible reminder to Tatewaki Kuno of the fragile woman who clung to life by a thread. Kodachi had been unconscious since her capture - one of the reasons why she and her guards had offered little resistance once the Blue Thunder Regiment had cornered them. The ragged 10mm bullet which punctured her cooling vest had done her one better; entering her belly, perforating her intestines, bruising her liver, and lodging in her diaphragm dangerously close to a major artery.

The surgeons had been able to do little for her other than stabilize her deteriorating condition. Kodachi had expressed a recessive gene that ran through the Kuno Family lineage, and as such possessed the rare B-Negative blood type. What little of the stock that was on hand at the Regimental M.A.S.H. was just enough to make up for her internal hemorrhages and see her to the JumpShips. Of the synthetic blood that had once been the godsend of Star League medicine, there remained only rumors and legends. If she survived the trip, there would be sufficient reserves of the rare blood on board the flagship to perform the life-saving surgery she so desperately needed.

The _Oda Nobunaga's_ acceleration towards the Zenith Point was only one-half gravity. Using any more thrust than that would run the risk of more internal damage - likely killing her. The main engines' usual roar was muted and distant in his ears, and felt more than heard.

Tatewaki regarded his sister in the darkness. Because of her, he was unable to continue the pursuit of the cursed Saotomes. It did not occur to him that he could have sent his sister to the Jump Point aboard another ship, nor would he have permitted it if the idea had been mentioned to him. Kodachi, though she was a traitoress and a mutineer, was still a Kuno. She would not spend what might prove to be her final moments in the company of the common born.

Another thought occurred to him as he watched over her. Kodachi was helpless before him. He studied the fine tracery of sensors that studded her naked and bandaged body, the tubes that drained the leaking blood and fluids from her abdominal cavity, the intravenous drips in the backs of her hands that fought to overcome those losses and maintain her blood pressure. The respirator hissed and sighed beside her bed, breathing for her, filling her with life-giving oxygen through the clear plastic hose, fogged with condensation, that snaked down her throat.

It would be a simple matter for him to switch the respirator off for a few moments. The proximity of the bullet to a major artery would prevent the doctors on board from resuscitating her with a violent procedure like CPR, and there wasn't enough of her rare blood on board for them to risk cracking her chest to perform a direct massage. They would be forced to watch, helpless, as she slipped away from them.

He leaned forward in his folding chair, eyeing the lamp that glowed behind the red plastic jewel of the power button. The nurse had carelessly left the master key in the unit's safety lock, allowing him to switch the respirator off with a touch. Though none would dare presume that he had murdered his sister in cold blood, he would claim to have brushed against the button by accident.

His finger hovered over the button as he watched the slow rise and fall of his sister's chest in time to the respirator's hiss. Her face was pale yet proud in the cold glow of starlight from the bulkhead window. How like a Kuno to carry herself with such a noble mien when so near to death, he thought absently.

The thought of ending her life did not warm him - as he believed it should have. Somewhere deep down within him, beyond the walls of jealousy and resentment he had raised between them over the years, he truly loved his sister. Though she had betrayed him and sought to murder his true love, he could not bring himself to kill her in this fashion. If it was his destiny to end Kodachi's life, then it would be upon the field of battle, or not at all.

His finger came away from the power button, and he sat back in his chair to contemplate matters. Her life was still in great peril, even if he had curbed his fratricidal urges. If she died in transit, or in surgery, then it was the will of the gods. He would mourn her in the proper manner, he would even avenge her if possible, but his plans for conquest would go forward without any more fear of her interference. If she survived, then he would have the perfect excuse in her need for quiet recuperation for sending her far away to a convent in the Periphery. That she would remain in the convent long after her recovery was a foregone conclusion.

He rose from his chair, feeling at last the weariness that came with leading the Capra campaign. Turning first to ensure that no one was there to see it, he removed the master key from the respirator's control lock - then leaned over his sister's pale form and tenderly kissed her brow.

He stepped out of the small room which served as the DropShip's Intensive Care unit. The lone nurse on duty bowed deferentially to him as he passed. He set the master key for Kodachi's life support loudly on her desk as he did so.

There was only one thing he could do now that the League was fleeing the system, and that was to continue with his plans to invade and conquer the Capella System. Once he had the Grand Duke under his thumb, a great many things became possible. Akane would be his, and the fates of the Saotomes would be sealed. The Confederation would become the springboard for his conquest of the League of Five Nails, and from there, the entire Inner Sphere would be his.

A new Star League would be born, rising up from the ashes of three centuries of nearly endless war. He and Akane would rule over hundreds of human worlds, and a golden age of rediscovery would take place. The lives of the peasants would no longer be short brutish affairs, allowing the stagnant arts to flourish. Tatewaki looked forward to that boon of conquest in particular, as he fancied himself a patron of the arts.

He felt the setbacks he had suffered on this ill-fortuned campaign against Capra were behind him now. His most potent enemy, his sister, was neutralized. The League had bloodied his nose with their cowardly attacks, but had fled the field as soon as he rose up to oppose them. The fools of Nerima would be expected to put up a fight, but Tatewaki was prepared for that. He had braved the trials and travails of his shining path to victory, and had not strayed.

There was only one final matter to attend to before he could focus all of his energies towards the Nerima campaign.

A military police lieutenant colonel snapped to attention as he entered his office near the bow of the giant Overlord Class DropShip. The colonel was in charge of the prisoners of war they had collected on Capra, most of whom were members of his sister's regiment. He saluted and presented a stack of dossiers for his lord.

"The dossiers you requested, your Highness."

Tatewaki frowned. "I requested no such thing," he said to the man, who paled. "My staff feels perhaps that I have time for such things. I would prefer to keep the matter simple."

"What are your orders then, my lord prince?"

Tatewaki sat behind his desk and steepled his fingers together.

"As I said, they are simple. Execute all of my sister's regimental staff officers, all surviving battalion commanders and their executive officers, and all company commanders and their executive officers. The rest shall be placed in correctional custody pending evaluation of their loyalty to the Furinkan Combine. Those who fail the evaluation shall be drummed out, those who pass shall be returned to service with no further sanctions against their careers."

"Execute them, my lord prince?" the Lieutenant Colonel asked in a quavering voice.

"Execute them," Tatewaki confirmed.

"I beg for your pardon, my lord prince, but are we to execute them with no trial?"

Tatewaki's patience for the man dwindled remarkably.

"Put them to death immediately," he told him coldly. "Their hand in my sister's treason is clear by their rank and by their failure to act against her. I would order the entire regiment liquidated were it not for my need for crack troops in the months ahead, and so I choose to hold nothing against the enlisted troops and junior officers who followed, in their ignorance, the treasonous orders of my sister and her staff. The Black Rose Regiment is formally dissolved." He paused to let this sink in. "Furthermore, I see no need to waste limited time and resources in preparing for lengthy trials and appeals... I commanded thee to execute them, Colonel. See that you do, and see that their bodies are made available for display as an example of the price of treason."

The military police officer snapped to attention.

"As you command, your Highness!"

"Dismissed."

He left the room with as much speed and grace as was possible in one-half gravity.

Tatewaki rubbed his chin thoughtfully as the man departed, deciding on a stiff drink to steady his nerves and help him relax. Ordering so many Combine officers, several of them aristocrats and one the son of a daimyo, put to death was nearly anathema to him. Treason however, was even more despised than the sin and waste of executing them without trial. He took comfort in the fact that even the Tokugawa Shogunate had been forced from time to time to execute ranking nobles and their retainers for the sake of the Empire.

He belted down a shot of sake from a warming bottle he kept in his desk, and poured himself another before punching a button on his desk.

"Send Sasuke in," he demanded.

"At once, my lord prince!" the voice of his secretary responded.

The door opened, and Sasuke walked in. The little ninja fell upon his face in supplication to his lord.

"Rise, Sasuke," he commanded him.

Sasuke stood before the desk, his eyes averted.

"You ponder why it is that thou art not put to death like thy fellows, nor that thou art set in chains?" Tatewaki asked him.

"If I am not put to death nor set in chains, it is only because my lord has some service that is required of me before my just punishment is handed down," Sasuke answered carefully.

"Indeed," Tatewaki replied solemnly. "Thy service to my sister is at an end. Henceforth thou shalt serve me until such time as the price of thy crimes against me must be paid in full."

Sasuke again fell upon his face.

"I shall."

"You may go, Sasuke," Tatewaki told him. "I have no immediate use for you."

"At once, my lord!"

Tatewaki watched him go as well, knowing that soon he would have to put the ninja to death. He was too beholden to Kodachi to be trusted while she lived. Only while she remained an invalid was he of any use to him.

JCDS _Jade Lotus_

in transit to the Capra System Nadir Jump Point

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

18 March 3025

Shampoo looked down at the crisp piece of hardcopy the _Jade Lotus'_ Communications Section had just decrypted for her. It was an HPG message from Jusenkyo, in reply to her preliminary report concerning the debacle at Capra.

WE ACKNOWLEDGE THE DEATH OF COMMANDER KIMA IN ACTION ON THE PLANET

CAPRA IN THE CAPRA SYSTEM ON OR ABOUT THE 15TH OF MARCH, 3025.

COMMAND OF THE MISSION SHALL BE CONFERRED UPON MECHWARRIOR SHAMPOO,

WHO SHALL BE BREVETED TO THE RANK OF MECHWARRIOR MAJOR, EFFECTIVE

IMMEDIATELY UPON RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE.

She flushed with surprise at the news of her promotion. It was unexpected, as was her retention of command. She sensed her great-grandmother's hand in these affairs, and felt the weight of responsibility settle even heavier upon her shoulders. Command was something she aspired to, but this was too soon!

The rest of the message was for her specifically.

YOU ARE DIRECTED TO RENDEZVOUS VIA JUMPSHIP WITH COMMONWEALTH ASSETS

IN THE TAU CETI STAR SYSTEM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE FOR RESUPPLY, TRANSFER

OF COMMANDER KIMA'S REMAINS, AND FORMAL MISSION DEBRIEFING.

END MSG 2503171917Z,

MECHGEN. HERB SENDS

She didn't like the sound of the phrase 'formal mission debriefing.' It sounded like the Elders were already pulling the plug on the mission, and her command and brevet rank were merely formalities prior to the end. She knew a reckoning with the Elders would follow shortly, and that the outcome would not be in her favor. She liked the fact that it had been sent by General Herb even less.

Was Herb going to preside over the debriefing? If so, that sounded like the handiwork of Elder Peony or Oolong, who were both enemies of her great-grandmother, and then her career as mission commander really would be over.

She set the message down, knowing that the eyes of the compartment were upon her. Her assumption of command had not gone over well among her peers, and she had discovered enemies where she believed none had existed before. Chief among their complaints with her was her refusal to punish Mousse for his supposedly usurping command of the battlemech company in Kima's name.

The only possible witnesses to Kima's act of delegating the authority to Mousse were Mousse himself, Commander Kima, and her driver, Joyful Cloud. Unfortunately, both Kima and Joyful Cloud were dead, and so could not be questioned as to the validity of Mousse's claims. Shampoo had the authority as Commander of the Mission to confer non-judicial punishment upon her subordinates, but the truth of the matter was that she knew Kima, and she believed Mousse.

What her battle-sisters really wanted was a salve to their female pride. Mousse was a man, and though his authority had (allegedly) derived from a woman, he had treated the others in the company with what they considered disrespect. Shampoo saw no overt disrespect. As commander of the battlemech company, Mousse was not required to bow and scrape to them, and it was within his power as a commander during the heat of battle to administer on the spot discipline to subordinates who failed to follow his orders, up to and including a sentence of death.

Shampoo was no lawyer, but the arguments against Mousse seemed groundless. She was also beginning to realize that logic and rational thought had little sway over minds when emotion was at work. Mousse had wounded their pride, so Mousse must pay. Anyone who stood before that reckoning became an enemy. She thought it was particularly mortifying that the two most vocal of her battle-sisters howling for Mousse's head were the two Recon Lance mechwarriors who had shamefully abandoned him to die in the city.

As she looked around the compartment at the other women, she wondered how quickly they would sell her out to General Herb. They probably wouldn't take very long, she decided.

She cleared her throat to speak.

"Effective immediately, formal command of the mission has been conferred upon me," she told them. A copy of the first part of the message would be posted shortly where the crew could read it. "As has the brevet rank of Mechwarrior Major. Our orders are to rendezvous with the JumpShip and then proceed to the Tau Ceti system as soon as possible."

She waited for one of them to demand disciplinary action against Mousse. As an interim commander of dubious authority, she had enjoyed an excuse to avoid action against him. Now as formal commander, she could freely dispense the maximum justice permissable to her by clan law.

So far, none of them stepped forward. It might have meant something that Mousse was in the compartment with them, alone and silent. Her respect for her fellow mechwarriors was nearly gone if they were too cowardly to speak out against him in a place where he could defend himself.

She cast her eyes to the twins, Pink and Link. They were her only supporters, albeit lukewarm ones. The bonds of family were at least strong enough for them to refrain from stabbing her in the back. The two Recon Lance pilots remained silent, though she could see their hate smoldering behind their expressionless faces, waiting for the opportunity to burst into vengeful flame.

NCDS _Palomino_,

In transit to the Capra System Zenith Jump Point

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

18 March 3025

Akane Tendo looked at the small metal plaque that was the fifth crypto key to unlock the secrets of Ryuugenzawa. The metal was smooth and unmarred, and it was difficult for her to imagine it being several centuries old. She ran her fingers over it once more before handing it back to Mister Saotome, who slipped it into the chain he wore around his neck.

They needed just one more key to decrypt the data disc with the coordinates for Ryuugenzawa. Mister Saotome knew where the sixth key was to be found, or at least he claimed to know. He was being very tight-lipped about the whole affair, and would not discuss it with anyone.

His silence worried her. Was he just bluffing them about the sixth key? Not even Ranma knew the truth.

She looked around the crowded mess deck for him, but he was nowhere to be found. He had been avoiding her ever since their departure from the planet. He hadn't even showed up for regular meals, apparently preferring to filch something from the galley when no one was around.

"What is it, Akane?" Doctor Tofu asked her as she thought about it. He was managing well on crutches, and refused to let something like a broken ankle stop him from his rounds of the ship. "Are you looking for Ranma?"

She looked up at his handsome face and sighed. Why couldn't her life be a little less complicated, and a little more romantic with him?

"Have you seen him?" she asked in a quiet voice.

He almost didn't hear her over the sounds of conversation and the noise of the _Palomino's_ main drives.

"I saw him heading aft about twenty minutes ago," Tofu replied. He gave her a wink. "He looked a little out of sorts. Perhaps you should go see him."

"Maybe," she replied. Tofu eased past her and took a seat near Genma, and the _Palomino's_ captain.

She finished her tea in one gulp, and set the empty cup on the counter of the closet-sized scullery. Ryouga watched her go, his eyes warm and hopeful as they regarded her. She wondered how man as nice as him could nurse such a grudge for Ranma for so long, and then realized with a brief snort of laughter that this was Ranma she was talking about, after all.

On a Leopard Class DropShip like the _Palomino_, the term 'aft' meant only one thing: the engineering spaces. She couldn't imagine why he would want to go back there, other than for privacy's sake. Only one member of the crew spent any time back there during normal cruising, and that was only for about ten minutes of every hour to spot-check the spaces' mostly automated equipment.

She pulled herself through an airtight door that ran along the ship's centerline beneath the dorsal mounted weapons and sensor bays. It was a long, dimly lit passageway, marked only by the faded stencils of hull frame numbers on the bulkheads, and two additional airtight doors. There was a slight pressure differential between doors, so that each time one opened, a cool breeze would catch in her hair and whistle past her ears. The smells of old flaking paint and of the amine they used to scrub the carbon-dioxide out of the atmosphere were especially strong in the passageway.

The last airtight door led into the Engineering Spaces. A faded yellow and magenta sign over the portal warned her of the Radiation Area beyond, and that she was required to wear personal dosimetry to enter. She had been around nuclear reactors most of her life, and the Thermo-Luminescent Dosimeter she wore was an old companion. Her hand came down reflexively to the spot on her belt where it rested, and she felt the cool hard plastic tube right where it should have been.

Engine Room Upper Level was where the ship's Engineer stood his watch at Battlestations, and where the on-watch Rover went on his hourly rounds to check on the systems. There was a small control room set off to the side of the airtight door, and inside was dense bank of instrumentation. All of the dials, meters, and displays were repeated on the Flight Deck for redundency's sake.

There was no sign of Ranma in the Control Room.

The compartment was mostly full of electrical panels that controlled the distribution of the ship's powerplant output to the computers, sensors, life-support, hotel loads, and weapons that gave the _Palomino_ its life. It was stark and clean, with everything painted haze grey or pastel green, and the linoleum floor squeaked beneath her feet.

He wasn't on this level, and knowing him, he was probably sulking below, where it was noisy and dark.

Akane had to search for the ladder down to Middle Level, as she spent little time aft on a Leopard Class, and didn't remember immediately where it could be found. She took the steeply sloping ladder facing outward, away from the rungs, the way the ship's crew often did.

Ranma was there, sitting between two large centrifugal pumps that circulated the ship's Air Conditioning Chilled Water. Condensed moisture on the cold pump casings glistened under the fluorescent lights. Because there was machinery here, the linoleum flooring had given way to rubberized diamond-deck, which masked her approach.

She paused, close enough to reach out and touch him. His back was turned to her, and his stillness made her wonder if he was asleep. Her heart began to pound, and she took a moment to convince herself why she was here.

She knew the reason, of course, but she wanted to hear the details of it from him. Had he really meant what he said to Kuno? Had he really meant what he said about being her fiance, and that he would hunt down anyone who harmed her to the ends of the universe? His voice had carried with it the timbre of a man who was deadly serious, but was that really how he felt about her?

By any other indication, Ranma could not have cared less about her. He was always insulting her and making her feel inferior to him. He was arrogant and thoughtless and rude - and yet, at the same time he had been ready on several occasions to die a horrible death for her sake. He had risked his neck getting the fifth key for her, when he had sworn up and down not thirty minutes before that it was suicide to make the attempt.

She watched him for a moment in troubled silence, trying desperately to understand him. He was such a tangled mess of contradictions that she wasn't sure she could ever find the crypto keys necessary to decipher his feelings for her. She wanted to slap him silly sometimes for being so aggravating, and at other times some half-realized part of her wanted to catch him up in her arms and never let him go.

Her hand reached out to touch him, stopping just short of his shoulder when her nerve failed her. She withdrew her hand, thinking to herself that she had just been spared a great deal of emotional damage in doing so. Ranma may have cared for her in his own bewildering way, but not in any way that meant something more between them. He was her protector, though perhaps a bit more than a formal bodyguard, and he was honor-bound to uphold the engagement, but beyond that he was nothing more. It was foolish of her to expect anything else from him.

She started quietly for the ladder.

"Hey, Akane," he said to her.

She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of his voice.

"How did you know it was me?" she managed, turning around to look at him. He remained where he was, facing the air scrubbers, and not her.

"The rover's already been by this hour," he replied. "Who else would it be?"

"So you've been expecting me?" She wasn't fond of the idea of being so obvious to him.

"Not really. When I heard you coming down the ladder, I figured it was either you or Pop. When you didn't chew my ass for leaving the ship to go look for the crypto key, I knew it was you."

"Oh."

He turned around. "Have a seat."

She looked at him for a moment, then at her surroundings.

"Where?"

He waved his hand about. "Anywhere, I guess. The deck's cleaner than it looks, and that chilled water pipe is insulated."

She decided to sit on the chilled water pipe. For one thing it would put her slightly higher than him. The pipe's insulation was cool to the touch, and she could feel the water coursing through it from the nearby pump.

"You want to tell me what's bothering you?" she asked him.

"Something's bothering me?" he replied.

"Don't play dumb, Ranma. You've been like a ghost on this ship ever since we left. You never eat with the rest of us, and you don't even spar with your father like you used to."

She paused for a moment before she said what she felt was the problem. "Is it because I gave Ryouga a peck on the cheek the other day?"

He winced slightly at this, and she knew that if it wasn't the only reason why he was doing this, then it was a major one.

"No," he spat. "Why would I care about who you kiss?"

Her brow furrowed slightly at this. "So you weren't jealous?"

Ranma looked away. "What do I have to be jealous about?"

He was being even more impossible than she had expected! "Just forget I mentioned it then," she told him.

"I already have."

Neither of them spoke for several minutes. The whir of the pumps and the tinkling noises from the lithium bromide air conditioning plants were rough counterpoints to the distant roar of the main engines pushing them towards the jump point. Ranma seemed content to sit and stare off into space - forever if necessary, leaving her to finally concede. She reopened the conversation with, "I get the feeling you come here often."

He took the bait. "Pop and I used to stow away on ships a lot. The engineering spaces are the best places to hide. No one likes to spend a lot of time here." He looked around at the pumps and other machines for a moment. "I guess I'm just used to the noise."

She nodded patiently at his words, though she could not easily imagine the kind of life that he had led before coming to Nerima. Was she really that out of touch with the rest of the Inner Sphere, or was he really that different from her?

"I'm not sure what to say to that," she admitted to him.

"You don't have to say anything," he responded. "I can see why you don't understand where I come from most of the time."

"It's hard sometimes," she conceded. She looked closely at him then, and the brilliant colors of his eyes were oddly washed out by the abundance of pastel green paint that covered the bulkheads and the piping. "I know I didn't treat you very well when you first came to Nerima."

"That's an understatement," he snorted. "The only one who was worse to me was Nabiki."

His words stung, but she took them in stride. Kasumi would have been proud of her.

"I was upset about the engagement," she replied. "And I was scared."

He looked surprised by this.

"You? Scared?"

"Wouldn't you be?" she asked him. "Getting engaged to marry some strange guy you've never met, and who happens to turn into a girl whenever he gets wet? Wondering if he's going to take away the one thing you've worked for since you were little?"

Ranma thought about this for a moment. "I guess so."

"I'm over the Jusenkyo thing," she went on, feeling much better about everything between them now that she was actually talking to him about it. "It's still pretty weird, but I know that even as a girl you're still Ranma."

He nodded slowly. "What's the other thing?"

"Command of the 1st Nerima Guards. It's tradition that the Duke or his heir lead the regiment. Ever since Kasumi put away her neurohelmet, the duty has fallen to me." That was easy enough to say to him, she mused, but now comes the hard part. "I've always wanted it, and if I... Well... marry you... then you become the Grand Duke when Dad retires. The 1st Nerima becomes yours if you wanted it."

"I don't want it," he said to her. "I wouldn't keep it from you, either. I didn't want any of this marriage business, and I'm not after your family's money or any of that other junk."

She regarded him for a moment, and knew that what he had told was true. He would not keep something as important as that from her. He had already demonstrated his lack of avarice by his refusal to accept the Phoenix Hawk LAM as a gift, but rather as a loan to be returned as soon as he was finished with it.

"You know, I really do want to get to know you better, Ranma," she said to him at length. "But you make it so hard to get closer to you."

Her heart began to pound, and she steeled herself for what she had to say to him. If she said nothing else to him for the rest of the trip back to the JumpShip, this had to be it.

"Sometimes I don't know if you're just being defensive with your insults, or if you really do hate me... One minute you're risking your life for me, and the next you're calling me names and treating me like I'm useless."

He turned away, perhaps from shyness, or perhaps out of guilt - she could not tell.

"I don't hate you, Akane," he said quietly.

"Then what is it?"

He looked even more uncomfortable with the subject than her. "It's... Well... Aw hell, Akane, I don't know... It's kinda complicated... I just know that I don't hate you, I never have, and I never will, okay?"

"Okay," she hedged. "I think I understand."

"You don't understand!" he yelled suddenly, jumping to his feet. His reaction was more than a shock, it was frightening. "You _can't_ understand because even _I_ don't understand! Got it?"

She wanted to tell him that no, she didn't 'get it,' but held her tongue. He was getting back into his defensive mode again. The insults were just around the corner.

"I just want to ask you one more thing," she said calmly. Her subdued, almost passive demeanor calmed him slightly. "You don't have to answer it if you don't want to, and I'll leave you alone after this no matter what you choose or don't choose to say."

He settled back down on the deck, his nostrils flaring in agitation.

"Yeah?"

She focused her reserve of inner strength first.

"I just wanted to know if what you said to Kuno out there on the highway was true... About being my fiance and all..."

He looked away.

"According to your dad and mine, yeah, it's true."

"That's not what I meant!" she cried, her voice trembling between anger and misery. "I should have known better than to expect a real answer from you, Ranma Saotome, but I'm as good as my word."

She stood and jumped across the piping to the ladder, leaving a single teardrop lost among the many beads of condensation on the chilled water pump casing. The sounds of her racing up the ladder and out through the airtight door above melted away into the white noise of the compartment, leaving him as she had found him: alone.

Akane was long gone when Ranma finally realized what she had really been asking, and now it was too late to say anything to her.

Nerima Confederation JumpShip _Dragonfly_

Near the Capra System Zenith Jump Point

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

19 March 3025

"Captain Ninomiya?"

Captain Hinako Ninomiya of the Nerima Confederation Navy looked up from her station - where she was busy writing her Night Orders for the evening - to the Communications Section.

"What is it?" she asked the man on duty.

"I'm receiving a burst transmission from the _Palomino_," he replied.

"Finally," Hinako sighed with relief. Ever since the Furinkan Combine had landed troops on Capra, she had been reduced to a nervous wreck waiting to hear from Commander Saotome. She hopped from her seat and floated over

to the man. The condition of free fall on the Bridge allowed her to look over his shoulder even in her currently diminutive body. "Can you get a Direction Finder fix on them?"

"No, ma'am," he replied. "There was only one burst. I have a bearing estimate only."

"Good," she grunted in her childish voice. "That means the Combine can't either. Prepare to answer them with the details of our current position and orbit. Get the data from Astrogation and send it as a burst, repeating, oh, say, every ten minutes. Keep sending it until they acknowledge, then go silent."

"Aye aye, ma'am." He set to work preparing the transmission.

Hinako returned to her station, and resumed where she had left off, choosing an orange crayon this time for her Night Orders because it would look pretty next to the pictures of the rainbow and the pink unicorn she had drawn.

Federated Shiratori Battlemech Forces Mobile Command

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

19 March 3025

Brigadier Ukyou Kuonji of the Federated Shiratori Battlemech Forces could barely contain her anger. "How could that idiot Genma Saotome forget about his promise to my family!? How could that idiot son of his forget who he was supposed to marry!?"

She clenched her fists in fury at her despicable commanding officer. Because of General Mikado Sanzenin's skirt chasing, she was the one who had to come to Palatine and direct the Spring Maneuvers instead of him. She was supposed to have been on the planet Genevieve convincing the Empress to send her on the diplomatic envoy to the Confederation. Was it any surprise that without her prodding, no envoy at all had been sent?

If she had been successful with Azusa, she could have been on Nerima in time to stop Genma's machinations, perhaps even browbeaten him into making good on his promise. At the very least she could have seen her beloved Ran-chan again. The last time was when they were young children, and she had been in love with him ever since.

But no... Mikado found yet another conquest to woo, and so here she was, a mere Brigadier directing most of the Federated Shiratori's armed forces, while he ran off to get laid. Again.

As it stood, the chance of there even _being_ a position available in the near future for diplomatic duty with the Confederation was slim. The Furinkan Combine's renewed offensive was pressing them hard, and there were rumors circulating that Tatewaki Kuno was ready to begin a seige of the Capella System directly.

She turned to her adjutant and sighed wearily.

"How does this always happen to me?"

Her adjutant, Major Konatsu, did not reply. The cross-dressing mechwarrior merely set his hands behind his uniform skirt and tried to look oblivious to Ukyou's distress. The issue of her supposed engagement to a man named Saotome had become a sore subject with him over the last month, as he had been experiencing a bit of romantic confusion regarding his lovely commanding officer, and he wasn't certain whether she would ever feel as attracted to him as he was with her.

He had yet to learn all the details of the arrangement that would have seen his adored commander married to this Saotome fellow, but it seemed to him that until the news had broken, she had all but forgotten about it. Or at least put it so far out of her mind that she never thought about it openly. This latest blow-up had come following yet another botched attack exercise by the troops. Though the two subjects were completely unrelated, it demonstrated how much of her attention she was devoting to the matter of Ranma Saotome.

Ukyou slammed her fists down on the map table.

"Have the 3rd Battalion run through it again," she muttered.

"Yes, sir," he replied quietly. As soon as the troops started running their exercises without error, his beloved commander would stop having tantrums. It promised to be a long spring...

"Konatsu?"

He started, knowing that Ukyou almost never called him by his name, and certainly not in public. The other staff officers in the mobile command center pretended not to notice.

"Yes, Brigadier?" he asked her timidly.

"Sorry about the shouting," she said to him. "I should save it all for that jackass, Sanzenin. If he doesn't get here soon, I'm resigning."

"Yes, sir," Konatsu replied, trying not to smile. Ukyou would not give the general the satisfaction of resigning. One of the reasons his beloved commander ended up with such trying assignments as this one was because she had rather publicly spurned one of General Sanzenin's amorous advances towards her. He would have cashiered her on the spot were it not for the small amount of favor she enjoyed with the Empress.

It was funny now that he thought about it, but the very system of Imperial nepotism that she despised for making the Army incompetent was the thing that had saved her own career.

He too enjoyed Imperial privilege, though he was no supporter of the Cult of Azusa. Their fanatical devotion to her had usurped the centuries-old and nominally democratic Federated Shiratori system of government, and turned it into a reckless cult of personality with young Azusa proclaimed Goddess-Empress. It was a Federation in name only, and her word was law. The Cult of Azusa had become the de facto enforcers of Her Imperial Divinity, and woe to any who openly defied the Word of Azusa...

An idle thought jumped into his head. Did his mother and sisters, all kunoichi as he had once been, belong to the cult? He decided against it. The Cult of Azusa's true followers were all young people like himself, the rest merely opportunists - or perhaps better thought of as survivors.

The appearance of General Mikado Sanzenin in the doorway to the command center dispelled any further reflection, as Konatsu called out "Attention on deck!"

Ukyo paused at the clear alto voice of Konatsu announcing Mikado's arrival. She smoothed her uniform jacket with her hands, and turned to level her best drop-dead look at him. The first thing she noticed about him was his tan, the second was his companion. It was not the lovely Captain Jane Curtiss, the paramour that had started this debacle, but a brunette. Well, almost a brunette. What did you call a woman whose hair was a deep unmistakable blue?

The Chief of Staff for the Federated Shiratori Armed Forces panned his gorgeous eyes about the command center until he spied her. A brief smile crossed his face, dazzling her with the sparkle of his brilliantly white and expensively polished teeth. He started towards her, with the blue-haired woman in tow.

She gave him her usual half-hearted salute, and he returned it in his usual sloppy manner. It was almost an unspoken ritual between them.

"General Sanzenin," she addressed him.

"Brigadier Kuonji," he returned with mock formality, and thinly veiled animosity.

"Did you enjoy your sabbatical?" she asked, knowing that his absence was technically a matter of military necessity - even though it was nothing more than an excuse for a tryst - and wanting him to know just what she thought of his brand of bullshit.

"Quite," Mikado returned, willing to give her at least that much. "I see things are just as hopeless here as they were before the exercises."

Ukyou grit her teeth. It didn't help that most of her subordinates wouldn't know the wrong end of a PPC if they got hit by one.

"They _have_ improved, General," she retorted, as much for her benefit as theirs. "I have the reports from the last month's exercises."

Mikado waved her off. "No, no. You know how I hate wading through paperwork. I'm a hands-on type of man." His eyes darted towards the blue-haired woman, a major with the hunter green piping of one of the Federated Shiratori's few remaining noble houses. Most of the nobles had been stripped of their wealth and titles following the Cult of Azusa's rise to power, which made the major either a fanatic or a realist. Ukyou wasn't sure at a glance in which category she belonged.

"I've detailed Major Deladier with the task of bringing me up to date," he said to Ukyou. "You can forward all of the reports to her office."

Ukyou smirked. "What happened to Jane, I mean, Captain Curtiss?"

Deladier frowned at the mention of another woman. Ukyou decided that she was a realist. That was something in her favor, at least. Getting caught up with Mikado Sanzenin was big points against anyone.

"Captain Curtiss didn't work out," Mikado declared solemnly, which was his personal shorthand for someone who didn't _put out._ Ukyou found herself cheering for Curtiss, who was probably now a sadder, wiser girl, with a ruined career for all her troubles.

"Well I'm glad that you've managed to recover," Ukyou offered snidely. "After all, the entire Armed Forces depends on you."

Mikado looked to Deladier, who returned his look with one of affection. Ukyou recoiled inwardly with disgust. So much for being a smart one...

"Major Deladier has been a blessing in disguise," he declared, which was his personal shorthand for someone whom he thought wasn't going to put out, but had pleasantly surprised him.

Ukyou tried to contain her disgust. Deladier was either a sycophant, or a very dangerous woman with her own personal agenda. She resolved to stay well clear of her in either case.

"Well, now that you're here, I stand relieved," she told him.

Mikado chuckled smugly. "Sorry, dear. I'm afraid that I'm just too busy right now for that kind of bother."

"It's your _duty_ to be here for the Spring Maneuvers!" Ukyou protested. "I'm commanding far above my rank here, dammit! This is a job for a Captain General at the least!"

Mikado smiled slyly. "Is that what this is all about?" he asked. "My dear Ukyou, if this is about being passed up for promotion, I can assure you that I can put in a good word for you with the Empress. You know how she can make things happen..."

Damn you all to hell, Mikado Sanzenin, she thought blackly. The last thing she wanted was to be associated with Azusa's fawning coterie of sycophants, and he knew it!

"That won't be necessary, General," she told him, preferring to address him by his rank rather than call him 'sir.' "What I recommend is that a flag grade officer of suitable rank be placed in charge of these maneuvers, and allow me to return to my previous responsibilities."

Mikado was smarter than that. "You were unattached to any unit pending your request for diplomatic duty prior to this assignment, my dear Ukyou." He looked her over. "I'm not giving you a free ticket to Genevieve just so you can go cry on Azusa's shoulder about how terribly underappreciated you are."

Ukyou turned red. Konatsu tensed nearby to spring in case his beloved commander decided to put her family weapon to use on the general's skull.

"Go to hell," she told him curtly. "General."

"Now, now, Brigadier Kuonji. That's no way to talk to your superior officer."

NCDS _Palomino_, 15 light-seconds from the

Capra System Zenith Jump Point,

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

20 March 3025

The sound of a privacy curtain in Berthing being whipped open was louder in the darkness than the sounds of snoring and the muted roar of the distant main engines.

"Wake up, boy."

Ranma squinted painfully at the flashlight his father was shining in his eyes. He had been enjoying a dreamless sleep in his coffin-sized rack in Berthing prior to this interruption.

"What gives, Pop?" he asked, shading his eyes with his hand.

"I'm tired of your moping around, Ranma," Genma explained. "It's time you learned a little discipline. Report to 'Mech Bay One for an attitude adjustment."

Ranma scowled. "You gotta be kidding me... We almost got killed on Capra - more than once - and now you want me to get up to train?"

Genma stared hard at his son. "That's right, boy."

"What about my ribs?" Ranma pressed. "They're still pretty beat up. What did Doctor Tofu say about exercise?"

"What the doctor doesn't know won't hurt him," Genma replied. "Now get up."

"Yeah, but it might hurt ME..." Ranma growled. Genma padded away out of Berthing as he said it. He was tempted to go back to sleep, but it would only make his father's eventual return that much more painful for him.

Cursing to himself, he rolled gingerly out of his rack and onto the cold linoleum of the deck. They had eaten all of the food that had once lined the narrow floor space between the sets of triple bunks, and the deck felt gritty from the cardboard that had formerly been laid down to protect the linoleum surface from the cans.

He stepped into the Head to take a leak. The tiny space was devoid of passengers and crew. Only the clunk and clatter of people moving around in the Crew's Mess above him gave any sign that the ship was inhabited at this late hour of the night-cycle.

When he was finished, he took the short ladder up to the Mid-Deck. The Crew's Mess was dark, and he could see a handful of heads silhouetted against the light of the television, watching a kung-fu movie that had been filmed within the last year on Nerima. The smell of hot tempura tickled his nose, and he drifted towards the sideboard to help himself.

Ships as small as the _Palomino_ did not have dedicated cooks, and so meals were prepared on a rotating shift basis among the crew. Most of the food was pre-packaged, easy to fix, and bland, but it was possible for someone skilled in cooking to create dishes from the food on hand that made people look forward to the next meal. _Palomino_ had one of these rare souls on board, in the form of a Gunner's Mate Second Class, and he had graced the off-going watch section with a selection of tempura dishes to go with the movie.

Ranma helped himself. The shrimp wasn't fresh, but after more than two weeks away from the fine chow from Azure Cloud Castle's kitchens, he wasn't going to complain. He popped another one into his mouth, savoring the taste, before taking his plate over to one of the bench-seated tables near the back of the room.

Doctor Tofu occupied the seat next to him, and smiled at Ranma's fresh plate of food. The pig-tailed mechwarrior sighed and offered him to help himself. Tofu wasted no time in doing so.

"So, how're the ribs?" the doctor asked in a whisper after he finished off one of the precious batter-fried shrimp and moved on to some vegetables. The flick was at a point where some obligatory plot was being offered, and his interest in it had waned.

"Okay," Ranma replied, wondering how long it would take his father to track him down. "How's the leg?"

"I'll live."

"Hey Doc," Ranma broached. "How long was I supposed to go before I could start sparring again?"

"Two weeks," Tofu replied. "You're a fast healer from what I've seen, but I wouldn't push it any sooner than two weeks."

"Just checking." _What the doctor doesn't know won't hurt him, my ass!_

The flick shifted back to action again, and the two fell silent as they critiqued the performance. It was something of a comfort to Ranma to note that Tofu quietly chuckled or scoffed at the same things he did. The guy may have taken up medicine, but he hadn't forgotten his martial arts roots.

His eyes wandered across the various heads silhouetted in the room. Most were members of the _Palomino's_ crew or Akari's techs. The two who weren't part of either group made him spit out a silent curse.

Akane was sitting next to Ryouga near the front of the room. She was giggling, probably in response to a joke, and even in the darkness, Ranma could see the blush that was on Ryouga's face.

"'Scuse me, Doc," he said to the doctor. "I just remembered that I gotta be somewhere."

"Are you sure?" Tofu asked him. "It's pretty late."

"Positive. Pop will kill me if I'm any later than I already am."

He slid out of the bench seat and left the Crew's Mess, leaving his unfinished plate of tempura behind. Doctor Tofu watched him go, then helped himself to the remainder.

Ryouga Hibiki was in absolute bliss. He had wandered onto the Crew's Mess late for the meal, but just in time to watch a movie. He hadn't seen any new ones for awhile, and the tempura was excellent! Even better than the film or the food though, was when Akane sat down next to him.

She looked out-of-sorts at first, as she had for most of the trip to the jump point. She wouldn't say what the problem was, but Ryouga knew better. It was that idiot Ranma's fault she was like this!

Now she was happy, and even laughed at his lame attempts at humor. Her smile was brilliant in the light of the television screen, and her eyes were alive. His heart began to thump loudly in his chest to see her like this, and to know that he was the reason for it.

How Ranma had managed to become her fiance, he did not know, but it wounded him to think that it was true. Akane deserved far better than someone like that stupid jerk. If only he could...

He put it aside. Who was he to love a girl as wonderful as her? Living from hand to mouth as a nameless mercenary, wandering aimlessly across the Inner Sphere, cursed to become a pig! It was too painful to think about.

It was even more painful to think that despite what a jerk Ranma was to her, Akane seemed to have feelings for him. Her cry of anguish when Kuno threatened to kill Ranma was unmistakable to his ears. How? How could it be possible that she loved him?

Her hand brushed against his in the darkness, and he jumped in surprise. She coyly apologized to him, her eyes alight and her quiet voice breathy and shy. His heart turned somersaults in his throat.

She didn't love Ranma, he swore to himself. She couldn't! Who did she kiss when they were getting ready to leave Capra? Who was she sitting next to in the dark, watching a movie? Not Ranma... but him! Ryouga Hibiki!

He thought about what Happousai said to him earlier - about having no experience with women. It was painfully true, but he wasn't going to let that stop him. He'd whisper in her ear how much he loved her, how he had loved her from the moment he first saw her in the Capra City Jail, and how she should put Ranma aside and forget about him. She couldn't help but be swayed by him. It would be so simple!

He started to lean over when his nerve went out, and he froze up.

Dammit! This was supposed to be simple!

She took no notice of his inner struggle, instead laughing at the hero of the film, who pummeled his on-screen opponents with a much abused plate of spaghetti, a length of garden hose, and a whiffle-ball bat.

Ryouga swallowed hard and tried not to think about her beautiful shining eyes or the way her hair bounced when she laughed. He would do this, and she would fall into his arms for a pleasant kiss in the darkness. Right?

What if she didn't? some part of him asked. What if she said that her heart belonged to Ranma?

His will fell apart, and he slumped back against the bench seat. If she said that to him, his heart of glass would shatter into a thousand pieces. He couldn't take that chance. Not until he really knew how she felt.

The movie continued, though he drew less joy from it than he had before.

Akane laughed at the antics of the film's hero. The guy was good, a master of several styles of martial arts, including the famous 'Drunken Fist.' She had always admired his work, especially since she hadn't been able to repeat some of the moves.

It felt good to laugh, she realized. She hadn't done much of it in the last few days. Instead she had spent most of her time avoiding Ranma, which was depressing, though it wasn't very difficult considering he was doing the same to her. Time had passed with an agonizing gait, made even more nerve-wracking by the fact that the Combine was surely searching for them. The longer orbit they were using to rendezvous with the _Dragonfly_ had to work, or else they were still done for in spite of their lucky escape.

She looked over at Ryouga. He was watching the film, though he seemed a bit more distant now than he had just a few moments ago. When she came into the Crew's Mess to watch the movie, he had seemed lost and out of place. It was only natural for her to keep him company. Aside from Tarou, who apparently kept to himself a lot, she and Ranma were the only people on the ship that he knew.

He was a really nice guy, she thought to herself. Thoughtful, polite, considerate. Everything that Ranma wasn't. He was also pretty handsome, she noted.

Unfortunately, that was where the attraction to him ended. He was cute and he was sweet, but there was nothing else for her there. It was just one of those quirks of fate, but she felt nothing more than friendship for him. If circumstances had been different from the way they were, she might have felt something more for him in time. In fact, she was sure of it.

"You took your sweet time getting here," Genma said to Ranma as he stepped through the airtight door into 'Mech Bay One. His Griffin, its chest scarred from a stray laser beam in the fight at the mine, towered over him. "I almost went to check on you."

"Yeah, well, I'm here. So now what?" Ranma scowled.

"Ranma..." his father intoned. "Why do you do these things to your father? Haven't I always tried to do right by you?"

Ranma's face screwed up into a grimace.

"What are you talking about, old man? You've done nothing but make my life miserable for as long as I can remember. Always moving from planet to planet and leaving any friends I happen to make behind, getting beat up by masters in the martial arts in the hope that I'll remember some of it when I regain consciousness, stealing food so we wouldn't starve to death, risking certain death by stowing away on ships instead of paying passage..."

"You can stop now, boy," Genma interrupted uncomfortably.

"I'm just gettin' warmed up, Pop," Ranma countered. "Where was I? Oh yeah, keeping me from Mom for the last seventeen years, losing the family battlemech because you couldn't keep the thing in repair, that... that... time with the cats..." Ranma shuddered in horror, and even Genma winced at the recollection. "...And now you've engaged me to a stupid tomboy who hates my guts and hits me all the time, not to mention the fact that frigging Tatewaki Kuno himself wants me dead because of it - just so you can live the good life in someone else's castle!"

His voice had grown to a shout, and when he ceased, he was left gulping for breath.

"Did I miss anything, Pop?" he managed after several moments.

Genma pawed at the deck with his foot.

"I think that about covers it," he replied solemnly.

"So why the hell am I standing here at one in the morning instead of lying asleep in my rack where I belong!?" Ranma demanded.

Genma cleared his throat. "I want to talk to you about Akane."

Ranma stomped his foot on the deck. "There ain't nothing to talk about!" He started for the airtight door.

"RANMA!" Genma barked.

The force of his shout stopped Ranma short of the door. The pig-tailed mechwarrior turned slowly, his lips curled in anger.

"It occurs to me that you've hurt her feelings," Genma continued quietly. "I won't stand for it. You're her fiance, and she deserves to be treated better than that."

"I've hurt HER feelings?" Ranma shot back. "Gimme a break!"

"I don't want to know the details, boy," Genma said, holding out his hands as if to push the issue away. "That's between you and her. What I want you to do is to apologize to her."

"A-APOLOGIZE!?" Ranma spluttered. "You gotta be shittin' me! I ain't apologizing to her! If anyone deserves an apology around here, it's me!"

Genma frowned. "What are you talking about, boy?"

Ranma felt his throat tighten. "In case you didn't know, my _fiancee_ is up in the Crew's Mess watching a movie with Ryouga!"

Genma cocked his head. "So?"

"SO?!" Ranma shouted. "What do you think that means?"

His father shook his head sadly, and leaned over to fetch a pail of water he had staged for this moment. "Ranma, if you can't be a man about this, then be a woman!"

He threw the pail of water at his son, who dodged it, and charged straight at him. Before Ranma's fists could land, a second splash of water appeared from above, soaking him, and causing him to slip on the deck.

When she landed, coughing and spluttering at Genma's feet, the cackling laughter of Happousai echoed from the gantry above.

"Sweet-O!" the elderly mechwarrior cried. He set down the empty pail on the catwalk where he lurked. "You'd make an old man like me very happy, eh, Hot Stuff!"

"You old bastard!" Ranma called to him, shaking a fist to the overhead.

"Make me an offer, Genma," Happousai called back. "I'll take her off your hands, cheap. Hell, I'll take her for free!"

Genma gave his master an amused look, and started for the door.

"Come back here, old man!" Ranma called after him. "I ain't through with you yet."

"Aw come on, Genma," Happousai added. "I'd take good care of Ranma..."

Genma paused, turning his head to look over his shoulder at Ranma.

"Apologize, boy. Or else."

"Bite me!" Ranma returned, but the door had shut behind her father.

Happousai took the steps down from the gantry in great leaping bounds, homing on Ranma's bosom like a heat-seeking missile. She stopped him cold with her fist as he made the final leap, shouting in his excitement just before impact. He plopped to the deck, half-conscious.

"Asshole," she growled, though it was unclear whether she referred to the dazed lecher at her knees or her father.

"Is that any way to talk to your master?" Happousai replied, popping up cartoon-like from his stupor. He smiled for her greasily. "Can't I just cop a quick feel?"

"How about I blow you instead?" she asked coyly, while striking a cheesecake pose.

"R-Really?" Happousai stammered, his eyes huge and dewy. "It appears that I've misjudged you, Ranma. Can you forgive an old man?"

Her expression soured. "Yeah, how about I blow you right out an airlock."

Happousai screwed his eyes shut tight and pounded his tiny fists on the deck. "Damn you, Ranma, for getting me all worked up! You're nothing but a tease!"

She slammed him down into the hard steel deck with her fist.

"You better believe it, old fart," Ranma replied.

She left him there on the deck, deciding that a quick hot shower was in order before she went back to sleep. Genma was long gone when she stepped through the airtight door, having probably also retired for the evening. Thoughts of whipping _his_ rack curtain open and shining a light in _his_ eyes passed through her mind.

The Head was again quiet and still. She stripped off her wet clothes and stepped into the Ship's Laundry long enough to throw them in the dryer for a few minutes. At this hour it was unlikely that anyone would come in to do laundry.

She looked into one of the sink mirrors at herself. She didn't look half bad, she decided. There were bruises all over her, courtesy of the Furinkan Combine and the League of Five Nails, but those would clear up soon enough. Yup, she thought with some satisfaction, not bad at all...

A curious grunting sound behind her made her jump with surprise. She spun around to face a small black pig. His tiny hooves clicked on the terrazzo as he approached.

"Whose pet are you?" she asked him. He must have belonged to one of the crew, but she was surprised that she hadn't noticed him before.

The pig looked up at her, and immediately looked away, blushing.

"Pretty modest for a pig," Ranma remarked. She snatched him up before he could scamper away. A close inspection revealed that 1): he was in fact male, and 2): he had no collar or other identifying tag, only a vaguely familiar yellow and black bandanna around his neck.

"What are you doing with that pig?" a voice, Akane's, asked as she checked out the pig.

Ranma looked up at her, and realized that she was standing there naked, and holding someone's pet pig perhaps too close to her ample bosom. The pig, for its part, squealed miserably, and looked terribly embarrassed.

"Is it yours?" she asked Akane.

"Why would it be mine?" she returned. "Where did you get it?"

"Beats me," Ranma replied. "He just walked in here. Ewww... He's all sticky, too..."

"Sticky? That's disgusting."

Ranma grimaced at the implications of her statement. "Don't look at me, I didn't have anything to do with it."

"I'm sure."

"Now what's that supposed to mean?" Ranma challenged.

"Forget it," Akane clucked. "I was looking for Ryouga, not you."

"Oh," Ranma chirped. "You were looking for Ryouga. I should have known, the way you two were carrying on in the Crew's Mess..."

Akane turned red. "You were spying on us?"

"Who needed to spy? You were right there in public."

She crossed her arms over her chest, secretly pleased by this. "Big deal, Ranma. What do you care, anyway?"

"Who says I do?"

She narrowed her eyes at Ranma. "It's obvious, the way you're carrying on about it."

Ranma was silent.

"I'm going to bed," Akane said finally. "If you see Ryouga, tell him I was looking for him, but it can wait until the morning."

"Sure."

Akane's stern look softened slightly. "Good night, Ranma."

Ranma let her go before replying.

"Good night, Akane. Pleasant dreams."

Akane ducked her head back into the room. "Thank you, Ranma. I will." Then she was gone into Berthing, leaving Ranma red-faced.

Ranma turned back to the pig. "Now what am I gonna do with you?" she asked him. "I've heard of a Ship's Cat, but a Ship's Pig?"

The pig squealed angrily at her, pawing and trying to bite.

"Calm down, already!" she told him. "I was kidding. Geez, you're smarter than you look. And you're all sticky, too. What the heck did you get into?"

The pig again tried to protest this line of questioning. Ranma ignored him.

"Well, I don't want to turn you over to the Captain, because I don't know if you're allowed to be here or not. But I don't know who you belong to, either, and it's too late at night to start asking."

She eyed him dispassionately.

"It looks like you're stuck with me, at least for the moment."

The pig did not seem pleased with this at all.

"First things, first, though. You need to get cleaned up." She rubbed at his belly. "What is this stuff? It smells like fruit punch."

She started the hot water for the shower, and then stepped in. The pig began squealing and struggling with all its might, but to no avail.

The next thing Ranma knew, he was crushed up against the wall of the shower by a very angry, very naked, and uncomfortably close, Ryouga Hibiki.

"Um, Ryouga?" he asked in a tiny voice.

Ryouga scowled with an intense hatred, the close quarters of the shower stall making it impossible to punch Ranma in the face, as he so desperately wanted to do.

"...Raaaannnnmaaaa..."

Further words failed him, and he stood there glaring.

"So you went to the Jusenkyo Labs too?" he asked the fanged mercenary.

"I don't want to talk about it," Ryouga scowled. "I just want to know how you got there... Out on the highway I thought there was something wrong about you, but now there can be no doubt... And on top of that you know how this happened to me..."

"It's a long story, Ryouga," Ranma said uncomfortably. "Um, could you step out of the shower first?"

Ryouga closed his eyes in shame and opened the door of the stall. Ranma turned the water off and joined him outside.

"You go first, Ryouga. Tell me what happened to you," he said evenly. What were the odds that Ryouga, of all people, had been a victim of the Jusenkyo Labs?

"It started with Happousai," Ryouga began, and Ranma gave a snort of contempt for the elderly mechwarrior. "He got us a Commonwealth contract to serve as starport security on Lightoller. It was an easy job, and good money. But one night we followed two spies to the Labs and tried to stop them. We were joined by one of the Lab's security people in the fight. It was dark in there, and in the confusion we never got a chance to get a very good look at them. The next thing I know, I'm getting attacked by a girl and some huge black and white furry beast..." His voice trailed off. "That's when I fell in the pool... and changed..."

Ranma gave him a sympathetic look.

"We both fell in pools," Ryouga continued. "Tarou and I. We were so scared about what had happened that we ran from the Labs and took the first ship leaving Lightoller. We ended up getting stuck on Capra and joining the mercenary garrison there."

"That explains why those Amazons had you locked up when we got there," Ranma said, piecing it all together. Unfortunately, it made too much sense, and Ryouga was standing there, far too close for comfort all of a sudden.

"What's your story, Ranma?" Ryouga demanded. "How did you end up with this curse?"

"Oh, it's a long story, like I said..."

Ryouga cracked his knuckles. "I told you my story, Ranma, and now it's your turn."

Ranma began to sweat. "Um... can I get a rain check on that?"

Ryouga's eyes lit up with the truth.

"So... It was you..."

"W-What are you talking about?" Ranma asked, voice quavering.

"It was you who knocked me into the pool..." Ryouga growled. "You're the one who turned my life into a living hell..."

"Come on, Ryouga," Ranma returned weakly. "You said yourself that it was a girl and a furry black and white animal that knocked you into the pool, right?"

Ryouga cocked back a fist. "So?"

"So, do you see any big furry animals running around here?"

This gave Ryouga a second's pause, proving in Ranma's mind that he wasn't too bright. He backed slowly away from him.

Genma Saotome chose this moment to enter the Head. Ryouga turned and saw him. The elder Saotome stared at the two naked young men, and was about to leave, not wanting to know anything about it.

"Uh, p-pardon me..." he muttered to them.

"There's one way to find out," Ryouga snarled, and leaped past Ranma to the sink. He threw open the valve for the cold water and pressed his fingers against the spigot, spraying water everywhere. In the moment after he succumbed to his own transformation, he watched with grim satisfaction as a naked red-haired girl and a large black and white panda bear cried out in surprise.

"You stupid jerk!" Ranma squealed. "You want the truth? Yeah, it was me and Pop, but we didn't do it on purpose!" She snatched up the pig, who was shaking with rage. "You think we've got it any easier than you? Huh? Pop belongs in a zoo, and look at me! I belong on the centerfold of some pin-up magazine, for crying out loud!"

Ryouga clamped his jaws down on the webbing of her hand between her thumb and forefinger, causing her to shriek loud enough to wake up the people asleep in Berthing. She let go of him, and he scampered away past the panda, who watched him go with only a low growl.

"What are you doing, Pop?" Ranma cried at him. "You're letting the little bastard get away!"

Genma-panda reached into his pocket and withdrew a small touchpad he kept around for such situations. He scribbled something on it with his claw, and held it up for Ranma to read.

Go to bed. He's not going anywhere.

"This ain't the time for it!" Ranma returned. "Who knows what he'll do in this condition."

He's a pig. What can he do?

Ranma's mouth gaped open. "Oh. I guess you got a point there."

Genma-panda shook his head and stepped past his son to the sink. He gave himself a splash of hot water, changing back to his human form, and stepped past Ranma once again, leaving him alone in the Head.

"What the hell's going on in here?" the Roving Watch said to her, suddenly appearing from the upper deck. He looked at all the water on the floor, then to the naked Ranma. "I don't care who you are, lady. I ain't cleaning this up." He reached into the closet opposite the door and handed Ranma a mop and a bucket. "And put some clothes on, for God's sake."

Ryouga Hibiki was miserable. The people who had saved him from Capra were the ones who had given him his cursed pig body. He wanted Ranma dead for what he had done, but Akane... He had heard her wishing Ranma a good night, and knew that she would never forgive him for it.

He passed by a viewport. The stars were cold pinpricks of light, separated by vast distances of emptiness. He sighed sadly at beholding them.

The universe was a dark and lonely place.

In a cruel twist of fate, he stumbled across his wet clothes in one of the secluded forward passageways of the ship. A paper cup, once filled with punch from the dispenser in the Crew's Mess, rolled aimlessly on the deck with the whistling of air from a recirculation fan. He had somehow lost track of where he was from the moment he refilled his drink, to the point where he stumbled in the darkened passageway and spilled his punch on himself.

Now that he had recovered his clothes, he had to get back to the head to clean them and change himself back into a man. He grabbed the shirt and trousers in his teeth and began to drag them slowly across the deck to the stairwell, trusting to luck to keep his underwear from falling out. He'd come back for his shoes and socks later.

It was a long and arduous trip, but fortunately not a very complicated one. Anytime an airtight door loomed before him, he knew he was headed in the wrong direction. The Head looked deserted when he stepped inside, but he heard Ranma's voice grumbling incoherently from the Laundry.

How dare that jerk try to complain about having such a beautiful body! What nerve! He knew nothing about the suffering and humiliation one endured as a pig!

He steeled himself, and stepped into the laundry.

Ranma saw him immediately, his eyes flashing in the dim light.

"You gotta lot of nerve coming in here, piggy," he muttered to Ryouga. He was still naked, but wrapped in a towel.

Ryouga grunted a curse in reply.

Ranma looked at the wet clothes Ryouga had dragged in with him. The stains of punch were clear on the tunic.

"Well that explains why you were all sticky."

Ryouga grunted once more.

"Look, Ryouga," Ranma said to him. "I ain't here to be your enemy, okay? Let's just let bygones be bygones, all right?"

The pig that was Ryouga did not seem convinced.

Ranma snatched up the clothes, earning himself a bite on the arm."Look, you moron, I was going to wash your clothes for you!" he hissed at the pig. "You want to stand around naked in the laundry for everyone to see while you wait for them to get clean? I've got a towel, how about you?"

Ryouga gave him a dubious look, then relented.

"See? That wasn't so hard. Use your brain for once, Ryouga."

He applied a stain remover before putting the clothes in the washing machine. Ryouga remained near the door that opened into the Head.

"I ain't gonna bite," Ranma said to him.

The pig ignored him.

"Look, I'm sorry about what happened to you, okay? I had no idea what was in that stupid place. Trust me, if I did, I never woulda let Pop talk me into going there."

Ryouga snorted with contempt.

"What's it take to get through to you, man?" Ranma cried. "Are you still sore about that stupid duel from seven years ago?"

The pig's eyes flashed angrily.

"Whoa. I guess you are... You really need to lighten up, man..."

They sat in silence for awhile, with only the sounds of the laundry machines and the ship's engines to mark the time. Ranma put Ryouga's clothes in the dryer as he took his own out and got dressed.

"I'm gonna stick around until your stuff is done drying. Is that okay with you?"

Ryouga sighed sleepily and started out the door. He was bored and tired, and needed to take a walk to stay awake.

"Ryouga!" Ranma called after him. "Where do you think you're going, you moron! You'll get lost again."

He ignored Ranma, turning left into Berthing when he meant to go right, and losing his bearings in the darkness. He snuffled around the baseboards, figuring that if he kept following them, eventually he would find his way out. There was, after all, only one way out of Berthing.

A pair of hands seized him in the darkness, and he squealed with dismay at getting caught. When the hands brought him up to a familiar and beloved face, however, he went silent and ceased his struggles.

"How did you get in here?" Akane asked him quietly. "Did Ranma let you run loose?"

He let out a quiet _oink_ in response, hating the sound that "I love you" made when spoken by a pig.

She looked at him for a moment.

"Well at least he cleaned you up first," she remarked with a yawn. "Honestly, I don't know what to do with him sometimes..." She clutched Ryouga close and rolled over onto her side. "I guess you can stay with me for now..." she said, and drifted back to sleep.

Ryouga felt the warmth of Akane Tendo surrounding him, and the soft fragrance of her hair was intoxicating. He yawned as well, content in the fact that he was now closer to her than Ranma would ever be...

NCDS _Palomino_, approaching NCJS _Dragonfly_

Ten light-seconds from the Capra System Zenith Jump Point,

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

22 March 3025

Ranma was too hungry the next morning to keep up his avoidance of Akane, and after the previous night-cycle's encounter, it was rather pointless anyway. The Crew's Mess was filled with the off-going watch enjoying a last meal before the _Palomino_ reached the JumpShip. He spied his father sitting next to Doctor Tofu, and grabbed a bowl of miso soup and some rice from the steamer before joining them.

"Before you sit down, son, how about some more coffee?"

"Oh, me as well, please," Tofu added.

Ranma scowled at his father. Because the close quarters of the Crew's Mess tables required that people who sat away from the center aisle had to displace the rest of the people sitting at the bench in order to get up, it was customary for the person sitting closest to the center aisle to fetch drinks and second helpings for the rest of the table.

In this case, the duty fell to Ranma. He took his father's and Doctor Tofu's mugs and walked over to the coffee pot.

"You don't even drink coffee, old man," he muttered as he accepted the mug.

"You're never too old to start," Genma retorted.

Ranma filled the mug. "How do you want it?"

"Just like a Bierhaus fraulein," the elder Saotome replied. "Blonde and sweet."

Ranma shook his head in disgust. "I'll remember that one for Mom." He looked to Doctor Tofu. "Doc?"

"Black, please," Tofu replied.

Ranma prepared the coffee as ordered and returned to the table. His father was waiting for him wide, plaintive eyes.

"Now what is it?" he asked him.

Genma offered him his soup bowl. "How about some more soup - since you're still up."

Ranma made a growling noise and accepted the bowl. His own bowl of soup was getting cold in the process. As he returned with the soup, his father was holding up another bowl, empty save for a few grains of rice.

Genma read the look of aggravation on his son's face.

"Well, you can't have miso soup without rice," he explained to him.

Ranma contemplated dumping the fresh bowl of soup on his father's head.

"Why are you doing this to me, Pop?" he asked through clenched teeth.

"Hand me the soup and I'll tell you."

Ranma set the bowl of soup down before his father and collected the empty rice bowl.

"Well?"

"Have you apologized to Akane yet?" his father asked him.

"No," Ranma replied tersely.

"Well, now you know why," Genma returned. "And careful with what you take, boy. I don't want any of the burned rice at the bottom of the steamer."

Ranma turned once more for the sideboard. There was just enough left to meet his father's demands. He returned to the table, waiting to see if there was anything else his father wanted, because he was going to refuse in the most vocal way possible.

Genma must have sensed this, for he accepted the rice silently, and set about to eat.

Ranma at last set down to eat, noting ruefully that his soup was barely warm, and that the rice had started to set into a slightly crispy lump that defied the gentle proddings of his chopsticks. He set the mass into the soup, hoping to soften it enough to eat without melting into a sodden mess in his bowl.

As he ate his cold, overly sticky rice, he realized that he had fallen victim to his hunger, and should have waited until later before appearing on the mess deck. Was his old man going to play stupid head games like this until he finally apologized? He decided that he wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

Akari joined them after a while, looking as shy and demure as always.

"Commander Saotome?" she asked politely.

"What is it?" Genma returned.

"Forgive me for interrupting, Commander," she apologized. "I wanted to inform you that the damage to your Griffin has been repaired, and that the second coat of paint is curing on it."

Genma nodded at this, well pleased with the efficiency and dedication of his Senior Technician.

"Very well," he said to her. "Excellent work." He went back to eating.

She waited for an appropriate moment to interrupt.

"Commander Saotome?"

He set down his bowl. "Yes?"

"About the two extra battlemechs," she began. "May I have permission to begin repairs on them?"

Genma thought about this. While he was grateful for the assistance of the Hibiki fellow's BattleMaster, his partner Tarou's Hunchback had been little more than baggage on the trip. He was not running a charity here.

"What kind of damage are we talking about?" he asked her.

"The BattleMaster has some armor damage," Akari replied, and Ranma detected the most curious affection in her voice when she mentioned its name. "It's fairly extensive in some areas, but there was no internal damage," she added with no small amount of pride for the war machine's stout construction. "The Hunchback on the other hand needs actuators and some myomer work."

"Fix the armor on both 'mechs," Genma decided. "We don't have the time or the facilities to do any stringing or actuator work out here."

Akari was about to disagree, as she was a capable 'stringer,' or myomer bundle technician, but the tone of his voice suggested that there were other reasons behind his decision, and she could understand why he might be reluctant to front the parts and labor for repairs to a battlemech belonging to someone outside the mission. She let it drop.

"At once, Commander," she said, rising to get to work.

"Are you sure you have to leave right now?" Ranma asked her, wondering why she was so concerned about fixing the 'mechs when they were within a day of rendezvous with the _Dragonfly_. "Have some chow while you can."

Akari offered an apologetic smile. "It's no trouble, sir," she told him. "I was looking forward to working on the BattleMaster." Again, Ranma detected that note of affection in her voice when she mentioned the 'mech by name.

She excused herself politely and left the Crew's Mess.

"Man," Ranma said when she was out of earshot. "I've never seen a girl have it so bad for a 'mech before."

"There's nothing wrong with a little affection for a machine," Genma noted. "Why, I knew some women who preferred appliances, er, machines over men..." He tried not to snicker as he said it.

Ranma lowered his head to his chest in disgust, then banged it several times on the table.

"Just when I think that you've hit rock bottom, Pop, you somehow find a way to blast your way through to the next level."

"Lighten up, boy," Genma said with an overly hard slap on the back that made Ranma come close to choking up his breakfast. "I knew I should have started on the dirty jokes when you were younger, but my respect for your mother held me back."

"Respect for Mom? That's a laugh," Ranma snorted.

Akane joined them at the table before Genma could retort. He let the words die in his mouth as the Confederation Heir was seated. Cradled in her arms was a small black pig, who looked at peace with the universe. Ranma said nothing to her, preferring instead to glare at Ryouga.

"What a cute pig," Doctor Tofu observed. "Where did you find it?"

"I found him last night in Berthing," she replied, apparently content to make no mention of the first time she saw him, in the Head. "I have no idea where he came from. He must belong to one of the crew, but so far everyone I've asked has said no."

"Isn't a pig a bit unhealthy to have around a place where food is being served?" Genma asked her. Ryouga gave him a dirty look.

"He's very clean," Akane assured him.

She looked to Doctor Tofu, who added, "Most pigs are quite fastidious animals. And it's not like he's running around in the galley or the store-rooms."

Ranma squinted at Ryouga, who was enjoying himself in Akane's arms.

"So are you going to keep him?" he asked Akane. "I bet he'd make a great pet." He chuckled to himself when Ryouga reacted with hostility to the term 'pet.'

"I guess so," Akane replied. "If no one comes forward to claim him. I even have a name for him."

Ranma laughed. "This I gotta hear."

She gave him a warning look before continuing. "I call him 'P-chan.'"

"P-chan?" Ranma, Genma, and Doctor Tofu chorused.

She gave them all defensive looks. "Yes, 'P-chan...' 'P' as in 'Pig,' and 'chan' as in 'small and cute.'"

Ranma held back the laughter long enough to say "You're calling him 'Pig-cute?' Oh man, that's rich!" He then lost it and began howling.

Ryouga tried jumping out of Akane's arms to bite Ranma, but she held him in place. Ranma laughed even harder, making oinking noises that infuriated both Ryouga and Akane.

"It's not funny, Ranma!" she protested. Then in a motherly voice she added to the pig, "No, it's not, is it, P-chan?"

This only made Ranma laugh harder, to the point where an effortless shove from Genma ejected him from the bench seat to the deck of the center aisle. Hitting the floor only seemed to make him worse. The rest of the ship's crew looked on with varying degrees of curiosity and annoyance.

"Ignore him, P-chan," Akane said soothingly to the pig.

"Well, I'm not happy about it," Genma declared. "But I can't think of any reason why you couldn't keep a pet aboard ship. I guess it's settled for the moment."

Ranma finally recovered, drawing himself back up to the table, and trying to avoid a relapse. His ribs ached from all the laughter, and he hoped Doctor Tofu wouldn't have to perform any readjustments later.

"Well, P-chan," he told the pig. "I wish you the best of luck in your new career. You'll need it."

Ryouga's little face screwed up into anger.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Akane demanded of him.

"Take it any way you like it," Ranma returned.

"So, Akane," Doctor Tofu interjected. "Where exactly do you plan to keep him?"

"Oh, he'll sleep with me, I guess," she remarked off-handedly.

Ranma made a choking noise.

"S-Sleep with you?" he asked, dumbfounded. "HIM?"

"Of course," Akane replied. Ryouga gave him a smug look from her sheltering arms. "Like he did last night. He's very warm and cozy."

Ryouga blushed with happiness. Ranma looked like he was about to get sick all over the table.

"That's... That's disgusting," he grunted. "Sleeping with... with HIM..."

"It's not disgusting!" Akane protested. "There's nothing wrong with P-chan."

"Ha! That's what you think!"

"Would you care to explain that, Ranma?" she demanded.

"Yes, Ranma. If you know something important about that pig, then you should tell us," Doctor Tofu added.

Ranma looked at the pig for a moment. Ryouga's eyes were huge and full of terror at the thought of being revealed to Akane like this. It would be so easy to spill his secret, but as he thought about it, he realized that he owed Ryouga big time for knocking him into one of the Jusenkyo Pools.

"Forget I said it," he muttered. He looked at the pig, and his eyes flashed the message, _We're even now, Ryouga. Got it?_

He got up from the table and headed back to Berthing.

"What was that all about?" Genma asked them when Ranma was gone.

"Beats me," Akane replied. She cuddled P-chan. "That Ranma's such a weirdo, isn't he P-chan?"

Ryouga nodded vigorously. For the first time in his brief double-existence as the pig, he was happy in his porcine body. It wasn't much compared to the joy that could be had in Akane's arms as a whole man, but for the moment - who was he to complain?

The 1MC intercom buzzed with the sound of someone holding down the microphone button. "Station the Maneuvering Watch! All hands prepare for docking manuevers, and make reports to the Flight Deck."

"Wow," Tofu remarked as the crew got up from their meals and began to file out past the scullery. "Aren't we a little early?"

"We are," Genma replied, checking his watch. "I wonder what's going on?"

Pansuto Tarou smiled to himself as the order was given to station the maneuvering watch. It wouldn't be long now before he could get his revenge on Happousai. As soon as the JumpShip took them from the Capra System, he would act.

He had known about his nemesis almost from the start, having stumbled across his Locust while looking for Ryouga. The paint scheme was different than it had been on St. Ives - when they signed on with the Commonwealth. There was also a big fresh hole in the chassis from a PPC bolt, but it was definitely Happousai's battlemech.

From that moment on he had been plotting his vengeance.

One thing he had learned in his quiet lurkings throughout the ship was that Happousai was wary of him. It would have to be a quick strike from the darkness, and the much larger JumpShip would offer many more places for an assassin to hide than a DropShip like the _Palomino_. He would be in his monster form of course, which also meant that discretion was important. He did not need the ship's crew hunting him down as some _thing_ to be blown out of an airlock.

He also needed time to gloat over Happousai. It was important to him, as he had a lot of pain and anguish built up inside that no simple murder would exorcise. Even if it meant only a few moments talking to him through the airlock door prior to spacing him, it would be enough just to hear him beg.

The important thing now was to pretend that there were no hard feelings between them. Ryouga had somehow managed to make peace with the bastard, and so he had some precedent to take advantage of. The transfer from the DropShip to the JumpShip would be the perfect time to feign indifference towards him.

After Happousai was dead, he was unsure. It depended on where the JumpShip was taking them. He would leave them as soon as possible though. He had done a little looting in the city, and figured that between the proceeds from that and some honest work as a mercenary, he could get his battlemech back to full repair. He didn't blame the fat Genma Saotome for only authorizing the repair of the armor on his Hunchback, in fact he thanked him. It would be one less expense to deal with.

The Furinkan Combine was in the ascendant, he noted, and he knew intimate details about one of the Commonwealth's most important planets. They would pay him well when the time came to invade the Commonwealth, as they certainly would once the Confederation was conquered, and his worthless former employers in the League of Five Nails had crumbled. It might do him some good to get in with the Combine early, to assure himself a position of status and power when it came time to invade.

The airlock equalized pressure with a sharp hiss before the doors slid open to link the _Palomino_ with the _Dragonfly_. Ranma could already smell the difference in the cool clean air that blew softly through the connector tunnel that ran through the docking ring. He floated through to the other side, where Captain Ninomiya and some of her officers were waiting for them.

"Welcome aboard, Mechwarrior Saotome," Hinako said to him.

Ranma looked at the eight-year-old girl in the Confederation Navy uniform that was several sizes too big for her, and blinked in confusion.

"Hey, kid," he asked her. "Where's your mom?"

Hinako began to steam. Several of her officers winced, while others looked on rather hopefully that something was going to happen between them.

"What's your problem, Saotome?" she demanded of him. "Didn't you learn any respect for your superiors?"

Genma, Akane, and Doctor Tofu floated in behind Ranma.

"What seems to be the trouble?" Genma asked.

"Beats me, Pop," Ranma replied. "It's just this third-grader here being a brat. No big deal."

"Leave her alone, Ranma," Akane told him. "Pick on someone your own size."

"I wonder where Captain Ninomiya went?" Genma asked, ignoring the child who flailed her arms about for attention.

"Third-grader?! Brat!?" Hinako cried. "That does it! It's time for your attitude adjustment!"

She pulled out a small five mark coin with a hole drilled through it, and leveled it at Ranma. He casually flicked it aside, and floated past her to the elevator.

"Watch where you point stuff, okay?" he said over his shoulder. "It's rude."

Hinako scrambled after the coin as it floated away from her in free fall. When she recovered it, the elevator doors were sliding shut with the first load of returning _Palomino_ crew.

"Dammit!" she growled. "Someone's gonna pay for this."

Her officers began to pale with dread in anticipation of being her next victims, before she floated for the emergency stairwell instead. Once she was gone, they sighed with relief.

Happousai noted that Ryouga and Pansuto Tarou were behind him in the connector tube, a tactical blunder that he might come to regret. He stopped short and pulled himself aside to let them pass, keeping a watchful eye on both of them, and tensing to spurt away to safety if they tried anything. Tarou gave him a haughty look as he floated past, but there was little malice in it. Ryouga ignored him.

He wondered at this turn of events. Ryouga he had browbeaten into staying uninvolved, but Tarou? It was weird. He expected a bit more from the _bishonen_ mechwarrior. Maybe he wasn't as psychotic as he had previously believed.

He decided not to take the chance, and resolved to remain wary around the man until he could be safely rid of him. He'd choose his moment, then provoke him into revealing his Jusenkyo body. If he couldn't do that, then a little cold water in a flask would accomplish the same end. The crew wouldn't bat an eye when he blew Tarou out an airlock after that.

Akari and some of her techs passed by next, and he whistled tunelessly as he fell in behind them. His hot-tamale in tech's coveralls had such a sweet ass...

"I don't get it," Ranma remarked as they looked about the Bridge for the Captain. "Where is she?"

"Captain Ninomiya went down to the docking compartment to greet you," the young Officer of the Deck replied. "Didn't you see her?"

"All we saw was a little girl who was dressed like her," Ranma told the woman. "I thought it was her daughter, or a niece, or something."

The Officer of the Deck grimaced.

"No, sir. THAT was Captain Ninomiya."

Ranma's eyes bulged. "You're kidding, right?"

"I wish I was," the Officer of the Deck replied.

"I'LL handle this," a shrill voice issued from the emergency stairwell. Hinako pulled herself through the deck hatch to the Bridge to face the pig-tailed mechwarrior. "You are obviously a disciplinary problem, Mechwarrior Saotome, and I know just how to handle disciplinary problems..."

She raised the five mark coin to him once again.

He flicked it out of her hands. "Come on, quit it already. Do you really expect me to believe that this shrimp and the Captain are one in the same person?"

Hinako swam across the compartment after the coin, cursing and spitting with anger.

"I don't know, boy," Genma hedged. "There's something awfully familiar about her."

"You know," Akane remarked. "I seem to recall something about Captain Ninomiya that Dad warned me about before we left. I wish I remember what it was, but it seemed so ridiculous at the time..."

Hinako recovered her coin once again, and from the safety of the other side of the compartment she leveled it at Ranma.

"You can't stop me now!" she cried. "Happo-five-mark-satsu!!!"

Ranma brushed her off. "Aw, gimme a break, little girl!" He sighed wearily. "Since your mom ain't here, it looks like _I'm_ gonna have to be the one who gives you a spanking."

He charged towards her. Instead of a look of fear, which he expected from her, there was a look of savage glee. In the next moment, waves of amber light rippled from his body, swirling and flowing into a spiral that tightened into the circular hole in the center of the coin.

"_What_?!" he cried in surprise.

He felt his ki getting sucked out of him, draining him of energy and will, and paralyzing him with its intensity. At the same time he watched the little girl before him begin to grow at an alarming rate, filling out her jacket and skirt with a voluptuous body he immediately recognized before blacking out.

Captain Ninomiya stepped aside casually as the limp, almost shrunken body of Ranma Saotome bounced off the bulkhead behind her, and floated face-down and unconscious for the rebound trip. She saluted Genma crisply, but the man was too busy ogling her in her skintight uniform to respond.

"I apologize for the interruption, sir," she said to Genma in a low, sultry voice. "But disciplinary matters should be dealt with immediately, don't you agree?"

"Huh?" Genma grunted. "Oh yes, I concur. That boy has been sorely needing a dose of that... whatever it was."

Akane floated across the bridge to catch Ranma's body in time to spare him another bounce off the bulkhead. "What did you do to him?" she demanded.

"I drained him of his battle-aura," she responded haughtily. "No one can attack me and succeed."

"What will happen to him?" Akane asked fearfully. He seemed so still and empty in her arms.

"He should recover in a few hours," Hinako replied. "More than enough time to let him think about proper behavior in front of his superiors. You should probably take him below to his quarters, we have a lot of work to do on the Bridge."

Akane blinked twice before responding. "Sure." She pushed off of a console for the elevator to take Ranma below.

Doctor Tofu nudged Genma. "What an amazing technique," he said excitedly. "I've never heard of it before. Have you?"

"Never," Genma replied. "Ranma has learned once again that the path of a true mechwarrior is fraught with peril."

Hinako cleared her throat for attention. "Commander, the reason why the rendezvous occured earlier than planned was that we have been detected by the Furinkan Combine."

Genma paled at the significance of this. "How long do we have?"

She looked over at a status board. "Four hours and twelve minutes," she replied. "A Combine GunShip detected us, and has changed course to intercept. We don't have the thrust to outrun it."

"But we can still Jump, right?"

"If we can reach the Jump Point in time," she agreed. "I don't think that's possible. We docked ahead of schedule to make a maximum burn for the Jump Point without having to worry about a last-second link up, but it still leaves us without enough time to get there."

"What about fighting?"

Hinako shook her head. "Our anti-meteor weapons are no match for a Union Class GunShip. Even with the fighters we couldn't defeat it."

"There's got to be something we can do," Genma said hopefully. "You wouldn't be telling us this if you didn't have an idea... Right?"

Her eyes narrowed.

"There is one thing we can try," she said. "But it's very dangerous."

"So is getting caught by the Furinkan Combine," Tofu noted. "You missed the close call we had with Tatewaki Kuno on the planet."

"What is it?" Genma asked, grasping at anything that would save them.

"As I said," Hinako explained in a voice entirely too sexy to convey the gravity of their situation. "It's very dangerous, and I didn't want to attempt it without your permission."

"Get on with it!" Genma cried.

"We can attempt a Jump outside the normal volume of the Jump Point," she declared. The rest of the Bridge crew went silent, even though they knew what their options were before the docking maneuver.

"Isn't that, you know... bad?" Genma asked haltingly.

Hinako gave him a hard look. "Weren't you just saying that capture by the Combine was something you wanted to avoid? To answer your question, yes, it is something that is to be avoided during normal operations, but it isn't impossible."

"What might happen?"

"We could misjump," she conceded. "It could be bad or not depending on where we materialize. We could burn out the JumpCore of the ship, stranding us wherever we end up, or we might not even make it out of the System. There is even a small chance that the drive could explode and kill us all, or that we might succumb to certain relativistic effects..."

Genma knew the horror stories as well as anyone who travelled the stars. Stories of ships that moved through hyperspatial moebius strips of time instead of space - killing their crews with old age. Ships that turned themselves inside-out on arrival in realspace - instantly exposing the crew to hard vacuum. Ships that traveled not the maximum thirty light years imposed by the height of the Star League's Jump Drive technology, but three HUNDRED light years. There were stories of ships that left their ports of call on two-parsec milk runs to the nearest star, and were never seen or heard from again.

"But if we don't try, we're screwed anyway," he said numbly.

"Essentially," she admitted. "This ship has a reputation for causing the Furinkan Combine harm, and there is a considerable bounty placed on it and her crew. I don't relish the thought of what Tatewaki Kuno would do to us if we were to be captured, and I hold my orders from Grand Duke Tendo to protect Lady Akane with the highest reverence."

"I guess we don't have much of a choice," Genma said sullenly. "Do what you have to, Captain."

Hinako saluted. "Yes, Commander." Her severe look melted into one that was decidedly warmer. "You and your crew had best get below and rest. We shall get as close to the Jump Point as possible before we Jump, but it will be at least three and a half hours."

Furinkan Combine JumpShip _Imperator_

Capra System Zenith Jump Point

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

23 March 3025

Tatewaki Kuno looked up from the collection of classical poetry he was reading as the _Imperator_'s Chief Medical Officer stepped through the airtight door. The doctor's expression was guarded.

"My lord prince," the surgeon greeted him.

"How fares my sister?" Tatewaki asked.

"I was able to remove the bullet," he declared. "But we used a lot of blood in the process. Your sister is very weak." His face clouded. "Well, what I'm saying is that I can't offer any guarantees, my lord. If she survives the next forty-eight hours, then the chances are good that she will make a full recovery."

"She is a Kuno," Tatewaki replied proudly. "She will survive."

"Of course, my lord." He bowed for him. "If you wish to see her, your highness, they are moving her into an intensive care suite."

"In time," Tatewaki said, nodding.

The shrill of a bosun's whistle sounded over the intercom.

"General Prince Kuno, please lay to the Executive Bridge, sir," a voice on the 1MC requested.

Tatewaki frowned. This interruption was unnecessary. Were there not messengers aboard ship?

He left the surgeon in the waiting room, striding imperiously through the airtight door for the Executive Bridge. Members of the ship's crew stepped aside for him out of both reverence and fear. He rode the elevator up out of the Grav-Deck and into the center of the ship, feeling the subtle tug of the _Imperator's_ artificial gravity lessen on his tall frame.

He floated out of the elevator and into the hub. The decks ran perpendicular to the long axis of the WarShip here, for those times when the starship was accelerating under drive. The Executive Bridge was near the bow of the ship, a short ride by elevator away.

"General on the Bridge!" one of the crew shouted as the elevator doors opened for him. He spied his Operations Officer, Captain Lucius Kyle, hunched over the tactical station.

"Kyle, what is the meaning of this interruption?" he demanded.

The Operations Officer looked up from the displays.

"Forgive me, my lord prince," he began. "I know your sister is in surgery, but something critical came up."

"My sister's surgery is over," Tatewaki informed him. "Now speak, man."

"Sir, the GunShip _Sekigahara_ has detected a JumpShip on a parabolic orbit that will bring it within the Jump Point in a little over four hours."

"The identity of this starship?" Tatewaki asked. There were many possibilities, including that of the ship the beauteous Akane Tendo was aboard.

"It's a longshot," Kyle said to him, "Passive sensor data from the _Sekigahara_ was relayed to us for analysis since our battlecomp gear is more sophisticated..."

"There is, I trust, a point to this," Tatewaki said impatiently.

"Yes sir," Kyle nodded. "As I was saying, it's a longshot, but it appears that the JumpShip is a Confederation Special Operations vessel, the NCJS _Dragonfly_. It is commanded by Hinako Ninomiya according to our latest intelligence."

"Confederation?" Tatewaki asked, more to himself than anyone else. Akane Tendo had to be aboard that ship! "Tell me of this Captain Ninomiya. Will she fight?"

"It's difficult to say," Kyle replied. "From what we know of her behavior, she's, well... I guess 'erratic' would be a good word to describe her."

"Nevertheless," Tatewaki pronounced, "We must capture yon ship ere it Jumps. Advise the _Sekigahara_ accordingly."

"Yes, my lord prince. They are already on an intercept course. They should reach them well short of the Jump Point."

"Excellent. They are to shoot out the jumpcore without fail," Tatewaki ordered. "I will not tolerate the Confederation's escape."

"Of course, my lord prince."

Though his pulse pounded with the prospect of being reunited with Akane Tendo, and of capturing the cursed Saotomes, he maintained his composure. "What of the preparations for the invasion of the Capella system?"

"We shall be ready to attack in three days," Kyle replied. "We've effected what repairs we could, and the arrival of a floating airdock ship the day before you returned from Capra should take care of all but the most critical damage in that time."

"How many ships did we lose?" This question was critical, as it would determine the size of the force he could use to invade Capella.

"Two JumpShips were destroyed, as you know, in collisions. Two more suffered irreparable damage to their jump cores. Admiral Casick of the Engineering Command has a plan to convert them into space stations for managing the flow of troops and supplies into this theater of operations. The mobile recharge facility was destroyed."

Tatewaki nodded grimly. Four priceless JumpShips were gone. It was a painful loss to his fleet, but not an insurmountable obstacle to his plans for conquest. He was the Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine, and his victory was preordained.

He took his seat on the Executive Bridge and watched the tactical display with quiet intensity. The points of light that floated within the holotank represented the _Sekigahara_ and its quarry, the accursed _Dragonfly_. Were Akane Tendo not aboard that ship, he would have ordered it destroyed.

Jusenkyo Commonwealth JumpShip _Intangible_

Tau Ceti System Zenith Jump Point,

Tau Ceti System, the Jusenkyo Commonwealth

23 March 3025

Shampoo waited for the 'Clear to Stations' order as the JumpShip adjusted its orbit above the Tau Ceti primary. Soon she would have to take the _Jade Lotus_ to the planet, where she would face General Herb's debriefing. Inquistion was probably closer to the truth.

Mousse was with her, quiet and moody as he had been since they had collected him on Lightoller. She kept waiting for him to return to his old habits of annoying affection, and when he remained cold and distant, she came to the unlikely realization that she might have actually preferred him the way he was before.

Pink and Link were also with her. A smile graced Pink's face, while her twin sister kept her familiar frown. The two mechwarriors were also quiet, although if Shampoo knew them as well as she thought she did, they were busy plotting something.

The fact that Pink was a poisoner by hobby did not escape her, nor did the fact that Mechwarrior Laughing Orchid of the Recon Lance had taken suddenly ill. The backbiting mechwarrior had been the most vocal of the company in her denouncement of Mousse. The question Shampoo put to herself was whether or not Pink was responsible for Laughing Orchid's illness, and if so, why?

Pink had no reason to favor Mousse. Her attitudes regarding the inherent weakness of the male sex were much the same as those of the Joketsuzoku in general. Unless there was some personal grudge between Pink and Laughing Orchid, she could not imagine why she would do something insidious like poisoning her.

Asking Link would not help. Though she disapproved of her sister's habits, she would not betray her. The two were as thick as thieves.

Sighing, she spared a look at Mousse. He was the cause of more trouble than he was worth, she decided. Why had he been chosen for this mission?

She considered acceding to her battle-sisters' demands, and punishing him, but the truth was that he had done nothing wrong under the standards of clan battle law. She thought about what Kima might have done, and realized that the unfortunate woman who lay cold and dead in the Ship's Morgue would have had it no easier, having never been in a combat unit. Shampoo's jaw tightened. The decision was hers to make, and to live with.

There would be no reprimand for Mousse. If the others wanted to take their complaints to a higher authority, that was their right. She felt no concern over this, as her career - and possibly her life - were likely going to be over no matter what she did. The closer they drew to Tau Ceti's fourth planet, the more she felt that her destiny was there, waiting.

"Clear to Stations!" the 1MC called. "Set the normal Station Keeping watch, Section Two provide."

She rose from her chair and floated for the door. Mousse watched her go, and started up after her.

"What is it?" she asked him when they had cleared the room, and the door was safely shut behind them.

"I know what you're doing, Shampoo," he replied. His eyes were intensely dark against the white of his robes. The effect on her would have been powerful, had he not been facing halfway between the door and herself when he spoke.

"And what is that?" she challenged him, grabbing him by the collar, and turning him to face her.

"You're protecting me from the others," he replied. "They want to see me punished for what happened on Capra. By not acting, you're only condemning yourself."

Shampoo's violet eyes flashed in the dim lighting of the passageway. "That is my decision, Mousse. It doesn't concern you."

"It DOES concern me," he grated. "Shampoo, you mean everything to me. Don't you understand that? I won't see you destroyed because of me."

It was now obvious that his feelings had not changed in spite of his change in behavior. What had he endured on Lightoller after her escape from Herb to turn him into this sullen, angry man?

"You won't be destroying me," she replied with a touch of bitterness. "That honor belongs to General Herb at the debriefing."

Mousse's face contorted at the mention of the hybrid general's name.

"Him?"

"The same," she confirmed sadly.

"I don't understand."

"Nor do I," she replied. "But it's clear that because of our failure on Capra, I must assume responsibility and face the consequences."

Mousse threw up his hands. "But it isn't your fault!" he protested. "How were we supposed to know that the Furinkan Combine was going to invade the system?"

"We couldn't," she agreed. "But that isn't the point. I am the commander of the mission now, so the responsibility falls upon me. It is the way it should be."

"Can't your great-grandmother...?"

"No," she replied in a soft voice. "If she could, she would have done so, no matter what I might feel about it." She sighed and looked away from him for a moment. "This is something between the Elders, Mousse. I just happened to get caught in the middle. There is nothing you can do or could have done to prevent this."

"I refuse to accept that," he said to her.

Shampoo became angry, nearly throwing him away from her in the free fall of the passageway. "It's not your place to accept or deny anything!" she cried. "Can't you understand that? I am not a child! I will not continue to live in the shadow of my family, and I don't want any special treatment because I happen to be one of the Matriarch's great-grandchildren. I am responsible for myself and for my actions. I don't need your help, and I don't want it, do you understand me, Mousse!?"

He lowered his head to her.

"I will always be there for you, Shampoo," he told her. "I can't change the way I feel about this, because I can't change the way I feel about you."

"Then you're a fool for wasting your feelings on me," she returned.

His eyes were filled with pain. "I guess I am."

He pushed off the bulkhead, and floated clumsily away from her down the passageway.

"Mousse, you idiot," she whispered after him. "This is my battle to fight, not yours."

Nerima Confederation JumpShip _Dragonfly,_

6 light-seconds from the Capra System Zenith Jump Point,

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

23 March 3025

"Conn, Sensory; Time to GunShip Contact Romeo Five-Five intercept, ten minutes... mark!"

Captain Hinako Ninomiya nodded grimly at the update from her Sensory Officer. They were still too far from the Jump Point, and within ten minutes they would be at the extreme limit of the GunShip's weapons. She had no doubt that they would fire upon them, targeting their vulnerable jumpcore to prevent their escape.

"Conn, Sensory; new contact Romeo Eight-Four, bearing three-five-one minus one-eight, range is approximately four light-seconds, on intercept course. Romeo Eight-Four is classified as a troop shuttle."

"A boarding party," Hinako muttered. She turned to the Engineering Station, where the _Dragonfly_'s Assistant Engineer monitored the ship's systems. He gave her a brief nod of assent. The ship was nominally 'go' for a Jump.

"Helm," she called out. "Commence countdown for Hyperspace Jump."

A brief silence filled the Bridge as the fateful order was given.

"Commence countdown for Hyperspace Jump, Helm, aye!" The Helmsman punched a sequence of commands into the main computer. "Captain, the Helm is slaved to the Astrogation Computer for Hyperspace Jump."

"Very well, Helm," Hinako acknowleged. In the ten minutes it would take to energize the enigmatic chandelier guts of the jumpcore, they would see if the _Dragonfly_ could send them safely back to the Capella System. "Chief of the Watch, on the 1MC, Sound the Jump Alarm for the ten minute warning."

"Chief of the Watch, aye."

"Ranma?"

Ranma Saotome opened his eyes and then thought better of it. He was in his stateroom on the JumpShip, lying on his bunk, and Akane was sitting next to him. She seemed to be holding his hand for some reason.

"Yeah?" he mumbled.

"Are you okay?" she asked him.

He sat up slowly. His head hurt, and he felt a little weak. He looked around the small, spartan room, realizing that it was just the two of them.

"I guess so," he replied. "What the hell happened to me?"

"I'm not sure exactly," she said to him. "There was this big flash of light, and then you were out."

"Man," he stewed as he thought about the brief confrontation with Captain Ninomiya. "Who woulda thought she had such a powerful technique. I gotta find a way to beat her."

"Listen to you," Akane scolded him. "You can't even defeat Happousai, and now you want to fight Captain Ninomiya?"

Ranma frowned. It would be just like Akane to bring up his failure to deal with Happousai.

"You got it," he replied.

"You're an idiot," she retorted. "If you had just apologized, this wouldn't have happened to you."

"For your information, Tomboy," he growled. "She didn't exactly give me a chance to apologize!"

She let go of his hand, throwing it down to the bed with a huff. "That's right, Ranma. Just call me some more names, why don't you?"

"If you insist," he said to her. He stuck out his tongue and waggled it at her. "Macho chick."

Akane turned red.

"Ranma, you jerk!"

She shot to her feet and grabbed the pillow from the top bunk, bringing it down on Ranma's head with a _thud_, and wishing it was made of something heavier.

He took it harder than she expected, for he swooned back to the bed, dazed. In his weakened condition he was apparently not up to the abuse.

"Oh Ranma, I'm sorry!" she gushed, dropping the pillow as if it were on fire.

He raised a finger, curling it in a gesture to come closer. She leaned over him, wracked with concern.

"What is it, Ranma?" she asked him.

"You're uncute too," he whispered.

Her eyes crossed in response, and she began groping for the pillow a she glared at him. Perhaps another belt would do him some good, or at least teach him some respect. Then she realized that this was Ranma she was talking about.

"So what if I'm not cute," she muttered, quelling the urge to continue pummelling him. "It's not like I have to impress anyone."

"What about Ryouga?" he asked her abruptly.

She drew back from him, a smile forming on her lips. The pillow slipped from her fingers. "There you go again," she observed. "Talking about Ryouga. If I didn't know you better, I'd say you were jealous, Ranma."

"Ha," he retorted, though there was little conviction to it. "Why should I be jealous?"

"Because you really do like me," she declared, though this was only a guess. "And it bothers you to see me spending time with someone else."

"Don't forget the kiss you gave him," he added, his voice tight with emotion. He blanched when he realized that he had vocalized his thoughts instead of keeping them safely to himself.

She pounced.

"You ARE jealous!" she cried. She began to laugh.

"What's so funny?" he asked defensively. In that moment he felt about thirty centimeters tall.

Her grin was wide and smugly annoying. "I just think it's funny that the cool, self-assured Ranma Saotome can get so worked up about a little kiss on the cheek." She looked away thoughtfully. "I wonder how bad you'd be if I had kissed Ryouga on the lips instead?"

"Stop deluding yourself," Ranma growled weakly. "You go ahead and kiss anyone you want. See if I care."

Her eyes narrowed in appreciation for him. "Even you?" The quaver in voice as she asked him was faint and slightly hopeful.

He returned her look. "You wouldn't have the guts."

"Oh yeah?" she challenged. "It's more like YOU wouldn't have the guts to do it, Ranma. All you'd do is go run off and hide in the Engine Room."

He flinched. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!" she returned defiantly.

"Well pucker up, sweetheart!"

She paused for a moment, and he thought he had her beaten. Then she knelt down next to him on the bed, her eyes closed, and her nose just a few millimeters from his, waiting. Every muscle in Ranma's body locked up at the sight of her - the incredibly cute her - ready for his kiss.

"...Uh..." he remarked not so coolly.

She continued to wait for him, her eyes closed, and her lips puckered slightly to receive his kiss.

He was blazing red with embarrassment, but he was not going to lose this battle of wills with her! He closed his eyes and began to move slowly towards her. Just as he was about to touch his lips against hers, he froze.

She cleared her throat gently.

"Any time now, Ranma. If you really do have the nerve for it," she said to him quietly before returning her lips to their receptive position.

"I'm doing it," he muttered. "Don't rush me."

He opened his eyes. She was so close that he could make out the faint, downy fuzz of hair on her nose. He could feel her breath tickling him as he held there, motionless.

_Dammit! _he thought to himself. _This stalling is makin' me look like a clown... It's just a lousy kiss..._

He closed his eyes again and held his breath.

The loud klaxon of the Jump Alarm sounded over the 1MC intercom speaker outside his room, startling them both out of their dare.

"Ten Minute Warning to Hyperspace Jump," the Chief of the Watch said over the 1MC. "All hands lay to individual Jump Stations... The ship will execute a hyperspace jump in ten minutes."

Akane's eyes blinked open, driving him back in surprise. "Whoops!" she exclaimed. "We have to go now," she told him. They had to report to the 'C' Deck Lounge, where they would wait out the Jump until the 'Clear to Stations' was sounded. She gave him a look of mock sympathy. "I guess you just didn't have the nerve after all."

Ranma stared vacantly into space, at once relieved and disappointed by the interruption.

Akane stood up, pulling him upright as well with a tug on his shirt front.

"Come on, Ranma. You have to come along too."

"Yeah," he muttered, brushing absently at his mandarin style blouse and keeping his eyes on the carpet. He had lost to her, and the shame was all too painful for him.

She led him towards the door of the room, stopping at the threshold and turning around to face him. One of the _Dragonfly_'s crew passed by in the passageway behind her, carrying a fire extinguisher.

"Oh, and Ranma?"

He looked up at her. "What is it?" he asked.

"I think it's cute that you're jealous," she told him with a smile. Then she leaned over and kissed him sweetly on the lips. She parted with him and dashed away with a laugh before he could react.

Ranma stood there in the doorway, watching her go. He placed a hand up to his lips, which were moist from her kiss, and held it there for a moment in wonder.

"Contact Romeo Five-Five time to intercept three-zero seconds," Sensory updated.

"Jumpcore internal temperatures stable," Engineering informed. "Inverters Alfa through India are green. Ship's Battery indicates sufficient charge for Jump." The lights shifted for a moment as the starship's power-plant adjusted loads for the Jump.

"Clock synchronization is green," Helm reported. "Helm remains slaved to Astrogation. Reaction Control System in automatic. T-minus two-zero seconds to Jump."

Hinako took these reports quietly. They were dangerously far from the Jump Point. Had they been any further away, she would not even dared to attempt a Jump. Even capture by the Furinkan Combine offered better odds than certain death.

"Conn, Sensory; detecting active gun-directing radar in T-band plus LIDAR sweeps."

She looked to the Chief of the Watch, knowing that there was little she could do about the GunShip's weapon acquistion. They would probably not fire at extreme range, and she was counting on those few seconds their hesitation would give.

"Chief of the Watch," she called to him in her sultry voice. "Sound the Jump Alarm." She stood, knowing that it was against procedure, but if she was going to die, it would be standing up, in command of her ship. "Helm, execute Hyperspace Jump!"

"Chief of the Watch, aye."

"Helm, aye. Executing Hyperspace Jump in five... four... three... two... one... MARK!"

The Jump Alarm klaxon sounded three times in urgent warning for the maneuver that lay ahead.

As the massive circuit breakers that connected the Jump Drive with the Ship's Battery slammed shut well aft of the Bridge, plunging them into a tunnel of hyperspace, Hinako wondered if she would live to see the other side.

Ranma took his seat next to Akane, who offered a teasing smile but said nothing to him. He tried to hold back his continuing blush from her in return. Genma, Doctor Tofu, Ryouga, and Tarou were seated behind them, each waiting with some trepidation for the Jump. Everyone knew that what they were attempting was dangerous but him, since he had been unconscious almost the entire wait since docking.

"What's everyone so worked up about?" he whispered to Akane, as she was the only one he could talk to without turning around.

"We have to Jump outside the Jump Point," she returned gravely.

"Isn't that dangerous?" he asked, wondering why the hell they were doing something so stupid.

"You missed it," Akane explained. "A Combine ship detected us, and we couldn't outrun it. We either Jump or get captured."

"..._Damn_..." he muttered. "Talk about a no-win situation."

"I'd rather take my chances with the Jump," she whispered. "The next time I want to see Tatewaki Kuno is through my Warhammer's gunsight."

"I hear that," he replied.

They waited in total silence for several minutes, the tension hanging thick over the entire room. The lights shifted over their heads, and several clunking noises could be heard below them in the Engineering spaces.

"It won't be long now," he said.

The sound of several airtight bulkheads dropping into place echoed through the small lounge. The tinny voice of someone using a local intercom circuit in the next compartment followed.

Akane slipped her hand into his.

"Ranma, I'm really scared," she whispered so softly that he wouldn't have heard her had the lounge been less quiet. He was scared too, but he wasn't going to tell her that. Instead he gave her hand a squeeze.

The Jump Alarm sounded three times over their heads, an angry klaxon that made a noise like a dying moose. Three twelve-ton circuit breakers slammed shut far below them, loud and booming as Jovian thunderbolts, shaking the deckplates beneath their feet, and bringing forth a subsonic groan so fierce and so terrible to behold that it made Akane tense up into a death grip on his hand.

For an instant, the Nerima Confederation JumpShip _Dragonfly_ glowed brighter than a star, then winked out of existence.

Hyperspace

Contrary to what many in the Inner Sphere believed, hyperspace was not so much a place as an intrinsic property of the universe. Curled up into a tiny ball of cosmic string smaller than the Planck Length, the higher dimensions of hyperspace permeated all of existence, giving rise to a thousand quantum effects that even the scientific giants of the Star League had been unable to fully explain. In spite of this, hyperspace, that universal enigma, was not impenetrable.

Early physicists had predicted that the energy required to probe the Planck Length was on the order of many quadrillions of electron volts, or more power than the human race could ever conceivably hope to bring together at one time and in one place. What they did not know was that Nature was both cunning and underhanded, and while God did not play dice with the Universe, he wasn't adverse to keeping a few aces up his sleeve. There were ways around this seemingly insurmountable barrier.

Centuries later, the Kearny-Fuchida drive made interstellar travel practical, using one of God's back doors in the form of the intricate web of gravity that linked together the stars of the galaxy and the universe beyond. Humanity surged outwards into the depths of space, and soon after that the Star League was born. It was now close to a thousand years since the day that first JumpShip had leaped across four light-years from Sol to Alpha Centauri, but the process had remained relatively unchanged in all that time.

The Nerima Confederation JumpShip _Dragonfly_'s voyage through hyperspace was nearly the same as that of its ancient predecessor. The ship fell through a wormhole in space-time, its hull perilously close to the field of negative energy that maintained the narrow throat of the tunnel that linked the Capra system to the ship's ultimate destination. Any contact with that field would collapse the wormhole in an instant, catapulting them back into realspace with disastrous effect.

Though the Jump was considered to be instantaneous to an outside observer, relativistic effects could make the trip considerably longer to those who experienced it firsthand. Ranma Saotome watched as waves of color, sound, and sensation washed over him, warped and distorted in this place of unreality and infinite possibility. Akane was by his side, her hand warm and trembling in his.

Here the boundaries of the quicksilver-random quantum world crossed over into the comfortably predictable realm of the Classic Newtonian universe, where gravity and the laws of thermodynamics held sway, and one could observe both the location and velocity of an object simultaneously in space-time. Here, time was more than relative; it could and often did reject entropy, and flowed backwards as easily as forwards, and one could know of many things that had not yet come to pass if one was prepared for the experience.

Hallucinations were common side effects of the Jump, but Ranma wasn't so sure the images and sounds were phantasms. More than anything, they seemed like bits of the past and of possible futures congregating in this nexus of limitless potential in hyperspace. What he had seen in Jumps before did not compare to his present experience.

He was not ready at first for the future, seeing himself instead as a child, putting his father's neurohelmet on his head and hearing his father's laughter as he stumbled around blindly, bragging about what a great mechwarrior he would be some day.

This image blended seamlessly into a montage of battles, real, simulated, and perhaps yet to come, that demonstrated how far he had come in his boast - and how far he had yet to go. As the flames of war burned around him, he saw himself in his girl-body, wearing a frilly peach-colored dress, and complaining about the lack of support he was getting for his breasts.

His protests gave way to hazy recollections of his mother, and her gentle yet uncompromisingly formal voice. He saw her face like that of some otherworldly madonna, ethereal and half-imagined, yet no less divine. He realized that his strongest recollections of her were the way she smelled; the soft lilting notes of her bath oil, the earthy fragrance of peat after a day of tending their small garden, and the sweet buttery scent of freshly baked cookies she had made him once just because it was Thursday.

A tear welled in his eye in that moment as he realized on the most intimate levels of understanding what had he had lost in his pursuit of martial arts. His father was to blame for much of it, but then, what had he really done about it other than complain?

Akane's face appeared before he could answer that question for himself, her eyes closed and her lips waiting for his kiss - a kiss that only minutes prior to their Jump he could not bring himself to give. He found himself leaning forward in his chair, trying to reach that phantasmal Akane, and ignoring the very real Akane who sat by his side, whose hand was set in his. Even as he struggled with himself, she met him halfway, her lips soft and warm, touching his with an electric thrill that he longed to feel again.

Did she really mean it? he wondered as the _Dragonfly_ fell onward through the wormhole. Or was the kiss she had stolen from him just another way of mocking him for his weakness - proving how easy it was for her to do something that he had been unable to do? Was it actually possible that this macho uncute chick didn't really hate his guts - that she actually liked him - or was she just getting back at him for all those things he was better at doing than her?

Before he could come to grips with these possibilities, the lights and the sounds were gone, replaced with crushing darkness and a deafening silence. Pain shot through him, lighting up every nerve in his body in a flash of tingling heat. The ship seemed to twist and compress around him as a rushing bass vibratto swelled up from the depths of the ship, filling the silence with a furious noise. The shriek of tortured metal lanced through him, and visions of the ship being ripped apart wracked his fragile reserve of courage.

Emergency lights flicked on from battle-lanterns on the bulkheads, casting stark beams of white in the darkness. Akane was still there by his side, her eyes closed and her face taut with fear. The shadowy faces of his father, Doctor Tofu, Ryouga, and Tarou were behind him. He saw tears glistening on Ryouga's face, which the fanged mercenary quickly wiped away in the hope that no one would notice.

Genma coughed, breaking the silence. Ranma realized that not even the ventilation fans were running, and that at least this portion of the ship was without power. Gravity was not present, meaning the main drives were not functioning. There were no announcements from the Bridge to secure from Jump.

By all appearances, the _Dragonfly_ was dead in space.

Azure Cloud Castle

Planet Nerima, Capella System

The Nerima Confederation

29 March 3025

"Father, you should come inside now."

Grand Duke Soun Tendo turned at Kasumi's words to see his eldest daughter standing by the door that connected the garden terrace to the castle proper. Though Akane most resembled his dear late wife in appearance, it was Kasumi who had manifested her vast reserves of quiet strength and patience.

"Just a moment, Kasumi," he said to her. His gaze returned to the heavens. Hikaru Gosunkugi's warning of an impending Combine attack on the Capella System had been corroborated by other sources, giving him just enough time to recall his forces for the coming siege.

The Combine's attack would mean that his daughter Akane, his dear old friend Genma Saotome, and Genma's son Ranma would be cut off from the capitol. They were truly on their own. To return would be to place themselves in Tatewaki Kuno's hands.

If they weren't already, he thought bitterly. The first stop on their expedition to find Ryuugenzawa had been the Capra System, where the Combine was staging for their attack. There had been no word of them since they left the Capella System weeks ago. Would Tatewaki Kuno be presenting them as hostages when he arrived in the system?

Kasumi stepped up to his side.

"Really, Father. If you continue to worry like this, you'll make yourself ill."

"I know, Kasumi," he replied. "I can't help but worry."

"Akane is in good hands," she observed. "Ranma will take care of her."

"He is a good boy, isn't he," Soun remarked. How he wished those two would come to their senses and start getting along better! He was weary of his throne, and longed to retire to a quiet life of peace and introspection - and drinking beer and playing shogi all night, too. But even more than beer and shogi, he wanted grandchildren! The sooner Akane and Ranma were married, the better.

"There is some hope for him," his daughter replied with a faint smile. "I think they are better suited to each other than they realize."

Soun returned the smile. "It relieves me to hear you say that, Kasumi."

"You really should come inside now."

He looked up to the bright stars. They were out there somewhere, along with their enemies - and in some forgotten corner of the Inner Sphere lay Ryuugenzawa, their only hope for survival. Genma had to succeed!

"Just a little longer," he mumbled.

She relented.

"Yes, Father."

Kasumi turned and left him out on the terrace. He was too much of a worrier to convince otherwise. As she stepped through the door, she saw Nabiki waiting for her in the hall.

"What is it, Nabiki?" She kept her voice civil for decorum's sake. The two had never been very close, and Nabiki's recent turn against the family unity had not done their strained relationship any service.

"Is Daddy out there?" she asked. Nabiki's ability to be so flippant with people was a constant source of aggravation for the formal and proper Kasumi.

"He is," Kasumi replied. "Though he doesn't wish to be disturbed."

Nabiki gave her sister a sidelong glance. "Then I suppose I'll have to tell you instead. The Deep Space Tracking Center has just informed me that the Furinkan Combine fleet has just Jumped into this system. They estimate that they will be in orbit around Nerima in five days."

Kasumi frowned. "What about our defensive stations near the Jump Points? Weren't they able to resist?"

Nabiki became tight-lipped. "I'm afraid not, sis. They were taken by surprise. We were lucky to get any warning from them at all before the stations were captured."

Kasumi's frown deepened. Those battlestations had been on alert for the past three days. How had they been taken so completely by surprise?

"You came back to the castle to tell Father this?" she asked Nabiki. "Or did you come for some other reason?"

Nabiki's eyes glinted against the light of the hall. "Just what are you getting at?"

Kasumi's frown hardened into a stern glare.

"I think you know what I'm talking about, Nabiki. I'm not nearly as stupid or as naive as you might think I am."

"More like prefer, sis," Nabiki said with a brush of her fingers against her jacket. "I know you're not stupid. Just stubborn. We don't stand a chance against the Furinkan Combine, and here you are ready to lose everything we have for the sake of duty."

"Is it stubbornness to fight for what is rightfully ours?" Kasumi countered angrily. "And duty is the price we pay for all that we have."

"It's a wonderful deal," her sister replied with dripping sarcasm. "I can't thank our Tendo ancestors enough." She looked up at Kasumi with a mixture of sympathy and loathing. "You may not be stupid, dear sister, but you're still a fool to believe in our senile half-wit father and his fat con-man friend..."

Kasumi's forceful slap in the face spun Nabiki into the wall. Her cheek stung from the blow, and the fierce heat of shame and anger bloomed within her heart.

"That was real genteel, sis," she managed. Kasumi's eyes were too intense to look at, and she kept her gaze averted slightly. "You should be proud of yourself."

The look on Kasumi's face told her that she was not.

"Go back into town," she said to Nabiki. "Leave the castle at once."

"I'll do that," Nabiki replied stiffly. "When you and Daddy finally come to your senses and realize that your misbegotten bravado will end up doing more harm to our people than good, let me know. I'll take care of things, just like I always do."

She straightened out her jacket and left Kasumi standing alone in the hall without any further words between them. She strode purposefully down the hall to the Inner Courtyard and her waiting car. She had come to visit her father simply for the sake of decorum, knowing that he would not change his mind, and fully prepared to act without him. Her driver opened the door for her, and she settled in on the buttery-soft black leather upholstery.

Once the car was clear of the castle proper and making its way down the winding road for town, she picked up her cellular phone. She had divorced herself from the family's accounts when she left the first time, and the expense of maintaining her own phone was nothing compared to her means. She needed the security of her own accounts.

"Tell them to proceed," she said to the man who answered her call. She then disconnected. Though her transmission was encrypted, she knew that Kasumi was smart enough to have it monitored. She would leave nothing to chance.

A quick poll among the nobles over the last three weeks had confirmed her beliefs. She owned several outright, and the rest would jump her way with little persuasion. They had lands and titles to protect, and assurances from Tatewaki Kuno that nothing would change in those respects after the Confederation had been ceded to him would be more than sufficient for them to do as she instructed. Especially when it was clear that their current liege was insane - as she would soon declare.

The only thing that remained was to hammer out the details with Kuno-chan. His arrival in the system was sooner than she would have preferred, but she was confident that she could pull off her coup d'etat with little difficulty.

She wished that it hadn't come to this. If her father had only listened to her instead of that oafish Genma Saotome, they could have avoided this ugly mess. Sure it would have meant that Akane would end up as Kuno's bride, but that was inevitable. Better that they got something out of it rather than watching the wedding from a prison cell. It wasn't her fault that she was the only one of the family with any common sense.

The car passed silently through the gatehouse and into the city. Nabiki looked at the blaze of lights around her and smiled. She would insist on keeping Capella as a personal fief, and looked forward to ruling over the system as Duchess. One star system was more than enough for her, and Kuno-chan couldn't begrudge her that much once he ruled the entire Inner Sphere.

Nerima Confederation JumpShip _Dragonfly_

Position Unknown, Date Unknown

"Did we make it?" Akane asked quietly by Ranma's side.

He released her hand.

"You're still here to ask about it," he returned.

"Jerk," she growled, though there was relief in her eyes. He wondered what she had seen during the Jump to make her so upset and so glad to have made it through to the other side.

"Hey, you asked," he replied curtly. He unstrapped his lap belt and rose from his chair. Gravity was still absent, and he floated gently towards the overhead.

"There seems to be a problem," Genma observed. The sound the ship had made both entering and leaving Jump had not been pleasant. Had they misjumped, or was it even worse than that?

"At least we're still alive," Doctor Tofu added. "I suppose it could be much worse."

Ranma twisted around to face them. "Don't say that. We don't know where we are yet."

He gave himself a push with his foot against the back of his chair, and drifted across the lounge to the sound-powered telephone station. The communications circuit was designed to be used in situations such as this, when electrical power was compromised.

He set a dial on the phone to the 'Bridge' position, and cranked on the growler. The growler was a small hand-turned DC generator inside the phone unit that acted as a kind of annunciator to the person at the intended station.

"Bridge, 'C' Deck Lounge," he spoke into the phone. His voice moved a diaphragm in the phone, which acted on a magnet that then sent a low-powered electrical signal through the line to the phones on that circuit. The signal acted on a magnet, which moved a diaphragm in the earpiece, which reproduced a tinny facsimile of his voice on the other end.

There was no answer.

"What the hell is going on up there?" he wondered aloud.

Captain Hinako Ninomiya righted herself in free-fall to face a Bridge in the midst of chaos. Sparks and flame burst from control panels, filling the room with smoke. Battle-lanterns flicked on around her as lighting was lost.

They had come through the tunnel, though far from intact.

"Damage report!" she demanded. There were no immediate replies as her crew brought the small fires under control around her. She reached for an emergency breathing mask and plugged it into the manifold.

The fires were quickly extinguished. Because they had lost power, it was a simple matter to put the fires out, but it also meant that they had bigger problems ahead.

"Main Power is down," the Assistant Engineer managed from his station. He fumbled for a breathing mask as the smoke thickened from melted wiring insulation. "Emergency Power has not responded. I've lost most of the repeater feeds for Engineering as well."

"Helm is down," the Helmsman added. "No response from the Main Engines or the Reaction Control System."

"Radar and passive sensors are down," Sensory reported.

"The Main Computer is down on loss of power," Astrogation chimed in. "We're rebooting from the system's dedicated emergency battery. It looks like the auctioneered power supply did not cut in. We're checking on what went wrong now."

Hinako knew the heart of the matter was located in Engineering. "Can we raise the Engine Room on any circuit?"

The Communications Officer shook his head. "I'm sorry, Captain. We're experiencing grounds on all powered and emergency phone circuits. We are trying the 1MC intercom system now."

He flipped a switch on a secondary breaker board, cutting in a stand-alone power supply for the intercom.

"Engine Room, Bridge, please respond."

The intercom crackled with static for several seconds. The voice that responded was pinched and tinny, and short of breath.

"Bridge, Engine Room! Fire in the Engine Room! Fire on all levels!"

The sound of men shouting and the hiss of breathing apparatus over the roar of an inferno chilled Hinako's blood.

"Bridge acknowledges the fire, Engine Room!" the Communications Officer replied.

Hinako looked at her crew. "We can't do anything up here until we restore power. We can't restore power until we put out the fires. Everyone clear the Bridge and get below. Chief of the Watch, sound the General Alarm. Pass the word on the 1MC for all hands to muster in the Crew's Mess for damage control efforts."

The crackle of the 1MC caught Ranma's attention.

"Engine Room, Bridge, please respond."

The intercom crackled with static for several seconds. Ranma was about to speak when there came a reply.

"Bridge, Engine Room! Fire in the Engine Room! Fire on all levels!"

They could hear the frantic efforts of the engineers over the intercom. He tensed at the news. Akane gave him a frightened look.

"Bridge acknowledges the fire, Engine Room!"

Ranma and Ryouga both started for the door, followed closely by Doctor Tofu and Genma. Tarou grunted and got up to follow, leaving Akane alone in the room.

"Where are you going?" she asked them.

"What's it look like?" Ranma shot back. "You wanna burn to death in the middle of nowhere?"

The reality of their situation set in for her. She had never before experienced such a disaster, and even the ship's drills she had participated in during her training as a mechwarrior did not compare to the sudden and dire urgency of the moment.

"Rig ship for Fire and General Emergency! All hands not on watch or involved with damage control efforts, lay to the Crew's Mess! All _Palomino_ hands lay to the 'C' Deck Damage Control Locker," the voice of the Chief of the Watch on the 1MC demanded.

The General Alarm sounded. Akane steeled herself and followed after them in the knowledge that the next few hours might be her last.

The passageways were lit only by the prying beams of light from the battle-lanterns suspended from the bulkheads. Fingers of smoke coiled from ventilation ducts. The sounds of the crew carried through the darkness as they struggled in zero-gravity with powerless airtight doors and with damage control equipment.

They were in the middle of nowhere, both figuratively and possibly literally, and their starship was on fire. If they didn't act quickly and decisively, she knew, they were going to die as Ranma had said, burning to death or else choking on the smoke and toxic fumes from the flames.

She caught up with them as Ranma, Genma, and Ryouga struggled into fire-retardant canvas smocks at the 'C' Deck Damage Control Locker with the other crew members from the _Palomino_. The _Dragonfly's_ crew were already heavily engaged with the various casualties, and the _Palomino_ crew represented the only reserves available.

"What do you need me to do?" she asked the man in charge, whom she recognized as one of the _Dragonfly_'s cooks.

The cook looked over the fire-fighting teams that were forming up around them.

"I need a phone talker," he replied, holding up a sound-powered phone headset.

Akane took the phones and put them on without another word. As she checked in with the few stations that remained on the circuit after the grounded sections were isolated, she saw Ranma placing a breathing mask over his face. Ryouga tended to Ranma's chemical oxygen supply, which the pig-tailed mechwarrior wore over his chest. The chemical rebreather would sustain him for about thirty minutes of strenuous activity at best before the cartridge needed to be replaced.

She caught the look in his eyes as he adjusted the straps for a good seal. There was fear there, something which she had never seen from him before. He was scared, but he was going ahead anyway to battle the flames on the decks below.

Ryouga finished with the rebreather, stuffed two extra cartridges into the thigh pockets of Ranma's smock, then tucked Ranma's exposed pigtail underneath the fire-retardant material. When he finished with Ranma, he began the same process for himself, with Ranma assisting. The way the two worked together shocked Akane. She hadn't thought they could ever set aside their differences for long.

When they had finished, they joined Genma and one of Akari's techs by the emergency ladder down to 'D' Deck. They would have to use the ladders, as the elevators were not working with no electrical power. There was a smoke curtain over the ladderwell, but enough of the soot and fumes had drifted through the gaps to begin filling the small compartment.

The cook ordered everyone who wasn't on a fire-fighting team into their emergency breathing masks.

Akane signed off temporarily to put on her mask. The synthetic rubber smelled of old sweat and the iodine-based disinfectant used to clean the mask. She pulled it over her head, thankful at last for short hair, and adjusted the straps. When she had a good seal, she plugged the hose into a manifold connection near the overhead and joined in the hissing chorus of those around her sucking in breathable air.

She wanted to tell them to be careful, but they were already starting down the ladder well.

Ranma checked the small digital timer display in his mask visor. He had just under thirty minutes of oxygen remaining. His father had a plastic board showing them where they were going and what to expect. It did not surprise him to know that they were headed right for the heart of the fire in Engineering to relieve the crew that were already down there - and getting short on air.

"Any questions?" Genma asked them when he was finished.

"Anyone seen Tarou?" Ryouga asked in a near shout because his voice was muffled by his breathing mask.

Ranma looked around. It was just him, Pop, Ryouga, and one of the _Palomino_ battlemech techs. Doctor Tofu had left for Sick Bay, which was only natural, but where was Tarou?

"Beats me," Ranma shouted. "Time's wasting."

Genma nodded. His glasses were starting to fog inside his mask. They wouldn't clear up until the sweat was pouring down them, but that wouldn't be of much help to him.

"Let's go!" he shouted to them.

They had to pull themselves down the ladder well in zero-gravity. The hub of 'D' Deck was just as dark and forbidding as the rest of the ship, and smoke diffused into a sparkling haze under the stark beams of the battle-lanterns. Their breaths in the darkness were the only sounds to be heard over the distant roar of the fire several decks below.

"We'll check in on 'F' Deck," Genma reminded them as they continued ondown the ladder well between decks. The smoke was heavier the farther aft they went, though soon diffusion would make each level that was not isolated from the fires as unbreathable as the next.

Once on 'F' Deck they had to leave the ladder well and pull themselves through the smoke curtain. Beyond the deck hatch was an inferno, and they could see the metal glowing a dull red from the heat. One of the ship's crew stood nearby with a headset and a large plexiglass sheet with the schematic drawings of the Engineering Spaces. The room was stiflingly hot, and sensors on Ranma's helmet mask told him that the atmosphere was quite toxic. Some of the crew drifted in midair, completely exhausted from their exertions.

"It's a real Hell down there!" the man shouted through his mask at them. "We've got all the fires knocked down but one, and I can't get anyone close enough to it because of the heat."

Genma noted the stacks of empty carbon-dioxide bottles strapped down against a bulkhead.

"Any Halon left?"

"Not here. We've called for some from the upper decks, but nothing's reached us yet. The automatics went off as advertised, but something's pushing the stuff out of the space. The extinguishers are all used up."

"How much CO2 do you have left?"

"We're down to one pallet that we were able to swipe from the cryogenic plant before it got too hot," the man replied. "We called for that too, but so far, zip. I was saving what we had left for one last push, but my guys are all beat."

"That's what we're here for," Genma declared. He pushed Ranma and Ryouga forward. "Go take care of it, boys!"

"What about you?" Ranma protested.

Genma gave him a solemn look through his fogged mask. "I'll be behind you the entire way."

Ranma shook his head.

"Thanks a lot, Old Man."

The two started down a passageway where CO2 hoses tied to dedicated fire-fighting supplies hung limply in midair. Crew members carrying some of their own strapped down on stretchers were coming the other way. Ranma could see that several of the people on stretchers were dead, and that all had suffered burns.

They followed the hoses through an airtight door that had been cranked open by hand, and into an orange haze of light and intense heat. Two men in silvery proximity suits held up a reflective blast shield to keep the radiant heat that welled up from the ladder at bay.

"We gotta get past _that_?" Ranma shouted to Ryouga.

"I don't think we're dressed for the occasion," Ryouga agreed.

The two men in the proximity suits made way for them as they approached.

"Bring any Halon?" they yelled over the roar of the flames below.

"No," Ranma replied. "We were supposed to replace the fire-teams."

"They pulled out," the man said with a shake of his head. "It's too damn hot down there."

Ranma looked to Ryouga, who shook his head slowly.

"What's going on, boy?" Genma demanded from well down the passageway.

"There's no one here to replace!" Ranma called back.

"Stay where you are. We've got some Halon extinguishers on the way."

Ranma nodded his head. Shouting just used up your air faster.

"What's the plan?" Ryouga asked him while they waited.

Ranma looked at the open hatch. Flames licked up from the angry orange glow below. It really did look like some vision of Hell down there.

"I'm thinkin' we pin open a couple of extinguishers and drop 'em down there to beat back the fires. Then follow them in and go from there."

"That won't work in zero-gee," Ryouga countered. "They'll just shoot around the compartment like rockets."

"Then I guess we jump down there with them and hold them steady. We brace ourselves against the bulkheads or something."

"That's the best you can come up with?"

Ranma's sweaty frown was clearly visible through his mask. "Got any better ideas?"

Ryouga shook his head slowly. "I don't like it, but I suppose we don't have much choice."

Bottles of Halon and carbon-dioxide appeared, courtesy of Akane Tendo.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Ranma asked her in disbelief.

"Someone had to bring them," she retorted. She hefted the line of bottles held together by lengths of nylon cord at him.

Ranma caught the bottles, and was driven against the bulkhead by them. "Thanks a lot," he groused. Then he turned to the men with the blast shield. "You guys first, since you're dressed for it. Come on, Ryouga."

The two men with the blast shield looked at each other, then at Ranma.

"You gotta be kidding us," one of them said.

"Nope. If I gotta go down there, then you can too."

Ryouga grabbed the blast shield from them. "Stop wasting our time," he yelled at them. Then he jumped down the hatch and into the inferno. Ranma followed after, while Genma, Akane, and the two men looked on gravely.

'G' Deck was filled with heat and fire. In zero-gravity the very air itself seemed to be ablaze, and it was impossible to tell where the center of the inferno could be located. Even with the blast shield protecting them from the bulk of the blaze, the heat was incredible, scorching them through layers of canvas and thermal insulation.

Ranma planted his feet against a bulkhead, praying that it wasn't so hot as to melt his insulated boots. When he was set, he clamped down on the Halon extinguisher and held tight. A cold gout of gas sprayed from the horn, pushing him against the bulkhead and driving back the flames.

The temperature dropped from dangerous to merely uncomfortable within seconds, giving them the foothold they needed to continue the attack. It was going to be slow going in zero-gravity, as he would have to hold on to things as he advanced with the extinguisher to keep him from being impulsed in the opposite direction as the gas.

The two reluctant crew were pushed down from above to land behind them. They carried additional bottles of Halon, which they quickly handed off to Ranma. Ryouga moved forward down the passageway towards the heart of the deck with the blast shield before them. Ranma adjusted his position, planting his feet on a section of piping and letting go with another blast of Halon to clear the way.

"Do you hear something?" Ranma asked aloud.

"Like what?" Ryouga called back.

"A hissing noise."

"I can't hear anything other than the fire."

Ranma wasn't so sure. A fire as intense as this one should have burned itself out by now from a lack of oxygen. At the very least it should have been sucking up the air from the other decks, but all he had seen was the fire moving the opposite way. Something was pushing the fire, just like the two crew members had said.

"Let's keep going and see if we can get a better look."

Ryouga nodded, and advanced with the blast shield before them. The bulkheads were scorched black around them, and melted metal and plastic bubbled and flowed into weird and grotesque shapes in zero-gravity. Hot gobbets of the stuff burned into their smocks and singed the flash hoods that covered their hair.

The hissing was more distinct.

"I hear it," Ryouga cried.

"What do you suppose it is?"

"I don't know," the fanged mechwarrior replied. "Maybe an air line is broken or something."

"Let's take a look."

They continued around a corner and into a wall of flame that shot down the passageway at them. The fireball crashed into the blast shield, licking around the edges at them like a ravenous beast. Ranma triggered his second Halon extinguisher, not caring that he wasn't placed for it. The blast of cold halogen gas smothered the questing fireball and sent him flying back down the passageway with a yelp.

As Ryouga fought to maintain his own balance, another fireball came shooting down the passageway in a curtain of pure flame. It pushed against the intangible barrier of Halon, driving it back in his face in wisps of decomposition products that tinged the air green against the orange of the fire.

"Ryouga, pull back!" Ranma shouted from down the passageway.

Ryouga held firm, digging the semi-soft soles of his half-melted boots into the deck for traction.

Ranma swore to himself and swam against the air currents to reach him. There was definitely some kind of air movement driving the fire back down the passageway. With no power in the ship, it couldn't have been a fan, so it had to be some kind of air leak.

He reached Ryouga as another wall of fire washed over them, searing them with its heat. The very air he gulped into his lungs from the rebreather was hot, and tiny wisps of steam fogged his vision from the drops of sweat that boiled off the inside of his visor.

"Ryouga, we gotta get the hell out!" Ranma cried.

"We can't let up!" he protested.

Ranma grabbed him forcefully and pulled him back around the corner of the passageway. The flames washed over them once again, nearly blinding them with the intense light of burning atmosphere.

"What are you doing?" Ryouga demanded.

"Saving your stubborn neck, P-chan! Now hold here while I drop this airtight bulkhead."

There was a manual release for an airtight bulkhead nearby. Ranma tugged at it, hoping to drop the fire-resistant curtain of steel into place, and stop the return of the fire to those areas they had just secured.

It came down slowly, with a squeal of protest, but it came down. The airtight bulkhead locked into place, protecting them from another wall of hungry flame.

"Now we can't attack the fire at all," Ryouga protested. "What's the big idea?"

"We ain't gonna be able to get through this way," Ranma replied in an exhausted voice. "Until we can find a way to cut off whatever is supplying the fire with oxygen, we're just wasting our time and what little Halon and CO2 we have left."

The fanged mechwarrior said nothing.

"Well?" Ranma asked him. "Am I right?"

Ryouga dropped his head to his chest wearily.

Ranma slumped against a bulkhead in Sick Bay. His face was grimy with sweat and smoke from the savage attempt at fire-fighting. The air was foul with particles of soot that glittered like tiny diamonds in the waning beams of light from the battle-lanterns. In addition, the carbon dioxide levels were high, and the oxygen levels low, making the easiest of tasks a challenge. Portable lithium hydroxide crystal air-scrubbers were the only things keeping the atmosphere even this breathable, but once the scrubber chemicals were exhausted, so were their chances of survival.

Ryouga, Genma, Akane, and Akari were present, as well as Captain Hinako and those members of the Engineering Department who were still ambulatory.

The sounds of the wounded and the dying were muffled by the roar of the oxygen-fed fire several decks below them. It was the last fire on the ship that had not been put out. The best they could do was contain it to parts of 'G' and 'H' Decks, but that wasn't good enough.

"The fire has spread back through Radial One-Oh-Five to within ten meters of the Number One Oxygen Bank on 'G' Deck," Chief Engineer Evans said to them, pointing from his sickbed to a smudged sheet of plastic adorned with the starship's blueprints. He was badly burned over most of his body, missing most of his hair, and loosely wrapped in bandages that oozed plasma and other fluids. Doctor Tofu watched over him as he spoke, keeping him conscious and lucid against the pain with acupressure, and keeping him alive with continuous intravenous drips.

"The cut-out valves for the O2 bank went shut automatically when the lines were broken on reentry from hyperspace," he continued. "But it looks like they're leaking by."

"Yeah," Ranma said. "We could hear the hissing any time we got close enough to the fire to fight it."

Ryouga nodded in agreement. He too was glazed with smoke and sweat.

"If the fire spreads into the O2 bank compartment..." Hinako began, knowing the answer and yet wanting it from her Chief Engineer firsthand. "What then?"

"The bank will probably explode once the heat raises the gas pressure above the rating of the flasks," Evans replied in a voice taut with pain. "If the Jumpcore hasn't already been ruined, an explosion like that will finish it off. But that won't matter much because the blast will probably decompress the rest of the habitat as well."

"Can we vent the O2 bank remotely?" Hinako asked. There were valves for that purpose, but whether they would work was another matter.

"We tried that," Evans replied. "Locally too." He looked down at himself. "How do you think I got this way?"

Hinako blushed with shame. "So what can we do, Commander?"

Evans studied the ship's drawings for a moment, straining for breath. "The only thing I can think of would be to vent 'G' Deck to space. The remote systems for that are down without power, though. Someone is going to have to manually override the ventilation flappers between 'H' Deck and 'G' Deck, and then he'll have to override the airlock doors on the starboard side of 'H' deck."

"There's a mechanical interlock that has to be defeated before you can do that, right?" Ranma asked, knowing that he was going to be the one who volunteered for the job.

"Right," Evans confirmed with a wheeze. "A rack and pinion linkage that keeps both doors from being open at the same time." He looked closely at Ranma. "You can disengage it from a bulkhead access panel from the inside only though. That means you'll be about five meters from the fire, maybe less by the time you get there."

Ranma tried to look nonchalant about it. "No big deal."

"It's suicide," Akane protested, giving him a look of exasperation. "Isn't there some other way?"

"Explosives maybe," Evans admitted. "But good luck trying to breach the hull near those points, and God only knows how much damage you'll do to other systems in the process. There's no time to get through the hull with precision cutting tools."

Hinako didn't like the idea any better than Akane, but she was out of able-bodied personnel who had both the necessary technical skills - and the guts - to do it. "What are the chances that Number One O2 bank will bleed down before the fire reaches it?"

Evans shook his head, an act that was clearly painful to him. "Number One was at 4500 PSI when we Jumped. At the maximum bleed rate through the rupture, it would take close to three hours to bring the pressure down to one atmosphere. With it leaking past the valves, it'll take much longer. We don't have that long before something bad happens."

"Right," Ranma declared. He thumped Ryouga on the shoulder. "Let's get suited up."

Ryouga turned to Ranma and gave him a stern look. There was no chance that he would refuse this opportunity to show Akane how brave he was, but to be upstaged by Ranma like this!

"You don't have to tell me, Ranma," he replied. "I would have gone without you."

Hinako looked at both of them.

"I can't thank you enough for what you're volunteering to do," she said in her sultry voice. She gave Ranma a penetrating look. "Perhaps I've misjudged you, Saotome."

"Save it," Ranma replied evenly. "I'm gonna want a rematch, you know."

Hinako gave him a tiny smile of approval. "Hopefully you'll get your chance." She turned to Doctor Tofu. "Get with the Chief Medical Officer and have them start moving the wounded up to the Greenhouses. The rest of us not actively involved in damage control will follow. If the airtight seals between decks start to fail when we vent 'G' Deck to space, the Greenhouses will be our only refuge."

Tofu nodded in reply. Invader Class JumpShips like the _Dragonfly_ had two large bubbles outside the habitat where hydroponics gardens and small open air recreation areas were located. The Greenhouses supplied food crops and acted as a backup for the life-support machinery, and were well isolated from the primary habitat. Ordinarily in a situation like this, the DropShips could be used as lifeboats, but in this case, the fires and the loss of power had cut them off from such a refuge.

The 'E' Deck Airlock was the closest one to the affected part of the ship. Ranma and Ryouga struggled into their pressure suits, the lack of oxygen in the space making their efforts as difficult as the condition of free-fall they experienced.

Akane and Akari were with them. Akane because she wanted to be there when the two of them left the ship, and Akari because she had the tools they would need to complete their task. The demure technician floated close by, waiting patiently for them to finish the task of suiting up.

Ranma finally locked his helmet into place, visor up, then accepted a large transparent blast shield from Akari.

"Come on, Ryouga, we ain't got all day," he said to him.

Ryouga twisted his helmet into place. "Shut up, Ranma. Just try to stay out of my way, all right?"

"Gimme a break."

"Stop it, both of you!" Akane admonished them. "You were working so well together just a little while ago. What's gotten into you all of a sudden?"

Ranma looked at Ryouga and winked.

"Wouldn't she like to know, eh 'P-chan'?" he said in a voice too low for Akane to hear.

Ryouga grimaced, but said nothing.

Satisfied with their unspoken exchange, Ranma drifted towards the open inner door of the airlock, catching a small EVA thruster on the way. Akane reached out and snagged him by the foot, spinning him slowly in free-fall to face her.

"What's the big idea?" he asked her gruffly.

What had been concern on her face now became ire.

"I was going to ask you to be careful, Ranma," she said to him. "But now I couldn't care less about what happens to you. Jerk."

Her words stung, and he went on the defensive at once. "Oh yeah? Well what would I care about what some uncute tomboy like you thinks?"

"Ranma!" Ryouga barked. "Don't talk to her that way."

"That's okay, Ryouga," she said tersely. "I don't care what he thinks either." She gave him a forced smile. "Now you be careful, Ryouga. I mean it."

Ryouga blushed brightly as she took his gloved hands in hers.

"Whatever," Ranma muttered. He stepped inside the airlock to leave the two lovebirds to their good-byes.

Ryouga reluctantly let go of her hands and accepted the tool bag from Akari. He blushed again as their hands made brief contact in the exchange, but there was no time for words between them. Ranma was already complaining about what was taking so long.

"Can't you ever shut up?" he asked the pig-tailed mechwarrior as he joined him in the airlock.

"Nope," Ranma replied, dropping his visor and pressurizing his suit. He clutched at the clear polycarbonate blast shield he would use to protect them from the heat of the fire.

"If we get through this alive, I'm gonna kick your sorry ass, Ranma," Ryouga said to him as he dropped his own visor.

"You're welcome to try, man."

The airlock door went shut, and the air was cycled out. The last thing they saw before they turned to step out into deep space were the faces of Akane and Akari.

Ranma switched on his suit radio, and motioned for Ryouga to do the same. With the ship powerless, there was no way for anyone to monitor their conversation.

"You ready to do this, P-chan?"

"Shut up with that already," Ryouga returned. "What's your problem, Ranma?!"

"You sleeping in Akane's bed!" Ranma shot back. He stepped out of the airlock and into deep space.

Ryouga had no answer for that. It was true that he had enjoyed every moment of it at Ranma's expense, and it was also true that now there was no turning back for him as P-chan. If Akane were to find out that her beloved pet pig was not what he seemed to be... He shuddered in his suit at the thought.

"Come on, Ryouga," Ranma's voice crackled over the radio. "We ain't got all day."

He followed Ranma outside. The vast emptiness of space that now surrounded him shook him to very core of his being. Only the comfortable mass of the _Dragonfly_ close at hand kept him from collapsing from vertigo on the spot.

Ranma was pointing out into space.

"Hey, check it out," he said.

Ryouga caught up to him and looked in the direction of his finger. A bright yellow orb glowed in the distance, shining forth with a light that humbled the cold pinpricks of the other stars.

"We made it," Ranma said with a relief. "We're somewhere instead of nowhere."

Ryouga sighed. If they had materialized in interstellar space, they would have been trapped forever, unable to Jump even if they were able to repair all of the damage to the ship. The K-F drive required a large gravity well in which to function, and such was not to be found in the void between the stars.

He triggered the small bank of jets on his EVA thruster, and started along the hull of the ship.

"Hey, Ryouga," Ranma said to him. "Aft is the other way."

He cringed inwardly and fired braking jets. Ranma was already moving towards the base of the dome shaped habitat of the _Dragonfly_, where the Engineering spaces could be found. The bricklike mass of the _Palomino_ was beyond, attached firmly to the hull at the forward end of the long cylindrical mass of the JumpCore. At the far aft end were the plasma drives and the finger-like apparatus for furling and deploying the JumpSail.

When he caught up to Ranma, he was opening the outer door of the 'H' Deck airlock. It was a difficult task with no power, as he had to hand pump the hydraulic fluid through the operating mechanism. The orange glow of the fire spilled through the viewport of the door.

"It's gonna be hairy once we get inside," Ranma said to him. The airlock outer door finally began to move, venting to space the small amount of atmosphere within.

Ryouga could see the flames through the viewport of the inner door. The access panel for overriding the doors' safety interlocks was on the other side.

"I can see that."

Ranma gave him a questioning look. "You up for this?"

"You're holding the shield, Ranma," he returned. "You tell me."

Ranma nodded. "Right. Let's do it."

They floated inside the airlock and pumped the outer door shut from the inside. It was decided that since they were going to have to force the inner door open anyway, there was no point in equalizing pressure by filling the airlock with more combustible air.

The inner door was hot to the touch, a bad sign. Ryouga cranked on the hand pump as Ranma held the blast shield in front of the door. The airlock door creaked, then began to wrench open, sucking flames and hot gas into the tiny space with them.

More heat blazed at them, and flames curled around the edges of the shield, burning Ranma's fingertips through his gloves. He grunted back a curse and stepped into the inferno, trusting to his suit's environmental systems to protect him from the worst of it. Ryouga moved in behind him, searching for the access panel.

The bulkheads were scorched black from the heat, making it difficult to find. He was reduced to running his hands along the surface, feeling for cracks or handles. Ranma's grunts of pain and exertion filled his headset as the pig-tailed mechwarrior held the blast shield between the flames and themselves.

At last he found it. The metal was warped, and he had to wrench at it with all his might to open the panel. The metal of the rack-and-pinion interlock gleamed with heat discoloration within. Ryouga produced a pair of pliers, and began to work at the Jesus-clips and cotter pins that held the assembly together.

"Any time now, Ryouga," Ranma said tersely over his shoulder. The flames licked up at them from the deck, causing sudden waves of ice cold fluid from the environmental pack to course through the suit to compensate, making them shudder with the rapid extremes of temperature.

"I'm working on it!" Ryouga retorted, yanking fruitlessly at one of the fasteners with his pliers. No wonder they called them Jesus-clips!

A loud panting noise filled their ears, and suddenly another fireball crashed into them. Ranma yelped in pain over his shoulder as he wrenched the clip loose with a curse.

"The ventilation dampers must be leaking by," Ranma hissed. "'G' Deck builds up pressure from the oxygen leak and the heat, then it relieves through the dampers down here to 'H' Deck."

"Don't talk while I'm busy!" Ryouga growled.

"Bite me! This shield's getting too freakin' hot to handle!"

"I'm almost done! Now shut up!"

He wrenched at the last cotter pin, pulling it free. All he had to do now was disengage the pinion from the rest of the assembly, and the safety interlock that prevented both airlock doors from being open at once would be defeated.

"Dammit!" he swore.

"What is it?" Ranma asked.

"The damn pinion won't disengage! It's stuck!" He began pounding on it with a crescent wrench.

"OWWWGoddammit!" Ranma yelled back. "Don't say that! I can't do this for much longer! Shit! My goddamn feet are melting to the deck!"

Ryouga continued to wrench at the recalcitrant pinion assembly, to no avail.

"Ryyyyoooouuugaaaa!" Ranma howled as another fireball rolled over the shield to engulf them. "This hurts! Hurry the hell up!"

"I'M TRYING!"

Ryouga pounded one final time on the pinion, then threw the wrench away and lurched into the airlock with a guttural snarl. He clenched the outer door handle in both hands and began to pull with all his might. Veins popped out on his neck and brow as he wrenched at the door with everything he had.

The pinion assembly groaned with the strain, but continued to hold.

"GODDAMN YOU!!!" Ryouga screamed at the door. "OPEN UP!!!"

A loud _crack_ filled his ears as something broke inside the airlock mechanism, and the outer door lurched halfway open. The sudden rush of rapid decompression sucked a huge tongue of flame through the airlock and across his body as 'H' Deck began to depressurize.

Furinkan Combine JumpShip _Imperator_

Capella System Zenith Jump Point

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

2 April 3025

Tatewaki Kuno studied the reports offered to him by Captain Kyle in his private sanctum. The invasion of the system had proceeded as planned, with the added bonus of the intact capture of the system's defensive battlestations. He was glad he had decided to wait rather than press the attack against the Confederation, allowing Nabiki Tendo the opportunity to inform him of their weaknesses in time to act. The little traitoress was full of useful information it seemed. After his encounter with his beloved Akane Tendo and the cursed Saotomes on Capra, as had been foretold by Nabiki Tendo in her secret missive from Nerima, he was convinced of her veracity.

Though he was eager to press on with the siege of Nerima, he decided to wait a bit longer in the hope that Nabiki would provide him with further information about the planet's defenses. What did a few more days matter when it meant that his forces could be employed full-strength against the League of Five Nails? For that matter, the more Confederation troops that remained intact in the end, the more useful troops he could bring to bear in his conquest of the Inner Sphere.

Yes, he decided, he could afford a little patience.

As was his custom at this time of the day cycle, he set aside the reports and took a light lunch. The repast was excellent as always, but for the nagging worry that something terrible had befallen his beloved Akane Tendo and the mysterious Pig-Tailed Girl, which made him unable to fully appreciate the cuisine. The ship that they were almost certainly aboard had executed a hyperspace jump well outside the normal volume of the Jump Point - an extremely risky maneuver. They had dematerialized just outside of the gunnery range of the pursuing GunShip _Sekigahara_. What was not known was where or even _if_ they had materialized at the other end of the Jump.

Would the gods deny him that which he desired most in the universe? He had not been exaggerating when he declared to Akane Tendo his feelings for her. The Inner Sphere meant nothing to him without her to rule by his side. And then, what of the Pig-Tailed Girl? Could he now forsake her, having borne witness to her magnificence? Had he not cursed Saotome for enslaving her, an Angel of Light, to his fell cause?

Was it not his duty to free her from his vile clutches?

He decided that it was. Images filled his mind of the Pig-Tailed Girl swooning demurely and graciously before him, offering everything that she had to him in gratitude. His heart began to race at the thought of taking such a firebrand as the red-haired goddess into his arms.

But could he accept her offers? Was that not an offense against his pure love for Akane Tendo?

Tatewaki fell to his knees in anguish, tears streaming down his face. How could he love one and forsake the other? O, the cursed misery of it!

His tears stopped abruptly as another possibility crept over him.

Could he not love them both?

The idea filled him with hope, for it was not uncommon in history for a man of such power and manifest destiny as his own to take more than one wife. Yes, he thought happily, the three of them together!

He finished his meal quietly and set the dishes aside for the steward to clear away. Akane Tendo was fated to be his, he decided firmly, as was the Pig-Tailed Girl. Not even the physical laws of the universe could come between them. He would refuse to accept any other possibility. It was the only way he could bring himself to continue.

Tatewaki stood. He would pay a visit to his sister, who was still unconscious in the intensive care suite, and then work out his tensions in his private dojo. The order for the deployment to Nerima would be given at the evening meal, giving him the opportunity to address his troops all at once.

Kodachi lay in her bed, still tied to tubes and sensor leads as she had been since she was taken from surgery. She had recovered enough strength to be taken off the respirator, and her prognosis was good. As Tatewaki stood by the door to her room he noted that a bit more color had returned to her cheeks since yesterday.

In spite of her madness, she was truly a Kuno, he thought solemnly. He considered himself fortunate in escaping the eccentricities of his bloodline, of which his twisted sister and his hated father suffered most grievously. The burden of bearing the only sanity in the family was trying at times, but in his opinion served to temper him for his eventual rule.

He watched his sister's slow steady breathing for awhile, satisfied that she would indeed recover as expected. Soon she would have to be moved to the Periphery, preferrably before she regained consciousness. He would have to pay the Surgeon a visit later, to secure his concurrence in moving her. It was a formality, but these things must be observed.

"...ranma..."

He started at the mention of the hated mechwarrior's name, and turned to confirm that Kodachi had in fact spoken it.

"...my darling... my incomparable... my ranma..."

He felt queasy at hearing these words spoken by his own flesh and blood. Had the woman no shame?

Kodachi continued on in a dreamstate, her eyes rolling behind her eyelids in REM sleep. A sly smile crept over her lips, and she made a noise that was distinctly sexual in its context. An uncomfortable cold sweat broke out on Kuno's brow at hearing his sister close to orgasm.

Had his sister taken this cretin to her bed? Had she debased herself with an enemy of the Combine? It made his stomach churn, for while she had long ago cast away the shackles of her virginity, she had also exercised a certain amount of restraint in her affairs. It was deplorable for a Kuno, of course, but at least it wasn't treason!

"...god, what a man you are... oh god, ranma... ranma...!"

He could not bear another moment of it. With a disgusted shake of his head, he left the room as swiftly as his feet would carry him. Perhaps that convent in the Periphery would do her more good than he had anticipated.

Sasuke was outside the room when he stepped through the door. The ninja bowed deeply for his lord as he approached.

"Speak, man," Tatewaki ordered him.

Sasuke looked up submissively.

"My lord, you ordered me to report to you when I was prepared to depart for the surface of Nerima. I am here."

Tatewaki nodded.

"Ah yes," he said thoughtfully. "Thy orders are to find and make contact with Nabiki Tendo. Tell her nothing of our intentions, and enter into no bargains with her. Officially, thou art merely an intermediary between us."

Sasuke bowed.

"And unofficially, my lord?"

Tatewaki smiled thinly. "I wish to know of her true intentions. I do not fully trust her, not even after all she hath done to persuade me. She bears careful watching, and thy task is to pay close heed."

"Upon my life, lord."

Tatewaki grunted in amusement. "Indeed."

Dragon of the Black Pool Fortress

Planet Tau Ceti IV, Tau Ceti System

Jusenkyo Commonwealth

3 April 3025

Shampoo found the gardens of the fortress to be a godsend, giving her a place of comfortable solitude filled with life and fragrance when she really needed it. Mousse had kept his distance from her as well, which was relaxing in itself.

Her stay had been uneventful thus far; though General Herb and his entourage had arrived from Lightoller, he had not convened the debriefing, and had made no attempt to contact her. The only thing that had marred her own arrival was the fact that Laughing Orchid had died shortly before planetfall. The funeral ashes had been scattered on Tau Ceti's winds days ago. There was no autopsy, as per Joketsuzoku custom, though Shampoo knew that even if one had been performed, Pink was too skilled a poisoner to use something that would leave detectable traces behind.

Laughing Orchid's death was officially listed as a fatal allergic reaction to conditions encountered on Capra. It was rare, but not unknown for a person's immune system to rebel completely against the body when faced with alien toxins, and in spite of the battery of antihistimines travellers were normally subjected to prior to planetfall. Unofficially

of course, Laughing Orchid's cause of death might be better listed as having crossed Pink in some way. Assuming there was still an expedition after Herb's inquisition, she would have to speak to her privately about the matter.

Herb would probably cast a more suspicious eye on the matter, but now that there was no longer a body to examine, what could he do? What concerned Shampoo more was that Herb was taking his time about conducting the debrief. The hybrid general was being extremely calculating in whatever it was that he had planned.

Perhaps he was assessing his position. Tau Ceti was a world that owed a great deal to her great-grandmother, and so he had to know that he was treading upon dangerous ground in spite of his authority from the Elder Council. If she had been ordered to bring the _Intangible_ to the Epsilon Indi System instead, matters might have been very different for her indeed.

Shampoo stretched out beneath a shade tree to sleep. She knew that she had to remain on her guard when she finally faced Herb, and to do that she needed to be well rested. She was a warrior, and all these thoughts of intrigue and plotting were wearisome to her.

"So tell me, Mousse," the voice of General Herb said behind Mousse's back. "Have you enjoyed your freedom thus far?"

Mousse froze at the sound of his enemy's voice. The urge to kill the hybrid general rose in him, and it took several moments of sheer will to set it aside.

"I have done my duty," he replied, turning and offering a salute.

Herb was flanked by his lieutenants, Lime and Mint. His red reptilian eyes caught the light of Tau Ceti like polished garnets, dark and sanguine as his mood.

"Have you now?" he asked Mousse sardonically. "I suppose you have... - After a manner of speaking. Kima is dead, and your beloved Shampoo now commands the expedition. You've done your duty to Shampoo rather well, I expect. A pity about Kima, though..."

Mousse remained impassive.

Herb cleared his throat imperiously. "You haven't changed," he said at length. "Still a slave to her. A willing slave, in spite of her rejection of you time and again."

Mousse could bear this abuse no longer.

"Shampoo at least serves with me," he said flatly. "As I recall, she couldn't even stand to be on the same planet as you, General, sir."

Herb flushed red. Lime began to move towards Mousse with abundant menace on his face, but the general held him back with a look.

"Well said," he replied, still burning within. "I had no doubt of your loyalty to her, Mousse, which is why I have decided to approach you directly in this matter."

"What matter?" Mousse asked. "The inquisition where you hold her accountable for what happened on Capra?"

"Perceptive as always, in spite of your blind eyes," Herb conceded. "Yes, it is about that. And what comes after. You'd do well to listen right now."

Mousse nodded. "I'm listening. Sir."

"Good. You can no doubt imagine why I was chosen to handle the investigation into your failure and Kima's death."

Mousse nodded again.

Herb continued. "The Council wants blood. Specifically, Shampoo's blood. This is twice for her in two months, and they are weary of her failures."

"Shampoo had nothing to do with what happened on Capra!" Mousse protested angrily.

Herb shook his head sadly. "Don't be a fool, Mousse. Do you really believe such particulars matter to certain members of the Elder Council who feel a change is in order for the leadership of the Clan?"

Mousse's face paled. Herb wasn't talking merely of some petty infighting between rivals on the Elder Council, he was talking about an outright coup!

"I see that you finally understand," Herb said quietly. "Good. It will make this much easier, I think. Yes, Cologne has one foot out the door at this moment, and Peony waxes in the ascendant. Cologne's personal intervention on Shampoo's behalf has angered many on the Council, and to have it end in abysmal failure, with great loss of life and the loss of irreplaceable Commonwealth assets, is inexcusable.

"Shampoo is but the catalyst for this changing of the guard. Her execution will bring down Cologne's bloodline in disgrace, and with it her temporal control over the Clan. The Council will call for a vote of No Confidence in Cologne's rule, and out she'll go. I expect that she will be retired to an estate far away in the Periphery to live out what few years remain to her."

Mousse's heart trembled with rage. How could this hybrid bastard speak so callously of Shampoo's death and Cologne's ouster?

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked between clenched teeth.

"Because I like to play both sides against the middle," Herb said with a smile. "As much as I would love to see Cologne thrown down from her high pedestal, I realize that other than myself, she is the only one with the ability to lead the Commonwealth in the coming struggle with the Furinkan Combine. Peony is a bean counter, not a mechwarrior, and the rest of the Council are a gaggle of gobbling old crones who sit in authority by virtue of their antiquity. It would be suicide to seriously entertain such folly as putting Peony in command."

Mousse had no idea where Herb was going with this, and the look on his face confirmed it.

"Allow me to explain," Herb offered. "I know full well about the purpose of your assignment, since Peony was stupid enough to trust me with the knowledge when she recruited me for this kangaroo court - yet another strike against her, I'm afraid. If Ryuugenzawa exists, and I believe it does, it will be a powerful asset in our war against the Combine. It is a discovery we can't afford to jeopardize because of Peony's blind ambition.

"Shampoo will have to go on living, you see. To continue the mission to find the Saotomes and Ryuugenzawa. Of course, she won't be working for the Council anymore..."

"She'll be working for you," Mousse pointed out.

"Actually, _you_ will be working for me," Herb corrected him. "I know her too well to expect her to knowingly take orders from me. You will act as my intermediary - but you will claim everything comes from Cologne. I'll finance the affair personally, but in exchange, all of your reports come back to my headquarters."

"Why would Shampoo care about anything I say?"

Herb shook his head sadly. "So hopeful and yet so hopeless, Mousse. You desire her love and yet you rate yourself beneath it. However do you expect to win her heart?"

Mousse was silent.

Herb cleared his throat again. "To answer your question: by the time I'm finished, you will be the only friend she has left. You'll just have to trust me at this point, as far as the particulars go."

Mousse thought this over. "I don't see how this helps keep Cologne as Matriarch."

"Leave that to me," Herb said flatly. "Let us say for the moment that I exercise a great deal of influence in Peony's faction, as she doesn't have much of an army to back her claim without me. All Cologne needs to do is bluff about civil war, and without me, Peony will fold. So you see, if I do not give my tacit approval, the topic of replacing Cologne will never see the light of day."

Mousse nodded ruefully. Herb had covered his bases well. Peony depended on him for her coup, and Cologne would have no choice but to be grateful to him for squelching it when the time came to reveal his true position in the matter. And if she felt less than grateful (which was likely in Mousse's personal opinion), she still had to recognize the power he held over her.

"You haven't explained why I would work for you any more than Shampoo would."

Herb smiled thinly. "Mousse, you are perceptive, but like your weak eyes, you lack the ability to see very far in front of your nose. Once Ryuugenzawa is under my control, who do you think will represent the true power of the Commonwealth? Cologne will be necessary, of course, in rallying the country against the Furinkan Combine, but once we have crushed them, she will no longer serve any purpose to me. The Musk Dynasty will rise up and cast off a thousand years of matriarchal tyranny!"

He threw his hands up in pride.

"Consider this, Mousse. For the first time in your life, you will no longer be a second class citizen. Men will rule the Commonwealth, men will make all the decisions..." His eyes narrowed at Mousse. "And men will choose their own brides. Think about that last point very carefully, Mousse."

Mousse did think about it. Shampoo as his bride. It was all he had ever dreamed of. Unfortunately it sounded too good to be true.

"What's to stop you from taking her yourself?" he asked. "After all, if this comes to pass, you'll be the ruler of the entire Commonwealth."

Herb inclined his head to Mousse as if conceding the point.

"I understand your suspicions, but to tell the truth, Shampoo means no more to me than a matter of personal conquest. I prefer my wives to be somewhat more docile creatures. You may do with her as you please, Mousse, if you think you can handle her."

Mousse closed his eyes and gave Herb's proposal some more thought.

"What if I still say no?"

Herb clucked mournfully at him. "There are other ways to obtain the information I need; my offer to you was simply the most expedient. If you insist on rejecting my proposal, then I'm afraid I'll have to exercise my prerogative as Adjudicator in the matter of Kima's death and your failure at Capra to apprehend the Saotomes. Shampoo won't be put to death, she's far too valuable to me as a bargaining chip between the factions on the Council for that, but a few years of forced labor at one of my private farms on Dok To might make her, shall we say, a bit more _conducive_ to my advances..." He turned his head to Lime and then Mint. "And to the advances of just about anyone, really."

Lime and Mint broke into dreamy smiles, complete with lines of drool down the corners of their mouths at the thought.

"If I can't get what I want, Mousse," Herb said gravely, and his eyes flashed maroon and crimson in the sunlight. "Then it really doesn't matter what happens to anyone else. Consider that as well."

Mousse lowered his head.

"Tell me what I have to do."

Nerima Confederation JumpShip Dragonfly

Position Unknown, Date Unknown

Akane sat in the Port Greenhouse with the rest of the ship's complement. They could see the bright star in the distance and knew as well as Ranma and Ryouga that they had materialized in a star system rather than empty space. There was talk of using an auxiliary airlock in the Greenhouse to reach the _Palomino_ and search for a habitable planet - in the event that the two mechwarriors failed and the oxygen bank exploded.

Akane would have nothing to do with such talk. Even though it had been more than twenty minutes since she had left them in the 'E' Deck airlock, there had been no word from them. The fire had been left to run its course, with the remainder of the ship locked down as best as could be done.

A growing fear gnawed at her in spite of her assertions that Ranma and Ryouga would succeed. What if something had happened to them? Shouldn't someone stay behind in the ship just in case they needed help?

Captain Ninomiya was adamant about keeping everyone in the Greenhouse. It was the safest place on the ship, she continued to assert. Akane found it hard to take the Captain seriously after she had reverted back to her child body, and begun cavorting among the hydroponic flower gardens of the Greenhouse's promenade.

Pansuto Tarou stalked his prey through the darkened passageways of the _Dragonfly_ with the knowledge that his nemesis wasn't invincible. The bright blobs of fresh blood that drifted in free fall around him were proof of that. Happousai would not escape him this time.

In spite of the mortal danger they were all in, he had found that the disaster the ship faced made for the ideal time to strike against Happousai. No one would miss the little freak in the confusion, and he doubted that anyone would question his death by some horrible accident as a result of damage to the ship.

He floated on through the passageways, ignoring the heat that radiated up from the fires below, and wary of an ambush the way Happousai should have been when he first struck. It was blind luck that he had sensed his presence that first time, but he hadn't been fast enough to escape the knife completely. From all of the blood in the air, he judged that his hit had been a good one, even if it wasn't immediately incapacitating. His greatest fear now was that Happousai had already bled to death before he would get his chance to gloat.

It was of no matter, he told himself finally. As long as Happousai was dead, and knew who had killed him, that was enough. The little freak knew whose hand had guided the knife, so all that remained was the killing.

He had Happousai trapped below 'D' Deck, and far from any help from the ship's complement cowering up in the Greenhouses. The only working hatch up to 'D' Deck had been thoughtfully locked shut by the retreating crew from the other side, and with the fire burning out of control on 'G' Deck, there were only a limited number of places Happousai could go.

Happousai crept with a silence borne of absolute self-control. Tarou lurked in the darkness of the starship, hunting for him. The knife that had nearly ended his life in a flash of cold steel sought to finish the task the _bishonen_ mechwarrior had set for it.

As it stood, he was injured. He could not remember the last time he had been so grievously wounded, and the shock of it had made him lose his head and flee rather than face Tarou while he was human and vulnerable. He was in control of himself now, and the master of martial arts in him was taking charge.

The wound continued to bleed freely in spite of his hasty attempts at dressing it. The knife had plunged deep into his back, probably getting a piece of his kidney - from all the blood he was losing - but missing any large blood vessels that would have killed him outright. He was lucky. It pained him to think that he had been so easily taken by an amateur like Tarou, but that was for another time. He hadn't reached the golden afternoon of his life without taking advantage of lucky breaks when and where they presented themselves.

He had planned on murdering Tarou anyway, and so the thought of killing him now posed no threat to even his stunted code of morality. The fact that he was leaking blood like a sieve only added a sense of urgency to the matter. Tarou could follow that blood right to him no matter where he went, and if he had changed into his monstrous Jusenkyo form, who knew what his sense of smell would be capable of?

He had to assume that Tarou had changed by now. The stab in the dark had been a spurious attack, Tarou taking advantage of the chaos of the ship's distress to murder a hated enemy. Now that he had escaped, and the assassination attempt had turned into a hunt, Tarou would be wary and prepared.

Where could he go that would give him the best advantage? He rightfully feared Tarou's strength and resilience in his Jusenkyo body, and he knew that he himself was no longer the fire-spitting hellraiser of his youth. One on one against Tarou's Jusenkyo body in a fair fight was a losing proposition, but then, who was he to fight fairly?

He was on 'E' Deck, after having learned that he was trapped below by the _Dragonfly_'s crew. The fires that burned in the Engineering spaces must have been pretty bad, he realized, but then he had never bothered to learn much in the way of technical skills or damage control, and so it hadn't concerned him when it first came up. There wasn't much on 'E' Deck for him to take advantage of. It was mostly storage and bulk tankage for the life support systems.

'D' Deck had the Grav-Deck, which had been secured for the Jump, and thus was still in free fall. It would have made the ideal place for an ambush with its many passageways and compartments. Unfortunately, he couldn't get there since the crew had locked down all access against the fire. 'F' Deck marked the beginning of the Engineering spaces, but its atmosphere had to be completely foul by now. The air was bad enough where he was.

He would have to make his stand here, he realized. 'E' Deck had an airlock, and that would suit his purposes even if there was no power to automatically cycle it.

His eyes narrowed, and a chuckle escaped his lips as a plan formed. In spite of the pain, and of the numbing sensations he was experiencing in his extremities, he knew he had enough juice left in him for one last surprise.

Pansuto Tarou followed the drops of blood that hung suspended in the still air of 'E' Deck. He wore a flask of cold water tucked in his sash, and in his hand carried a squeeze bulb of hot water. The other hand held the knife, still slicked with Happousai's blood. The squeeze bulb would allow him to change quickly in zero-gravity. It would not do to be seen by one of the crew in his monster form, and even though they had retreated towards the bow, there was the possibility that there might still be one of the crew below 'D' Deck. He had no desire to kill anyone else today if he could help it.

The blood trail led away from the hub of the starship, towards the pressure hull. He followed warily, noting the irregular blotches and stains along the bulkheads, deck, and overhead indicating that his prey was starting to lose control over his flight. He had to be close to bleeding to death by now.

The trail ended before the 'E' Deck airlock door. Happousai floated limply in free-fall, his tiny hands stretched out in vain to work the blood slicked manual controls which lay exposed in the open access panel. Happousai was dead, it seemed, and all Tarou could bring himself to feel was disappointment.

The inner airlock door was slightly ajar. Apparently his nemesis had been trying to hide inside and avoid notice, but had expired before he could get it open far enough. Tarou's shaggy face broke into a smile. He might as well oblige the little freak.

He slipped the knife into his pantyhose sash and finished turning the wheel that manually opened the inner door the rest of the way. Happousai floated before the door lifelessly, his glassy eyes wide open in a stare of death, and his clothing soaked with dark red blood. Tarou sighed. He would have liked to have been able to confront Happousai before the end. As he had told Kima right before he crushed her spine, he had come to accept what he had become, but damn Happousai for not giving him a choice.

He could cycle the airlock manually from the staging area, and because the pumps would not work due to the loss of electrical power, the chamber would still be pressurized. Overriding and opening the outer door would eject Happousai's body cleanly into deep space.

One of his huge paws locked around the body of Happousai. He was cool to the touch from having bled out, and the limbs moved stiffly in free-fall. All it would take was one good toss to put Happousai out of Tarou's misery forever.

As he cocked back his arm for the deed, Happousai blinked.

Despite his surprise, Tarou managed to keep his head enough to try and clamp down on the diminutive mechwarrior in the hopes of squashing him dead, but Happousai squirted free with a cackle, and grabbed up the bottle of hot water from his hand. A hot jet of the stuff sprayed into his face, transforming him back to a human in a haze of water vapor.

"Idiot," Happousai spat at him as Tarou groped blindly for his knife. "You should have made sure I was dead while you had the chance."

"Goddamn you!" Tarou snarled back, as angry at himself for being taken in as much as he was at Happousai for getting away. "How did you...?"

"Come on," Happousai wheezed. "Did you really think a true master of martial arts wouldn't have learned to utilize certain cateleptic trances for just such an event?" He sprang past Tarou with a laugh, just avoiding the questing blade.

"It won't be a trance next time, I promise," Tarou replied furiously.

His wizened mechwarrior foe was behind him now, and he was wide open to Happousai's attack. He spun about in free-fall, slashing desperately with the knife. Happousai twisted clear, and pulled himself along the length of Tarou's arm in a flash to kick him square in the mouth. His head rocked back, and Happousai's blood-slicked hands clamped down on the carotid arteries just behind the jawline.

Happousai became a leech attached to the back of his head, and his cold claw-like hands dug into the flesh behind his ears, pinching the arteries against the jawbone and interrupting the flow of blood to his brain. Tarou brought his own hands back to dislodge him, and earned himself savage bites on the fingertips. A tunnel of black overtook the periphery of his vision as the oxygen supply remaining to his brain was expended. It would only take a few seconds before he...

He was reeling now with anoxia, twisting and lurching clumsily in free-fall as Happousai made wet spitting hisses of exertion in his ears. A roaring sound filled his consciousness as the tunnel of darkness expanded in his field of vision to leave only a tiny window of dim light. Losing himself in the swelling darkness, groaning out one last curse, he twisted one final time to crash limply against a bulkhead.

Happousai released his grip on Tarou's arteries, wheezing with pain and exertion. His own heart fluttered in his chest, and waves of dizziness washed over him. It had been a close thing between them as to who would black out first.

He dragged the weightless Tarou into the airlock and cranked the door shut. It would only take a few minutes to override and open the outer door to complete the job. He just needed to rest a bit first.

"What's taking them so long?" Akane asked worriedly.

"Have patience," Genma replied.

"They should have been able to get the airlock doors open by now," she continued. "How can you just sit there when your own son is risking his life for you?"

Genma's lips pursed.

"No one asked the boy to do it," he said at length. "He knew the risks involved when he volunteered. I respect his decision."

"That's not answering my question," she pointed out.

Genma blinked several times, but did not continue the conversation.

The ship trembled slightly around them.

"What was that?" Akane cried. Had the oxygen bank exploded?

One of the _Dragonfly_'s crew looked up. "It felt like there was some kind of thrust on the ship," he replied.

The trembling became a barely perceptible vibration that continued for some time. Akane noticed that the normal conditions of free-fall within the hydroponic gardens of the Greenhouse gave way to a tiny amount of perceived gravity, and the stars shining outside the dome began to slowly shift their positions.

"They've done it," Genma announced gravely.

"Done what?" Akane asked, still very confused.

"They've depressurized 'H' and 'G' Decks," the crewman explained to her. "All that air rushing out of the airlock is acting like a thruster. We're turning slowly to port."

"Oh, thank the gods," Akane breathed with relief.

They continued their vigil, waiting for Ranma and Ryouga to return and give a report of what happened before returning to the habitat. The minutes dragged on long after the thrust on the starship had ceased. They were in a slow spin, with just enough perceived gravity to make them feel slightly disoriented when they moved. It was correctable once power was restored to the Helm and the engines, but until then they would have to live with it.

After what seemed an eternity to Akane, the primary airtight door linking the Greenhouse to 'C' Deck slid open. She rushed to the door in time to catch two pressure-suited figures in her arms as they fell face first into an unconscious tumble in free-fall. The stench of smoke and soot was heavy on them, and their suits were burned black and flaking off small bits of material to surround them in a dirty nimbus of charcoal.

"Ranma! Ryouga!" she cried as she tried to steady their tumble. Their eyes were closed, and their faces were ashen white behind their scorched visors. Arrays of small red lights flashed urgently on their torso mounted suit status displays.

There was no reply from either of them.

Federated Shiratori Battlemech Forces Mobile Command

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

2 April 3025

Brigadier Ukyou Kuonji looked out at the night sky of her personal balcony in time to see a shooting star streak across the heavens. She took advantage of this small stroke of fortune to make a wish. She closed her eyes and thought hard, as if by a sheer act of will upon the white hot chunk of blazing space rock, she could force it to grant her wish.

She had a lot to wish for, she realized when she was done, and the meteor had faded to invisible motes of dust in the sky. Chief of Staff Sanzenin was still on the planet, but he wasn't running things as he should have been. That onerous task remained hers, and hers alone.

Was it too much to ask that one of the battlemech troops accidentally step on him during the evening pass-in-review?

"Brigadier Kuonji?"

She turned from the balcony of her private apartments to see Major Konatsu at the door, dressed in slippers and a yukata with an absolutely gorgeous honeybee and daffodil print pattern. Konatsu always did have better taste in clothes than herself, she admitted. He had brought her a tray of milk and cookies, a personal indulgence she had thought was a secret known only to her. She should have known better, she realized, in having a former kunoichi for an adjutant.

"Thanks, sugar," she told him with a tired smile. His eyes widened slightly at her term of endearment. It didn't matter much to him if she was in the habit of calling just about anyone that she didn't outright hate by that particular term.

"Can I get you anything else, sir?" he asked quietly.

She blew her chestnut bangs out of her eyes. "Oh I dunno," she said absently. "How about a new life?"

Konatsu bowed uncomfortably.

"If it is in my power to give, sir, I shall do it."

Ukyou shook her head slowly. Konatsu's devotion to her was heart-warming sometimes, and exasperating the rest of the time.

"I didn't mean that literally," she told him, walking over to the table with the tray. "But I appreciate the thought."

She sat down at the table and plucked a cookie from the tray. The dear had brought her frosted animal cookies - her absolute favorite in the entire universe!

"You shouldn't have," she told him with a grin. "But I can't eat all of these myself. Have a seat."

Konatsu blushed. "Really, sir, I couldn't."

Ukyou dunked a cookie in her milk and ate it.

"There's only one person here who needs to worry about her girlish figure, sugar, and it isn't you. Have a seat."

Konatsu blushed again.

Ukyou knew that it pained him more often than not to be reminded of his true gender, but sometimes his girl act hit too close to home for her - especially where interesting, eligible men were concerned.

"If you insist, sir," he said softly, and took a seat, his eyes averted from her.

"Well?" she pressed.

He looked up briefly, doing his best to avoid eye-contact, and took a cookie from the tray. He ate it gingerly, as if afraid to spread crumbs on the nice clean tablecloth.

"Much better," Ukyou said with a chuckle. "Try to look like you're enjoying it, at least."

Konatsu cracked a weak smile. "Yes, sir."

"And stop with the 'sir' crap," she told him sternly. "Around the troops, I expect it, but here... It drives me nuts, sometimes."

Konatsu nodded meekly. "Yes sir, I mean, Miss Kuonji."

Ukyou made a face of disgust.

"Ugh... 'Miss Kuonji?' You make it sound like I'm some old spinster. How many times do we have to go over this, Konatsu? When it's just the two of us, call me Ukyou, okay?"

Konatsu's face was wracked with discomfort. "Yes, sir... I mean... Miss... I mean... Ukyou..."

"Work on it, honey," she instructed him as she ate another cookie.

Konatsu ate a second cookie, if only because he feared she would tell him to do so if he refrained. They continued on like this for some time, the silence heavy over them.

"Konatsu?" Ukyou asked him at length. "Do you mind if I bounce something off you?"

Konatsu looked up from his half-eaten cookie.

"I am prepared to accept whatever punishment you deem fit, sir, I mean, Ukyou..."

Ukyou brought a hand up to her brow wearily. "I meant an _idea_."

The kunoichi blinked twice in surprise.

"You would ask my unworthy opinion on some matter? Me?"

"Yes, you," she returned. "Do you see anyone else in the room?"

Konatsu actually looked around to confirm this, causing Ukyou to give a heavy sigh and gobble down a handful of cookies in despair.

"No... um, Ukyou, I do not."

"Now that we've established that there are just the two of us," she said to him. "What would you say if I told you that I was considering my resignation?"

Konatsu blinked several more times in surprise.

"Do you mean this?" he managed.

"I've been giving this a lot of thought, Konatsu, and I honestly don't think that I can continue being Mikado's whipping girl for much longer. I'm going to murder him one of these days, and end up answering to a firing squad..."

Konatsu bolted to attention, his eyes wet with tears of devotion. "Let not this burden consume you, I beg! My dearest Ukyou, please allow me the honor and the sacrifice of ending General Sanzenin's life! If it pleases you, I shall die gladly!"

It was Ukyou's turn to blink in surprise.

"Sit down, Konatsu," she said softly.

Konatsu did so, though he seemed quite disappointed at losing his opportunity to sacrifice his life for her sake.

"I appreciate what you're trying to do for me, Konatsu. I really do. The whole point of this is that I don't want to kill Mikado. But if I don't get out from under him, it's going to end up happening, I just know it. That's why I have to resign."

Konatsu remained silent for some time, analyzing the situation from every angle. Each time he came up with the same terrifying conclusion.

"But...?" he began, and then the words failed him.

Ukyou sensed the nature of his distress.

"Konatsu, I couldn't get rid of you if I tried," she told him.

Konatsu closed his eyes, and tears spilled down his face. "You could, dearest Ukyou," he said reverently. "If you wished for me to go, I would go. There would be no question of my obedience to you."

Ukyou blushed bright red. She had always understood Konatsu's devotion to her for what it seemed, that he was grateful to her for taking him under her wing, and sparing him further abuse at the hands of his mother and sisters. What she saw in him now was something altogether more intimate, and it spooked her a little.

"Don't worry about it yet, sugar," she told him. "I've decided to give it two more weeks before I make up my mind."

Konatsu opened his eyes and wiped demurely at his tears with a small handkerchief he always kept with him for feminine moments like these. Would his beloved Ukyou leave him? Could he bear it, and do as she asked? As to whether or not he would leave if she told him to do so, he knew that he would. He would sooner die than go against her wishes. What tore at him the most was the fact that he knew he couldn't bear a life without her.

Ranma Saotome opened his eyes to discover himself in a lush garden filled with flowers and creeping vines. He felt as light as a feather floating in this ethereal greensward, surrounded by the cool glow of starlight and soft voices. He tried to move, but his limbs would not respond. The moment was too surreal for him, and he yelped in panic at the sudden, horrifying idea that he had not survived the fire.

The yelp drew immediate attention, and he felt warm hands on his brow in reassurance. His eyes darted to the presence he sensed behind him, and he beheld an angelic face that did little to reassure him in his thoughts of mortality.

"Mechwarrior Saotome, sir," the sweet voice said to him. "Are you feeling better now?"

Ranma blinked several times in thought, trying to put the voice and the face together.

"I think so, Akari," he said finally. "Am I in the Greenhouse?"

She nodded.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yes, sir," she replied. "You and Mechwarrior Hibiki were able to extinguish the fires about nine hours ago. Since then, the crew has been restoring power and cleaning up the atmosphere."

Ranma nodded slowly. He had been out for nine hours? He vaguely remembered closing the 'H' Deck airlock inner door with Ryouga after successfully depressurizing the two affected decks. From there they had isolated the leaking 02 bank, inspected 'G' Deck to verify the fires were out, and then repressurized the decks with inert nitrogen from one of the surviving N2 banks. He didn't remember getting as far as the Greenhouse.

"Where's Ryouga?"

Akari blushed at the mention of his name. "Mechwarrior Hibiki is right here with you, sir."

Ranma craned his head over his shoulder to see Ryouga floating unconsciously in free-fall, wrapped loosely in a silvery exposure blanket, and tied to an intravenous drip. It was only then that he noticed that he was also hooked up to an IV, and that his arms were gently restrained to keep him from struggling in zero-gravity and pulling out the needle.

Doctor Tofu floated over to them then, smiling broadly in his usual manner. Oddly, his hands were spotted with fresh blood in several places.

"Ah, Ranma," he said to him while removing the IV drip and the various restraints. "How are you feeling?"

He took an internal inventory before responding. He had certainly felt better. His skin was red and sore from flash burns, his throat was dry and raw from breathing extremely hot air, and his eyes seemed overly sensitive to light.

"Not too great," he replied.

"That's to be expected," Tofu said, nodding. "You're suffering from extreme dehydration and heat stress, not to mention that you've got first degree burns over most of your body."

"How about Ryouga?"

"The same. I expect he'll be waking up soon enough. I prescribed some acupressure and a mild sedative for the two of you, in order to let you rest in spite of the burns. I'm worried mostly about your left arm where you were shot last February. The skin there is very new."

Ranma looked at his arm. It was about the same ruddy color as the rest of him, and felt no better and no worse.

"I don't feel any difference," he said to the doctor.

"That's good," Tofu said with a nod. "I'd like to keep an eye on it anyway."

"Fair enough. So what's with the blood stains?"

Tofu looked down at himself.

"Oh this," he said absently. "It's very strange. When the crew returned to the habitat to begin repairs, they found Master Happousai near death outside the 'E' Deck airlock." He looked gravely at Ranma. "He had been stabbed in the back."

Ranma's eyes widened. "No way!" he breathed. "The old geezer got stabbed?"

"I'm afraid so," Tofu declared. "The Ship's Surgeon, Doctor Mayinga, asked me to assist with the surgery. It was touch and go for awhile, but it looks like he'll pull through."

Ranma looked away. "Man..."

"That's a curious look from you, Ranma," Tofu noted. "I would have expected you to be happy about what happened to him, after the incident with Ryouga and Happousai on Capra."

Ranma remembered Ryouga's attempt to kill Happousai on the highway outside the city, and the disappointment he and his father had shared when Ryouga failed. His feelings in the matter would have been obvious to anyone. Tofu had been with them at the time, and he had seen it.

"I ain't gonna lie to you, Doc," he said after a moment. "If he kicked off today, I wouldn't miss him. It's the way he almost got it that bugs me. No one deserves to die like that, gettin' stabbed in the back." He narrowed his eyes at the doctor. "You don't think _I_ did it, do you?"

Tofu shook his head. "Of course not, Ranma. The man who was probably responsible is already in custody."

"Really? Who?" Was it Pop? he wondered idly. There was no sign of his father in the Greenhouse. Knives in the back weren't really his style, but there was definitely no way the guy would have the nerve to face Happousai man to man.

"That friend of Ryouga's we brought with us," Tofu supplied. "Tarou."

"He isn't my friend," Ryouga replied suddenly. Akari was by his side, hovering over him, though he seemed to be oblivious to her. Ranma wondered how long he had been awake. "He was my partner for awhile, but I wouldn't call him a friend of anyone, least of all me."

"How do you know it was him?" Ranma asked Tofu.

"I believe it," Ryouga interrupted. "Tarou hates Happousai even more than I do."

"There was a struggle after the stabbing," the doctor explained when Ryouga was finished. He removed the IV and restraints from him as well. "When the crew found Happousai, they also found Tarou unconscious inside the 'E' Deck airlock. They figure Happousai must have tried spacing Tarou after he defeated him, and passed out from blood loss before he could finish the job."

"Lucky for Tarou," Ranma muttered. He didn't have anything against the man, but it was hard to feel sympathy for a guy that had been a cold fish from the moment they met. "What are they doing with him?"

"We don't have a place to put him yet, since the air below 'C' Deck is still pretty foul," Tofu told him. "So we're keeping him in restraints and heavily sedated until the Ship's Brig on 'D' Deck becomes habitable."

"Um, may I make a suggestion?" Ryouga said quietly.

Ranma and Doctor Tofu looked at the fanged mechwarrior, who seemed very uncomfortable all of a sudden.

"What is it, Ryouga?"

"You should, ah, keep him away from cold water," he replied. "This is important."

"Tarou went to the Jusenkyo Labs too," Ranma added, remembering what Ryouga had told him. "If you know what I mean..." He caught an angry look from Ryouga, which faded away when it became clear that he had no intention of revealing Ryouga's curse.

Tofu looked surprised. "What an amazing coincidence," he said evenly. "What does he turn into?"

Ryouga swallowed hard. "Something you don't ever want to see," he explained. "Trust me, it's dangerous."

Doctor Tofu nodded slowly. "I'll be sure to let Captain Ninomiya know that. Tarou is pretty heavily doped up at the moment, so I doubt that it will become a problem within the next few hours."

NCJS _Dragonfly_

Position Unknown, Date Unknown

"Captain Ninomiya, the ship is rigged for reduced electrical loads, and Assistant Engineer Fulton reports that emergency power from the Ship's Battery is ready to be restored, and that the JumpSail is ready to be deployed."

Hinako looked up from her coloring books and nodded at her Damage Control Assistant.

"Very well," she replied. "Have him restore emergency power." She went back to coloring.

"Restore emergency power, aye," the DCA acknowleged.

The main lighting flicked on abruptly, wavered for a moment, then came on strong. Displays flashed to life on the Bridge, filled mostly with urgent alarm messages and reports. The _Dragonfly_ was coming back to life.

"Captain, Senior Lieutenant Fulton reports that emergency power has been restored. Estimated remaining life on the Battery, fifty-four minutes."

Hinako considered this.

The _Dragonfly_'s electrical distribution system had suffered extensive damage, and the surviving members of the Engineering Department had been working on cleaning up and salvaging enough components to put together a functional Load Center since the fires had been extinguished. It was all very jerry-rigged, but vital to their continued survival. It was also just inert metal without a source of electrical power. At the moment they were existing on one reduced-capacity 400Hz motor/generator turned by the nearly depleted Ship's Battery.

The fusion plant was down, but was considered to be in adequate condition for a restart - but that would require sufficient energy to run the cooling system and the cryogenic plant for the magnetic bottle, and they would also need enough power to charge the pulse capacitors for the Z-Pinch ignition laser that would start the reaction. If they could get that far, then the _Dragonfly_ would have all the electricity it needed, as well as the Main Engines to position them within the star system. The Jump Drive was another matter, unfortunately. The massive circuit breakers that energized the system had been critically damaged by reentry into realspace. The ship could not Jump until they were repaired.

"Will the JumpSail be able to provide enough power" she asked him. The starship's JumpSail would be the only remaining source of electrical power available once the Battery gave up the ghost.

The DCA nodded. "Yes, ma'am. We estimate being able to produce at least seven hundred kilowatts, which should handle our reduced hotel load, run the auxiliaries for the fusion plant start-up, and give us a modest battery charge."

"Order Fulton to deploy the JumpSail," Hinako commanded. She floated out of her seat. "Astrogation, how long until we can get a position fix?"

Her Astrogator consulted with his section. "At least four hours, ma'am. The Computer took a bad hit coming out of Jump, and we're having to restore parts of our database from the archives. The best I can offer is that we've materialized in a system with a 'G' type main sequence star, which gives us a good chance of arriving in a system with a habitable planet."

She frowned. "But we aren't in the Capella System."

The Astrogator shook his head. "No, ma'am. The star's spectral composition does not match Capella. Nor is there any indication of the system's battlestations. We misjumped, but for now we don't know where or even _when_ we are."

"Do we have any ideas?"

"Well... From the star sightings I was able to take from the Ship's Observatory, I'd say we aren't even in the Confederation." He looked away for a moment in unease. "We _really_ missed the mark, ma'am. I hazard the opinion that we have Jumped much farther than the normal ten-parsec limit."

"I see," she replied. Her bottom lip protruded in a pout. "Well, keep working on it, I guess."

"Yes, ma'am."

Hinako returned to her coloring books.

"Hey, Ryouga," Ranma said to the mercenary mechwarrior. "How're you feeling?"

Ryouga looked up from the squeeze bulb of fruit punch he was sipping. They had been recovering for some time in the comfortable free-fall of the Greenhouse. Most of the crew had returned to their duties of repairing and restoring the starship, leaving the two with the rest of the less seriously wounded until Sick Bay could be made ready to accept them.

"I'm fine, Ranma."

Ranma threw back his head. "Me, I'm bored. Wanna spar?"

"Don't even think about it, Saotome," Doctor Tofu said suddenly from behind him. "I want you and Ryouga to take it easy for a few days."

"Aw, Doc..."

"I mean it," the doctor said firmly. "Now I'm going to check on some of the others. You two behave."

They watched Tofu go before turning back to each other.

"So, Ryouga. What are your plans for when we finally get somewhere?"

Ryouga thought about this.

"I'm not sure really," he said. "When I was on Capra, all I wanted was to leave. Now that I'm gone from there..."

"You should stay with us," Ranma told him.

Ryouga looked at him like he was on fire. "YOU want ME to stay on with this group?"

"What's the big deal, Ryouga?"

"That's what I want to know. Aren't we supposed to be enemies?"

Ranma snorted. "Oh man, don't start that again. The only reason why we might be enemies is because you want it that way. I'm telling you, man, you need to relax a little, and stop sweating the small stuff."

"Junior High was not small stuff!" Ryouga protested. "I was the laughingstock of the Hsien Academy! You ruined my life!"

"Easy, Ryouga. Take it easy. You're blowing this way out of proportion. All I'm saying here is that you should just let bygones be bygones, and stay on with us. We could sure use you in a fight."

Ryouga raised an eyebrow. "Aha. You reveal your true intentions, Ranma. You just want me to stay because of my BattleMaster. If it was someone else with one, you'd want them to stay too."

"Oh man, it ain't like that, Ryouga," Ranma insisted. "Sure, it's great to have a BattleMaster around, and yeah, it's true that Happousai and his Locust ain't going anywhere for awhile, but I wasn't trying to be like that."

"Then what were you trying to say?"

Ranma blew out his breath in exasperation. "For Pete's sake, Ryouga, can't you accept for once that I'm trying to be nice?"

"Not really," Ryouga replied. "The memories of Junior High are still pretty strong for me."

"Fine," Ranma grunted to him. "You wanna talk Junior High, then let's talk. Who walked you back to your room all those times so you wouldn't get lost?"

Ryouga blushed.

"Uh-huh," Ranma continued. "That's what I thought."

"Then you left," Ryouga finished for him.

"That wasn't my fault. Pop thought I wasn't getting a challenge there, so he pulled me from school and we took a job off-planet. I had no choice."

"So you say."

"Whatever," Ranma said, throwing his hands up. "If you don't want to stay with us, then just say so. It ain't no big deal to me."

"I didn't say I didn't want to stay," Ryouga said after a bit. "I just asked why you wanted me."

"I'm not going there again. Are you with us or not?"

Ryouga looked outside the clear dome of the Greenhouse to the stars beyond. "How could I leave Akane to the likes of you?" he asked Ranma, though he continued to scan the heavens.

"You wanna run that by me again?" Ranma said in an acid tone.

Ryouga turned back to face him. "You don't deserve her, you know."

Ranma scowled. "Oh yeah? Who says?"

"It's obvious by the way you treat her," the fanged mechwarrior replied. "Akane deserves a man who will love and respect her. One who doesn't insult her, or treat her like she's incompetent."

"And I suppose you know just the man for the job."

Ryouga smiled dreamily. "Indeed I do."

"Give it up, ham-hock," Ranma growled. "She may be a macho, uncute battleaxe, but she's spoken for. Got it?"

Ryouga shot him a dirty look. "How did she end up with an arrogant jerk like you anyway?"

Ranma rolled his eyes at the thought.

"Her dad and mine made this stupid deal before we were even born," he explained to Ryouga. "They said they wanted to unite our two families, but it's all a bunch of crap. They just want Akane and I to take over for them so they can retire and live easy."

Ryouga thought this over. "I can't believe I'm hearing this. They actually want _you_ to be the next Grand Duke of the Confederation?"

"Pretty weird, ain't it?" Ranma asked him with a grin. "I ain't too keen on it myself."

"So don't marry her," Ryouga suggested.

"Who says I'm gonna?" Ranma shot back. "Besides, if we can't find Ryuugenzawa, there ain't gonna be a Confederation for much longer."

Ryouga's eyes lit up. "Ryuugenzawa?"

"Yeah. I thought Akane told you what we were doing on Capra?"

"It didn't come up," Ryouga replied. "You really think you know where it is?"

The pig-tailed mechwarrior's expression darkened.

"Pop does. Me, I think it might have existed at one time, but it got looted just like all the other Star League outposts."

"But what if you're wrong?" Ryouga asked hopefully.

Ranma shrugged.

"Then I guess we can win the war against the Combine. We'll have all the old technology again, and our 'mechs will be better than theirs. Personally, I ain't holding my breath for it."

"I suppose it is a stretch," Ryouga conceded. "But something like that is too important to let go. Don't you realize, Ranma, that Ryuugenzawa could hold the secrets to our cure?"

"What?"

"You heard me, Ranma," Ryouga said to him quietly. "All the legends say that Ryuugenzawa was the primary Star League Defense Force proving grounds for advanced technology. If any place would have the know-how to cure us, that would be the one."

Ranma looked down at his hands. It was getting harder and harder to maintain his cynicism regarding Ryuugenzawa. What if Ryouga was right? What if Ryuugenzawa really existed? Could he say good-bye to his girl half forever?

"You're thinking about it, aren't you, Ranma," Ryouga observed.

"Maybe." His eyes lifted to regard Ryouga once again. "Man, I'm bored. Let's go see if we can find something to do."

"Captain Ninomiya?"

Hinako looked up from her attempt at zero-gravity finger painting. Her face was smeared with bright blobs of color, much to her Astrogator's dismay.

"What is it?"

"We've got a solid fix on our location," he declared.

"You do?" she cried. "That's wonderful!" She sprang from her chair and floated over to give him a congratulatory hug, which left him equally smeared with paint.

"So where are we?" she asked him.

He wiped at the paint with a handkerchief, remembering by Ranma Saotome's recent example to keep his temper around the Captain. "The Palatine System," he announced. "We've somehow Jumped over sixty parsecs to land in the middle of the Federated Shiratori. Currently, we are in an elliptical solar orbit that will take us within three light seconds of the primary - in about twenty-five months."

"You're sure?" she asked him.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied confidently. "In addition to the star-sighting data, we have spectral-type confirmation for the Palatine primary. We have also intercepted radio and microwave emissions from the third planet in the system, both military and civilian, that marks the world as Tiber."

"I see," Hinako said sagely. "If I'm not mistaken, the Confederation maintains a Consulate office on Tiber."

"Yes, ma'am. They coordinate our trade agreements with the Embassy on Genevieve. According to our atlas database, Tiber also has a moderately sized orbital drydock that regularly services civilian shipping."

Hinako snapped her fingers. "We're going to be okay," she declared. She turned to her Communications Officer. "Order the Captain of the _Palomino_ to prepare for departure within the next twenty-four hours."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

"So why are we bringing the wounded with us?" Ranma asked as he and his father went over Hinako's plan. It had not taken long for him to run afoul of the elder Saotome. "Not that I have anything against those guys. Well, Happousai maybe..."

"Isn't it obvious, boy?" Genma countered. "In addition to taking some of the load off the ship's damaged life support systems, they can get better treatment at a hospital. All we have to do is make contact with the Consulate, and they'll arrange for them to be admitted with no questions asked. Meanwhile, we set up the deal to get the ship put into drydock, and to purchase the repair parts we'll need to Jump out of here. The Consulate should even be able to help us with funding and getting us crew replacements."

Ranma nodded slowly. It made a lot of sense.

"I guess so." He looked away. "So what do you think about the old freak getting stabbed?"

Genma frowned. "It's terrible," he grunted.

"It ain't that bad," Ranma countered. "The Doc says that he'll pull through."

"That's what's so terrible about it," his father returned. He looked to the overhead as if pleading to the gods. "Is it too much to ask to be rid of him forever?"

"I guess so," Ranma replied when the gods did not.

"Still," Genma mused. "I suppose we can enjoy the peace and quiet his convalescent period will provide."

"We're gonna be waiting on Tiber for awhile once we're there," Ranma noted. "What are we supposed to do in the meantime?"

Genma rolled his eyes.

"What else?" he asked sardonically. "We're going to train. I can tell that you're already going soft on me."

"That's a laugh," Ranma snorted. "You're welcome to try me anytime, Pop."

"Don't push your luck, boy. You're not that good yet."

Akane floated into the room as Ranma opened his mouth to respond. Her face and hands were streaked with soot and grease from her task of the last six hours - cleaning and replacing the filter plates for the portable electrostatic precipitators they were using to clean up the atmosphere after the fires.

"I heard the _Palomino_ was getting ready to leave for the planet," she began. "Are we going too?"

Genma nodded. "Everyone not essential to the ship's function and repair is going, including the wounded."

"How about Tarou?" Ranma asked him.

"Tarou will be going as well. Captain Ninomiya wants him turned over to the Consulate so he can be shipped back to the Confederation to stand trial."

"I thought she could try him as the Captain of the ship?" Ranma asked.

Genma shrugged. "I guess she doesn't want to be bothered with it while the repairs are going on."

"I suppose you're right," Ranma mused. "It would have been easier if he had managed to kill Happousai instead of just wounding him. After she found him guilty, all they'd have to do is space him."

"True," Genma agreed. "There is no death penalty for _attempted_ murder." Tears of frustration streamed down his face. "Oh why couldn't that Tarou fellow have succeeded!?"

"Listen to you two," Akane scolded. "I don't believe I'm hearing this. Happousai may not be the easiest person to tolerate, but you're actually wishing that he was dead - just so you can see Ryouga's friend get executed for it?"

Ranma and Genma looked at each other for a moment, then to her.

"More or less," they replied in unison.

Akane shook her head in disgust. "I'm sorry I asked." She started for the airtight door.

"Hey, Akane?" Ranma asked.

"What is it, Ranma?" she returned.

He started after her. "Are you feeling okay?" he asked as they passed through the door and into the passageway. "You don't look so good."

Her expression softened.

"I'm tired, Ranma. Tired and worried."

"I understand the tired part," he said to her. "But worried? We're okay, the ship is fixable, and we're within two days of a nice terran planet. What's to be worried about?"

"I'm worried about P-chan."

"P-chan?" It took Ranma a moment to remember that Ryouga was also her pet pig.

"With the fire and all..." she explained. "I haven't seen him since before we Jumped, and I'm really worried that he suffocated in all the smoke."

Ranma considered revealing Ryouga's secret, but decided that would not help steady Akane's current emotional roller coaster.

"He's fine," he told her.

"How do you know that?" she asked hopelessly.

They bumped into Ryouga at an intersection. He smiled for Akane, and gave Ranma an indifferent look.

"I know P-chan is okay," Ranma began, looking right at Ryouga. Had he really been serious about asking him to stay? He kicked himself mentally for forgetting so quickly that there was a very good reason for sending Ryouga on his merry way. "I know because I saw him not too long ago."

"Really?" Akane cried, almost in tears with relief.

"Yeah," Ranma returned. Ryouga was busy sweating fearfully. "Right, Ryouga?"

Ryouga turned red. He knew Ranma was trying to get his goat, but Akane's worry for her pet pig was so great that he couldn't bear to disappoint her.

"Um, yeah," he managed. "Don't worry, Akane. P-chan is fine."

"In fact," Ranma chortled. "He's probably closer than you think."

"Really?" Akane asked. "You're not just saying that to cheer me up?"

"Go on and tell her, Ryouga," Ranma said to him.

Ryouga shot him a death look. It was put up or shut up time, he realized. The trouble was that he couldn't bring himself to tell her. Not like this!

"It's true," he said defeatedly. He was commited to being P-chan now, but if it meant that Akane would be happy... "I-I saw him on the _Palomino_ not too long ago, when I was moving supplies over for the transit to Tiber."

"Yeah, he's got the worst sense of direction," Ranma said with a triumphant laugh. "You'd almost think he was Ryouga or something..."

Ryouga's death look intensified, but was missed entirely by Akane, who smiled warmly at both of them.

"I'm really glad to hear that he's all right," she said. "I miss him already."

She floated down the passageway for the elevator to the Docking Compartment, leaving the two mechwarriors in strained silence.

"What's the big idea, Ranma?" Ryouga hissed when she was out of earshot. His fists were clenched into tight balls of bone and sinew.

"You tell me, bacon-butt," he retorted. "What's up with sleeping in her bed?"

"It just happened," he said to Ranma. "I didn't plan it or anything."

"Uh-huh, sure. I see you didn't knock yourself out trying to get away."

Ryouga smirked. He still had something over Ranma. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Are you jealous because it wasn't you?"

Ranma flinched at his words. "I ain't jealous of nobody, got it?"

"Heh," the fanged mechwarrior retorted. "At least I can be honest with my feelings for her. It's more than I can say for you."

"Don't make me laugh, pork-boy. If you're so damn honest, why ain't ya coming clean with her about P-chan?"

"Shut up!" Ryouga snarled. "The situation just got too complicated, too fast."

"It's more like you chickened out. I can only imagine how pissed she'll be at you when she finally finds out."

Ryouga grabbed him by the shirt front.

"She won't find out," he menaced.

Ranma narrowed his eyes at him. "Oh yeah? Says who?"

Ryouga cocked back a fist. "I'm warning you, Ranma. Not a word."

"Ooooo, I'm _so_ scared. Gimme a break, Ryouga. I enjoy watching you squirm over it. You think I'm going to give that up?"

Ryouga's sneer intensified even as his grip on Ranma's shirt relaxed.

"Don't push your luck, Ranma," he told him. "Sooner or later she'll realize what a creep you are, and then she'll see me in a whole new light."

A blood vessel popped out on Ranma's forehead at the mention of the word 'creep.' Yuka and Sayuri were still giving him the cold shoulder over Akane, and he hadn't done anything wrong to her in _hours_!

"She'll see you in a whole new light, all right," he growled. "That is, as the _other_ white meat..."

"So," Doctor Tofu asked as a battered and bruised Ranma Saotome floated into Sick Bay with an unconscious Ryouga in tow. "This is what happens when I tell you two to take it easy for the next few days?"

"He threw the first punch," Ranma groused, rubbing his sore jaw.

Tofu shook his head. "Maybe I should sedate you like your friend Tarou?"

Ranma put out his hands. "No thanks."

Ryouga shook himself awake. "Where am I?"

"That's the story of your life, ain't it," Ranma observed.

Ryouga wiped away a smear of blood from his nose, and started coming for him. "You got lucky, Ranma. If that pipe hadn't been in the way, I would have..."

"Not in Sick Bay!" Tofu shouted, losing his cool for the first time that Ranma could remember. "If you can't follow my orders to behave, then go beat the tar out of each other somewhere else - but don't think for a minute that I'll have any sympathy for you when you come staggering back to Sick Bay for help." His eyes narrowed to slits of cold fire behind his glasses. "In fact I have a few special chiropractic techniques that will make your healing process as miserable as possible... Do you boys understand me?"

Ranma and Ryouga nodded meekly.

"Good," Tofu said to them. "Now cool off and go clean yourselves up. I don't want to look at you for at least fifteen minutes."

The two gave each other sheepish looks and floated back out the door.

"Man," Ranma groused in a hushed voice to Ryouga. "What's eating the Doc?"

"I dunno," he replied. "But I don't want to find out."

Tofu watched them go and sighed wearily. He had been awake and treating the wounded for longer than he could remember, and his vigil would continue on the trip down to Tiber. His only comfort was that Happousai was judged by Doctor Mayinga to be too weak for transit, and would remain on board under constant observation - probably until the _Dragonfly_ was put into drydock, and the trip down to the surface was not as demanding.

The stress of the mission was getting to be more than he could bear, and a large part of it was the separation from Kasumi. How he longed to see her shining face once more, and to hear her soft sweet voice! Why had he been such a fool around her all these years?

He should have told her how he felt before the _Palomino_ lifted from the castle, but his nerve had failed him once again. She must have thought he was some kind of spastic dork for all of his carrying on. The attack on Capra, and their recent misjump, had brought home to him how dangerous this mission was. There was a good chance that he would never see her again, and the only way she would ever remember him was as the kind-hearted but goofy family doctor.

He couldn't take that. Not when he felt so much more for her. Didn't they both deserve a little happiness together?

Tofu reached into his desk and withdrew a small stereograph of Kasumi. It had been taken at a spring festival on Nerima not long before the arrival of the Saotomes. Somehow, he had managed to ask her to come along with him to the festivities without botching it too badly, and she had agreed. He did not know if it was out of a desire for friendly companionship, sympathy for his clumsy request, or something more - and he didn't care. That day had been one of the happiest of his life.

"Doctor Tofu?"

He looked up to see Akane floating in free-fall in the doorway.

"What is it?" he asked her nervously. The stereograph of Kasumi slipped out of his grasp to float gently with the air currents in the compartment.

"May I come in?" she asked him.

"Of course," he replied, snatching at empty air in a vain attempt to recover the precious stereograph.

Akane drifted silently over to the flat piece of holographic plastic and caught it between her fingers. She looked at the small 3D image of her sister for a moment, then sighed deeply.

"You really do love her, don't you, Doctor Tofu," she said quietly.

His face blazed with embarrassment.

"I-I do," he managed solemnly.

She pursed her lips in reflection. "I guess I've always known that." She pulled herself into a chair across from him, her face taut with emotion. "I may have tried to deny it sometimes, but I guess I could never put it out of my mind."

"What do you mean, Akane?" he asked her softly.

She looked up at him, her eyes wet. "Don't you see?" she asked in return. "For the longest time I've... Well..."

Tofu gave her a look of puzzlement.

"What is it, Akane?"

She took a deep breath.

"I've been in love with you, Doctor Tofu."

Tofu blinked in amazement.

"Akane..." he said softly. "Is this true? I never -"

"- I know," she broke in. "You never knew. That's been my problem the whole time. I've felt this way since I was fifteen, and probably before then, too."

He looked away for a moment. "What about Ranma?"

"I don't know," she sniffed. "I just don't know." Her eyes closed. "I didn't come in here to tell you this; I was just going to ask if you needed anything out of Stores for the trip, but when I saw you looking at that picture of Kasumi I felt like my heart was going to break."

"I'm sorry, Akane," he said to her awkwardly. He took his hands in hers and held them tight. "I didn't realize that you felt this way."

"It's all right," she said flatly. "This has been coming for a long time. I guess it's better that it finally happened. I was a fool to keep deluding myself into thinking that there was ever any hope for something between us, because I know that you love Kasumi."

They both fell silent for some time, each looking down at the neat surface of the desk. The soft sigh of the ventilation fans mingled with the sound of Akane's sniffling, and the sounds of airtight doors opening and closing beyond the compartment.

"We're a lot alike, I think," Tofu offered, at last breaking the silence between them. "Both of us pining for someone who doesn't have the slightest idea of how we feel about them."

"Yeah," she replied. "I guess so." She handed him the stereograph of Kasumi. "If you don't tell her how you feel when we get home, then _I_ will."

"Akane!" Tofu cried, aghast.

"I can't let you waste your chance at love like this," she returned. "There aren't any guarantees that Kasumi will wait for you to get up your courage and tell her."

Tofu looked down at his hands. "No, I suppose not."

"Then you'll tell her how you feel?"

"I was thinking about doing just that - before you walked in," he replied. "I _will_ tell her. Even if she doesn't feel the same for me, I _have_ to tell her."

"I'm happy for you, Doctor Tofu," Akane said in a trembling voice. "I really am, and I wish you the best of luck with Kasumi."

Tofu squeezed her hands. "Are you going to be all right?"

She nodded. "I think so."

He rose up from his desk, drawing her up with him into a comforting embrace. She cried softly in his arms, as she had done once before, seeking solace in his embrace, and knowing that all they would ever share was friendship. For the first time she could bring herself to accept that fact unconditionally, and with no more regrets. She was finally over her crush on Doctor Tofu.

"Okay, Doc, we're all cleaned up and we - urk..."

Tofu and Akane parted awkwardly from their embrace to see Ranma and Ryouga floating in the doorway, their faces and bodies frozen in shock at seeing the two of them in each others' arms.

Ranma, his face pale and drawn, turned slowly away from them.

"Sorry," he said flatly, and pushed himself forcefully out the door. Ryouga remained where he was, poised to weep, and yet not daring to do so in front of her.

"Ranma, wait!" Akane cried after him. "Ryouga, this isn't what it looks like. Why can't that jerk understand?"

Ryouga nodded slowly. "That's all right, Akane. It's none of my business. I'll be going now."

He slipped out the door and floated miserably away.

Akane turned back to Tofu, who shrugged sheepishly.

"Thank you, Doctor Tofu," she said in a subdued voice. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you this sooner. Just remember not to make the same mistake I did, okay?"

Tofu nodded, and let her go.

"Ranma, wait!" Akane cried after him. She had only just caught sight of his pig-tail darting around a corner on 'C' Deck. Ranma did not respond.

_Honestly_, she thought angrily. _He's such a coward sometimes!_

When she reached the corner, he had already commandeered the elevator for who knew which deck. Out of spite she punched the bulkhead - regretting it immediately.

"Stupid jerk," she said between her teeth. Her hand ached from the blow, and she considered returning to Sick Bay where Doctor Tofu could look at it. After a moment's pause, she decided against it. Now was not the time to come back to him in tears. He had his own problems.

She decided instead to visit the Crew's Mess and get some ice for her hand. 'D' Deck was spinning again, meaning that a semblance of gravity had been restored on the ship, and that the deck was habitable. A nice cool drink probably couldn't hurt, either.

She touched the 'call' button on the elevator panel with her good hand, and waited for the car to appear on her deck. The doors slid open to reveal an empty car. That was fine by her, she didn't feel like explaining how she had hurt herself. She gripped the handrail tightly and selected 'D' Deck.

A loose congregation of idle crew sat in the Crew's Mess. Most were enjoying a little break from the long hours spent restoring the ship's functions, a few were preparing to come on watch. There were no regular meals yet; everyone was living off the contents of several large boxes of survival rations until the _Dragonfly_ had enough reserve power to start up non-essential electrical loads like the galley equipment.

Fortunately for her, the Ship's Surgeon had prevailed upon Captain Ninomiya the idea that the ice-maker was a vital load for burn victims whose injuries weren't critical. She opened the hinged door of the machine and scooped up a large pile of ice cubes into a ziploc bag. The ice was soothing to her injured hand, and she sat next to the machine for several minutes enjoying both faux-gravity and the relief from pain.

In spite of herself, she thought about Ranma. The jerk was obviously upset at seeing her hugging Doctor Tofu. Or was it just embarrassment for walking in on what would logically be assumed to be an intimate moment by an outsider? The more she thought about it, the less clear Ranma's reaction became to her.

It was starting to give her a headache, although the below-normal oxygen and above-normal carbon dioxide levels could have been responsible as well. The tiny particles of greasy soot that clung tenaciously to the air in spite of the round-the-clock action by the precipitators probably weren't helping matters. There were a few pre-packaged acetominophen dispensers located at the end of the compartment near the galley, and she rose reluctantly to self-medicate.

P-chan sat despondently before the closed door to the galley, oinking mournfully for some reason that Akane could not fathom, and did not care about. All she knew in that moment was that her beloved pet was alive and well, and right before her eyes.

"P-chan! How did you get here?"

The pig looked up at her sadly.

She scooped him up into her arms, and hugged him close to her body.

"Oh, P-chan, I was so worried about you! Where have you been?"

The pig made a few weak grunts, and nuzzled against her in reply.

"I missed you too, P-chan," she whispered to him. "When Ranma said that he had seen you, I didn't know whether or not to believe him. If Ryouga hadn't said something, I probably wouldn't have. I know Ryouga would never try to mislead me."

P-chan oinked sadly at this.

Akane felt much better having P-chan with her, so much so that she forgot all about her injured hand. She walked off the Crew's Mess to her quarters, a small single-occupancy room on the far end of the ring-like Grav-Deck. If not for the 'D' Deck Hub that ran through the middle of the slowly spinning level, she could have looked directly overhead and seen the door to her room from outside the Mess Decks.

Her room was as she had left it before the Jump. There was a little smoke damage, leaving the place smelling sooty, but all in all it could have been much worse. She pulled the chair out from the fold-down desk and sat down with P-chan in her lap.

"It feels good to be sitting down," she said to the pig. "I've been on the go ever since the Jump." She looked down at her dirty clothes and sighed. "What I really need is a shower and a nap. You won't mind if I set you down for awhile so I can get cleaned up, would you?"

P-chan oinked in reply.

"Okay," she said lightly. "I didn't think you'd mind." She set him down on the bed and began tugging at her top. P-chan started to blush, and then turned away to face the opposite bulkhead.

"I've never seen a pig act so modestly before," she chuckled as she unhooked her bra and tossed it to the floor. Her shorts and panties went next, unnerving the pig as the lacy underwear was flung absently onto the bed.

"Thank the gods for JumpShips," she sighed. "My own shower..."

Individual showers were the standard for single-occupancy rooms aboard the Invader Class starships, and for once Akane had no complaints about her noble heritage. Most of the ship's complement had to make do with communal showers, which, although bigger and more numerous than on a Leopard Class DropShip, were still communal showers. Though her bathroom was every bit as cramped as the one on the _Palomino_, it was still hers and hers alone.

She opened the door to the bathroom and started the water running. Though the hot water heaters had not been reenergized yet, there was still a good reserve remaining in the large heated tanks on 'D' Deck to supply her with all she needed. She stepped into the warm pulsating streams of water and sighed contentedly. It was good to be the daughter of the Grand Duke...

After a long healthy soak under the showerhead, she stepped out and toweled herself off. She paused for a moment by the mirror, which was fogged up by steam. A few brushes with her hand against the glass cleared a patch in the center of the mirror, and she looked at herself for a moment.

She wondered how others saw her. The short hair was still something she was getting used to, but all in all she felt it was a good look for her. Her eyes were a little red and puffy, but she was willing to chalk that up to the lack of sleep and the dirty air. Her figure might need a little work, she thought grimly. She wasn't showing any flab now, but you never knew when it was going to sneak up on you. She would have to work out later, but first, she needed a nice long nap.

Her body-image inventory complete, she stepped out of the bathroom. P-chan remained facing away from her, looking for all intents as if he had never moved a centimeter since she started taking off her clothes. She suppressed a chuckle at this, and pulled a pair of pajamas out of the drawer beneath her bed. P-chan peeked over his shoulder at the sound of the drawer being pulled open, and got more than an eyeful.

Twin streams of blood fountained from his snout as he keeled over into merciful unconsciousness.

"P-chan!" she cried, pressing her pajamas to her bosom with one hand while scooping him up with the other. His head rolled around on his shoulders for a moment or two before he regained consciousness with a weak grunt. She looked at him for several moments, his face blazing red with heat, before deciding that he was okay.

"Don't scare me like that, P-chan. Honestly."

She set him back down on the bed, and he turned away so that she could get dressed in her pajamas. Once she was suitably attired, she pulled back the blanket and the sheets and slipped into her small but cozy bed. P-chan whimpered for a few moments until she snuggled him close to her under the covers. After that, there came only contented grunts.

"It's been a pretty rough day," Akane yawned as she turned out the lights. "I've survived a dangerous hyperspace Jump, a disastrous fire, and confessed my unrequited love for Doctor Tofu." This last declaration made the pig tense in her embrace.

"I'm glad I told him," she continued. "It was stupid to go on hoping that someday he would look at me as more than just Kasumi's little sister. I can finally get on with my life."

She gave the pig a squeeze - which elicited a happy sigh from him.

"And I'm glad you're okay, P-chan," she went on. "I feel that no matter what, as long as I've got you, I have someone I can talk to. I can tell you all those things that I'm afraid to tell other people, because you're just a cute little pig, and you can't pass on everything I say."

The pig sighed again, this time sadly.

"Ranma..." she said, oblivious to Ryouga's distress. "Should I tell him that I like him? Or would that just make him even harder to deal with?"

P-chan grunted in what seemed to be the firm negative.

"I just don't know what to do about him," she confessed. "One minute he's the bravest, coolest, most selfless guy I've ever met, and the next minute he's nineteen years old going on nine."

She gave P-chan a squeeze and yawned loudly. Sleep wasn't far away, and her emotional guard began to wane.

"Don't tell him I said this," she murmured drowsily to her pet pig. "But even though he's a total jerk sometimes, I think I really do like him. I don't know if I love him, but..."

A tear trickled down Ryouga's porcine face as Akane drifted off to sleep.

Azure Cloud Castle

Planet Nerima, Capella System

The Nerima Confederation

3 April 3025

"Would you care for some more tea, Mrs. Saotome?"

Nodoka Saotome inclined her head in the affirmative.

"Yes, your Grace. Thank you."

Soun grinned as a steward refilled her teacup. "Please, Mrs. Saotome, call me Soun. We've known each other for a long time, and certainly before I was the Grand Duke."

Nodoka nodded. "As you wish."

With the matter of formality between them settled, Soun took a slow drag on his cigarette. "Have you enjoyed your stay?"

She smiled. "I have. I'll admit that I was surprised to receive word from you inviting me to Nerima, and even more so at your news of my husband and son. I've never been away from Sian before now, but to see Ranma again, I would travel to the far side of the Furinkan Combine!"

Soun laughed a little nervously at this. There was still no word from his friend, and with the Furinkan Combine occupying both Jump Points, it was unlikely that they could return to the system safely. The ship bearing Nodoka to the Capella System had only just arrived ahead of the Combine, and now she was as much a prisoner of Kuno's blockade as the rest of the system.

"Of course," he replied. "So it's been awhile since you've seen the boy, has it?"

"Seventeen years," she replied tonelessly. There was a great sadness in her voice, which she tried her best to conceal.

Soun lifted his slack jaw from his chest. "...I see..." He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Well, I suppose training in the art can make you lose track of time..."

"Yes," she replied wistfully. "I suppose it can. I am comforted at least in the knowledge that my dear Ranma has certainly become a man among men by now." She seemed to glow for a moment. "What you've told me of the mission Ranma and my husband have taken up for the Confederation fills me with pride. I've always known that my men were selfless and brave."

"We owe them a great deal for their courage," Soun agreed.

Nodoka sipped daintily at her tea. "You must be very proud of Akane."

Soun's face fell slightly. Not only was his old friend missing in action, but his youngest daughter as well.

"I couldn't be more pleased with her," he replied haltingly. "I know that she will make a fine Grand Duchess."

Nodoka blushed. "Ah, my dear little boy is getting married," she said in a near whisper. "They grow up so fast." She looked across the salon at the photographs of Soun's family. His three daughters looked so lovely, and there, on the far right, was a sterograph of Ranma and Akane together.

She rose, and Soun followed her with his eyes over to the portraits. Nodoka studied the stereograph of Ranma and Akane, taken at the surrender summit following Soun's announcement of their betrothal. Their nervous expressions did not dampen her appreciation for how beautiful they looked together. The three-dimensional photograph seemed to leap out at her as she looked at it, making her wish she could reach out and touch her son and future daughter-in-law, and take them into a warm embrace.

"He is such a handsome man," she declared, her voice filled with emotion.

"If I may say so, he has inherited his mother's grace and beauty," Soun added.

Nodoka blushed. "You flatter me, sir," she said to him. "I can see that there is a bit of his father in him too," she continued. "The way he carries himself in this stereograph. Why, he looks just as confused and overwhelmed as Genma did when we were first engaged." She chuckled softly and just a little sadly at the nostalgia she felt in that moment.

She looked at the other photos and stereographs on the wall. "Permit me to compliment you on your fine daughters."

"By all means," Soun returned proudly.

"Kasumi has certainly grown up tall and lovely," she declared. "I remember the birth announcement you sent to us on Sian. Genma and I had hardly been married a month when it arrived. It made me want a daughter so much. Genma, of course, had other ideas, and I suppose with Ranma he got his wish."

Soun nodded silently. While he welcomed Nodoka's presence in the castle, it was a reminder of how their two families had drifted apart since his coronation. His regret for keeping out of touch for so long had been subordinated by the problems of his country, and now when matters looked nearly hopeless for the Confederation, he had been given a chance to restore what had been a cherished friendship with the Saotomes.

"This must be Nabiki," Nodoka observed, looking at a picture of the mahogany-haired middle daughter. "She has quite a lot of mischief shining in those pretty eyes."

_You don't know the half of it_, Soun thought to himself.

"Nabiki has always been a handful," he agreed.

"Oh?" Nodoka asked. "I would think Akane would be the most trouble. She strikes me as a very spirited young lady."

"Akane and Nabiki can be difficult," he admitted. "In their own particular ways." He shrugged. "But what can I say? I love them both."

"Of course!"

Nodoka found another photograph of Akane, taken as a girl of sixteen. She wore a short floral print dress that flowed in the breeze with her long fall of blue-black hair. She was on a stretch of pristine white beach sand, standing before the deep blue water of the sea.

"This photograph reminds me very much of your wife," she said softly. "Akane has come to resemble her a great deal."

Soun tried not to choke up. "Yes, she has," he managed against the lump that formed in his throat.

Nodoka understood his sudden reserve. "Forgive me, Soun. I should not have mentioned..."

"No, no," he interrupted with a wave of his hand. "There's no need to feel that you've done anything wrong. It's difficult sometimes for me to accept that she is gone, but I can't change the past no matter how hard I might wish."

"Let us talk of happier things then," Nodoka offered. "Like the return of our loved ones, and the salvation of the Confederation. I believe very strongly that our hour of triumph will come."

Soun tried to smile. "By all means," he replied. "We have managed to marshal most of our resources in this system for Prince Kuno's siege. It will be a hard fight, but our morale is high."

"You see," Nodoka pointed out. "We have nothing to fear."

Soun nodded slowly. "Of course not."

Kasumi Tendo, eldest daughter of the Grand Duke, and the woman many in the Confederation felt should have been the Heir, dusted off her old neurohelmet. She frowned at its untidiness, a reflection of how much time she had spent with matters of state. Now, with the Furinkan Combine howling at the door, her duty lay in matters of war.

Her battlemech stood tall, foreboding, and silent in the family's armory. It had stood there for years, unused. The grinning death's head visage of her mighty Atlas, the largest, most fearsome battlemech in all of the Inner Sphere, had always made her feel as if the giant war machine was privy to a wonderful joke.

There would be little time for levity in the near future, she mused. Her army was about to deploy for Capella's second planet, a steamy hellhole of vulcanism and toxic atmosphere whose only moon served as the last bastion of defense between Nerima Orbit and the Jump Points. Fortifications on the moon awaited reinforcements, and the mines on Shounetsu Jigoku were vital to the system's industry for the battlemech-critical raw materials they produced.

Judging by Prince Kuno's caution since his arrival in the system, he would be loathe to ignore Shounetsu Jigoku and put its troops and ships at his rear where they could ambush his armies, and interdict his supplies and reinforcements from the jump points. He would have to attack there, and either capture or destroy the fortifications. The valuable mines would fall easily after that, and his way to Nerima would be clear.

The mantle of Captain of the Household Guard had fallen upon her in Akane's absence. Though morale was high among the troops, it was her duty as a Tendo to lead them in battle. She had not been in combat for four years.

Violence had never sat well with her, and she looked to the coming battles with all the anticipation of performing a vital, if distasteful, chore. She placed a hand on the cold, hard armor plate of the Atlas' foot, and steeled herself for what lay ahead. She wished that there was someone she could talk to, to confide in, before she boarded the DropShip for the front. Her father was trying to cope in his own way with the crisis, Akane and Doctor Tofu were gone to who knew where, and Nabiki...

Nabiki was plotting something dreadful. She had no proof of this, as her sister was taking pains to conceal her activities, but she had no doubt of it. Though it shamed her to admit it, she wished Father had not recalled Nabiki from her sabbatical when the Combine renewed its offensive. Her sister was sick, whether from greed and ambition, or something more physiological, she did not know. She only knew that Nabiki needed more help than she could give, and that her sister would not accept it if it were offered.

Now she was leaving the planet, and leaving Nabiki unchecked in her plots. A part of her wisely wanted to remain on Nerima to keep an eye on her. Who knew what Nabiki was capable of?

She had her duty, she reminded herself. She had to fight to protect her family and her people. Though she would make every effort to spare life in battle, she knew that in such hostile environments as the vacuum of space and the toxic, corrosive atmosphere of Capella II, that some of her enemies would not survive. It was as much as she could do to preserve her principles, and in the meantime, she would pray that Nabiki would stay her hand.

Army Group 'B' Headquarters, the Hotel Lyonne

Planet Viridian, Alpha Canaris System

The League of Five Nails

3 April 3025

"What am I going to do?" Hikaru Gosunkugi lamented to his trusted cousin, Tetsuo. His parents had ordered him to return to Tetsuyama Fortress on planet Angbad. The last thing he wanted to see - besides his parents - was the bloody red star known as Melkor.

They were angry at him for losing the Capra System. Never mind that they hadn't even heard of Capra before the Furinkan Combine seized it, they were angry that he had lost it in spite of the large force he had brought to that star system. His tremendous victory at the Jump Point meant nothing to them, as the Gosunkugis had a traditional contempt for the Navy that only Hikaru had been able to overcome. On the contrary, he reserved his contempt for the League Army, and had his reservations for their effectiveness in combat confirmed during the abortive attempt to engage the Combine on the surface of Capra.

"You have two choices," Tetsuo offered. "You either return to Angbad or you don't."

"That isn't very helpful," Hikaru snorted.

"I know you don't want to go back. So don't."

Hikaru frowned. "How exactly am I supposed to do that without making my situation any worse? I'm probably going to be grounded for this as it is."

"Stall. Find some excuse to stay here for the moment."

"Such as?"

Tetsuo thought for a moment. "Well, there is Prince Kuno's invasion of the Capella System. That's a pretty big deal, and it affects the League of Five Nails almost as much as it does the Confederation."

Hikaru nodded slowly. It was possible that he could beg off for the

moment using that excuse. "We could always say that we were readying an invasion of the Confederation to grab what we can for ourselves before the Combine takes it all."

"That will probably work," Tetsuo agreed. "You know how they want you to expand the League."

"We have more pressing problems. Like how to stop Kuno."

Tetsuo nodded in agreement.

"What did the oracle say?"

"'Ask again later,'" Hikaru lamented. He held up the small black sphere and shook it. "Now it says, 'You will order out for pizza and suffer third-degree burns.'"

"I got that once from a fortune cookie," Tetsuo noted. He looked at the black orb's missive. "You know, I didn't think they could fit all that in the space available, but what do you know!"

"It's a sign," Hikaru declared. His sunken eyes seemed even more hollow and empty than usual. "Of what, I have no idea."

"Perhaps we need to cast a detailed horoscope on the matter of what to do about Tatewaki Kuno," Tetsuo suggested. "But just to be on the safe side, let's cancel the Army Group 'B' Staff luncheon at Greasy Tony's, and eat in the Hotel instead."

"Agreed."

With the matter of lunch settled, the two rolled out a chart of the Inner Sphere that had been updated with their latest Intelligence, and began pondering over it.

"He's spread awfully thin," Tetsuo observed.

"True," Hikaru agreed. "But mostly in places where we'd have trouble reaching him."

"Capra is about his only vulnerable point where we can hit back."

"He'll be expecting it."

Tetsuo looked up from the chart and at his cousin. "You're really serious about stopping Kuno, aren't you? The Confederation has pulled back from just about everywhere on our border to defend Capella, and instead of hitting them now and grabbing what we can, you want to break the seige."

"If Kuno takes Capella and gets Tendo to hand over the Confederation, then we're done for," Hikaru pointed out. "He'll come after us next, and we won't be able to stop him. After that he'll go after the Commonwealth. If he can beat them, the Federated Shiratori will simply fold. The Inner Sphere will belong to Tatewaki Kuno."

"Not to mention Akane Tendo."

"I'm trying not to think about that," Hikaru said gravely. "So you see, we have to break the seige if we're to have any hope. Even keeping the status quo is better than letting Kuno win."

"So what do you propose, cousin?" Tetsuo asked.

Hikaru bit his lip. What he wanted would not find much acceptance beyond the confines of the room he occupied.

"I want a strategic alliance with the Confederation," he declared.

"A tall order," Tetsuo said, whistling with appreciation for his cousin's daring. "You'll have to convince Grand Duke Tendo as well as your parents."

"Tendo might not have much choice," Hikaru pointed out. "As for my parents, well, we don't have to tell them just yet."

"I assume that Akane Tendo will be handed over to you in order to seal the alliance?"

"Of course."

"Another tall order."

Hikaru frowned. "I'll find a way to convince him. All I need is some kind of in with him. Even if I can't convince him, though, I still have to stop Kuno from forcing his will upon the man. We have to get him to hold off on a full-blown invasion of Nerima, and that means we have to hit him where it will hurt."

"His pride is easy to play on," Tetsuo noted. "The target doesn't necessarily have to be that important so long as it makes him look bad."

Hikaru snapped his fingers.

"That's it!"

"What is, cousin?"

Hikaru gestured to the map of the Inner Sphere. "Tetsuo, we are going to invade the Furinkan Combine."

Tetsuo's first reaction was one of utter disbelief. Then he began to think about it. A wide grin moved slowly across his face.

"Cousin, you are either completely crazy or else a certified genius."

Hikaru grinned back. "Since I know I'm not crazy, the answer to that is obvious." He pulled on his headdress and lit the candles. A fatted calf would be sacrificed tonight in burnt offering to the gods for success.

Dragon of the Black Pool Fortress

Planet Tau Ceti IV, Tau Ceti System

The Jusenkyo Commonwealth

4 April 3025

Shampoo fastened the last frog-closure on her full dress cheongsam before the mirror in her quarters, then stepped back to admire herself. The pattern of eight butterflies chasing flaming pearls was skillfully embroidered with gold and silver thread on her sleek attire, and glittered in the light. Her lustrous purple hair was done up in her usual buns, though she had carefully wound strings of pearls and gold beads through them. The Phoenix insignia of Mechwarrior Major on her high collar - encrusted with garnets, amethysts, and honey-colored topaz sewn into the embroidery - was especially suited to her, she decided. She only hoped that she would continue to wear it after Herb was finished with her.

The general had decided to convene the formal debriefing that afternoon. She had received the summons to attend from Lime and Mint, Herb's inseparable henchmen. Fortunately for them, they knew better than to say anything to her other than that which was dictated by their orders when they presented themselves. It would not help her in the General's eyes to have beaten his lackies to a pulp.

She had enough time to visit the small temple on the fortress grounds before she was to report. She was not an overly religious person, but she felt that in this case she could use all the help she could get. Checking herself in the mirror one final time, she opened the door of her quarters, and stepped out into a small plaza whose flagstones were covered with a kind of local ivy and patches of hardy blue-green moss.

The visiting officers' quarters were just a few minutes' walk from the temple, and from there only a brief transit to the small auditorium where General Herb was holding the debrief. Shampoo walked proudly towards the temple in spite of her unease, drawing salutes from the mostly female troops she passed. She vowed to enjoy her status while she could, and put dark thoughts of her uncertain future aside for the moment.

The temple was small, a place barely large enough for one to kneel and offer prayers to one's ancestors for intercession and guidance. The cold granite stones were polished to a mirror finish, the sharply chiseled characters soaking up the reflected light into their depths. The sweet tang of incense tickled her nose.

Mechwarrior Lieutenant Pink was there, kneeling silently in prayer when she approached. There was no sign of her twin, but that didn't mean that Link wasn't around. Shampoo stopped short of the threshold to wait until Pink was finished.

The young mechwarrior stood slowly and offered a brief salute to the slabs of granite before turning to leave. Her eyes met Shampoo's and they locked for a moment in silent challenge.

"Mechwarrior Major Shampoo," she said to her superior with a salute.

Shampoo returned it. "I see that I'm not the only one in need of guidance from the ancestors." Her curiosity got the better of her. "Were you praying for our fallen sister, Laughing Orchid?"

Pink fought back a tinge of color in her cheeks.

"If I was, what would it mean to you?" she asked archly.

Shampoo decided to press the issue. After all, was it likely that she would ever get another chance? "It would mean that her death was not the simple matter the Ship's Doctor made it out to be."

Pink's eyes narrowed.

"It's true what they say; a woman who faces her own death has not the time to fear anything else."

"It seems to me that you have more to fear than I do," Shampoo returned.

"Perhaps," Pink conceded. "But then, anything that happened aboard the _Jade Lotus_ during our return to Tau Ceti was your responsibility. You would have as much to lose as me by coming forward with the truth."

"Hardly," she snorted. "So you did poison Laughing Orchid. It was very clever work to have fooled the doctor so easily."

Pink nodded slowly, taken in by Shampoo's flattery. "It was one of my more difficult assassinations. You can appreciate my subtlety then, when I say that there are far swifter and less pleasant ways of passing-on than the gentle wasting that Laughing Orchid endured." This last seemed to be something of a threat, and Shampoo considered it as such.

"My only question is why," she returned in a tight voice.

"The answer should be obvious."

"Forgive my ignorance," Shampoo said with a humble smile that was anything but.

Pink returned the smile with her own wry grin. "Laughing Orchid disgraced herself and she disgraced the company with her shameful retreat on Capra. Then, in the full bloom of her crimes, she dared to accuse Mousse, the comrade she had abandoned in the thick of the battle, of mutiny and insubordination." Her eyes closed. "It was inexcusable."

"So you poisoned her," Shampoo pointed out. "Rather than see her answer for her own transgressions in the proper manner, you took matters into your own hands."

Pink gave her an accusing look. "Are you suggesting that I openly denigrate one of my battle-sisters in favor of a man?" She spat upon the ground at her feet. "Ludicrous."

"Then why murder Laughing Orchid at all?"

"It was the solution that offered the most face," Pink declared. "It was fitting that Laughing Orchid die for her cowardice in battle, and that she suffer for her shameful and baseless accusations. That was the price she had to pay, but for her sake I also ensured that by her premature demise, Mousse could not prevail against her in a public trial. She saves face that way, as do we all for not having to endure the shame of seeing one of our battle-sisters belittled for the sake of a man's honor."

Shampoo nodded slowly at Pink's logic. There would be no shame upon the sisterhood of the Joketsuzoku by having Laughing Orchid die of a supposed allergic reaction to Capra's biosphere. On the other hand, to allow Mousse to confront his accusers in a public trial - and very likely prevail in any court overseen by General Herb - the result would be an acknowledgement that a man had shown great courage in a battle where his female accusers had fled like cowards, and then tried to cover up their actions with slanderous accounts. On the whole, a scenario many in her clan would have found quite unpalatable.

In an earlier day, she would have agreed with Pink. Now, the idea of Pink's motivation sickened her. It was nothing more than lip service to the ideals they had all sworn to uphold when they became Mechwarriors of the Commonwealth. In denying Mousse his right to defend himself against his accusers, Pink had firmly committed herself to putting the face of the clan above her oath.

"I see your point," Shampoo said quietly. Her disgust was evident, and she wanted Pink to have at least a taste of it.

"I did my duty to the sisterhood," Pink declared, sensing exactly what Shampoo thought of her solution to the problem. "Justice is done, and our way of life is preserved. If you feel that the matter should be pursued beyond the happy conclusion I have provided, then you are an idealistic fool."

Shampoo flushed with anger. In a stand-up fight she could kill Pink in the blink of an eye and with one arm tied behind her back. Pink knew this, and so a fight between them would be anything but honorable and clean.

Pink gave her a warning look, then added. "I can see where you might have certain sympathies for Mousse. He has endured a great deal of torment for your sake."

"What do you mean by that?" Shampoo demanded.

"Haven't you seen his back?" Pink asked in return. Then, realizing that Shampoo had not, she continued. "If you have the opportunity, you should look at his back. Those kinds of scars aren't gained in battle, and they're too fresh to be much older than six months. That would put them from around the time of your departure from Lightoller, most likely. As I understand it, General Herb wasn't very keen on releasing you from duty, and Mousse had a hand in your escape. The General is a vengeful man."

Shampoo thought about Pink's words. Had Mousse been tortured as punishment for disobeying General Herb? It would explain a great deal about his behavior since leaving Lightoller.

"It's no business of mine," she replied.

"As you say," Pink said with a grin.

Shampoo couldn't let her go that easily.

"Remember, sister, that justice is not yours to mete out at your own personal discretion. If ever we should serve together, you will do well to remember that."

"Good luck with the debrief," Pink retorted, knowing full well that the odds of Shampoo escaping with her life, much less her rank, sat upon that precarious perch between slim and none. She offered a perfunctory salute, and stepped past the purple-haired mechwarrior to join her twin sister Link, who had appeared out of seeming thin air.

Shampoo watched them leave, and decided that it was for the best that she held her temper in check. Though Pink was ever the more treacherous of the two, Link's loyalty to her sister was sufficent to provoke a dagger in the back at the least opportunity.

When they had gone, she presented herself before the polished slabs of granite and knelt in prayer. She did not pray for deliverance, for she knew better than to expect that. She prayed instead to acquit herself well on the field of honor that would be her place of execution.

The Law of the Joketsuzoku held that a warrior sentenced to die for a crime had the right to face her executioners in combat. If she defeated them, more would take their place until she finally fell, or until no one else dared to enter the fated circle. If she could survive against all comers, then her innocence was established in blood for all to bear witness.

General Herb would make certain that her executioners were the fiercest fighters in the Inner Sphere, for he maintained a private stable of male gladiators that often ruled the circuits at Solaris VII and in other respected venues. It galled her to think that she might have to face mere men at her execution, and that eventually they might even defeat her.

_Give me strength_, she pleaded to her ancestors. _Do not let me shame my great-grandmother by dying cheaply. Let me sell my life dearly!_

Mousse watched silently from some distance to the temple. Though Shampoo was but a fuzzy smudge of color to his weak eyes, he looked on as if he could see the worry and anguish that wracked her lovely face. She knelt before the ancestors as one who faced death, though she had no way of knowing yet of General Herb's plans for her.

His heart ached to see her like that, and to know that it was all for nothing. The General had already stated that he would not execute her, though the alternatives were perhaps even less palatable. He himself would play the pivotal role in their fruition.

How could he have become Herb's tool so easily?!

He looked at her once more, and knew the answer. For Shampoo, whom he loved with not simply his heart and soul, but the very entirety of his being, he would do this. To follow Herb's orders was to buy time for her, so that somehow they might escape the machinations of the hybrid general and the enemies of Cologne on the Elder Council. They would have to leave Tau Ceti in disgrace as wanted criminals, but also with the opportunity for eventual redemption.

He closed his eyes slowly, drew in a deep breath, and left Shampoo to continue the preparations General Herb had outlined for him.

General Herb stepped into the auditorium from the greenroom at the back of the hall, his long full cape draping him in shimmering emerald silk. The serpentine coils of a dragon embroidered in gold and platinum thread wrapped around the full body of the cape, writhing and undulating as he walked, and the large embroidered Chinese characters for his rank and station glittered with the light of thousands of tiny diamonds expertly set into the fabric. His red reptillian eyes gleamed maleficently, and his jaw was set with the grim determination to execute his duty to the Elder Council.

He took his place behind the cloth-draped table that had been set upon the stage, eyeing the crowd in attendance with satisfaction. His personal guard, led by Lime and Mint, stood well behind him, but their fearsome presence was undiminished by their distance. Scribes and recorders in their ceremonial garb took their places at the wings of the stage.

He took his seat, and those in attendance slowly followed suit.

His eyes settled upon Shampoo, who sat with an older woman acting in the capacity of her counsel. He recognized her as one of Cologne's old friends, and who currently served as the fortress' Castellan. She would play into his hands quite suitably, he thought with a smile.

Lime sounded a large gong.

"This convenes the formal proceedings into the matter of Fourteen through Fifteen March of the year 3025, aboard and about the Jusenkyo Commonwealth DropShip _Jade Lotus_," he announced for them.

Mint stepped up to provide a stack of hardcopy for him to pick through.

"I have been conducting this inquiry privately over the last several days through the study of the ship's logs, flight recorder data where available, and deposition of the relevant personnel in the interest of saving time," he continued. "It was my sincere hope that more formal proceedings would not be necessary."

His eyes settled once again upon Shampoo, who sat imperiously in her chair as if none of this meant anything to her.

"Unfortunately, I find that this is not the case. Having exhausted all avenues of research into the matter, it is the finding of this officer of the Commonwealth High Command that the mission entrusted to Mechwarrior Major Shampoo and Agent Kima by the Elder Council has failed disastrously, and with great loss of life and irreplaceable Commonwealth assets."

Shampoo's counsel began to stir. Herb cut her off before she could voice an objection.

"Due to the unfortunate death of Agent Kima on the planet Capra, I find that all responsibility for the incident must fall upon Mechwarrior Major Shampoo. It is a sad but inarguable consequence of command, and one that I am certain that Mechwarrior Major Shampoo understood when she assumed command of the mission."

He looked at her closely.

"Is this not correct, Mechwarrior Major Shampoo?"

She steeled herself and stood to face him.

"It is just so, General," she replied in a firm voice.

Herb smiled thinly. "Having established her own culpability in this incident, and in light of the preponderence of evidence in the matter, I find that the law offers me little recourse in my final judgement." His gaze passed over the many faces in the auditorium. Disbelief was evident, as was shock, and even disgust with the ease in which Shampoo was being railroaded. He knew their sympathies lay with her, and that too would play into his hands.

"Nevertheless, I found it necessary to transmit my findings via HPG to the Elder Council, and seek their wisdom in the matter. I cannot argue the fact that the chief cause of woe to the mission was the untimely arrival of a large Furinkan Combine force on the planet - a circumstance beyond either Agent Kima or Mechwarrior Major Shampoo's control - and I hoped that the Council would take this into consideration when determining what disciplinary measures would be appropriate."

His eyes fell, and he seemed to slump for a moment in sadness.

"The Council, however, informed me that Mechwarrior Major Shampoo was under a probationary sentence at the time of the mission for a previous failure in action - the details of which are irrelevant to these proceedings. In fact, the resolution of her probationary sentence was contingent upon the success or failure of the mission to Capra."

He regained his composure, giving Shampoo an evil grin that lasted just long enough for her to notice. Her sudden tension delighted him.

"Mechwarrior Major Shampoo, rise, and face the pronouncement of this Board of Inquiry," Mint called from behind his general.

Shampoo stood quietly, her face calm and serene in the face of imminent doom. The auditorium was eerily silent around her as the assembled soldiers and functionaries of the fortress looked on in horror.

General Herb broke the seal on a gilded scroll, unrolled it, and stood. Mint stepped forward to take the scroll and read it aloud.

"It is the determination of this officer of the Commonwealth High Command, Mechwarrior General Herb, the Commander of the First March and its Wards, that the suspended sentence of death imposed upon Mechwarrior Major Shampoo shall be reinstated by the expressed orders of the Elder Council. This sentence of death shall be carried out at a time and place determined by Mechwarrior General Herb, who acts in the capacity delegated to him by the Elder Council."

A groan of disbelief spread throughout the auditorium. Shampoo remained proud and silent. This had not come as any surprise to her. General Herb had put on a good show, but she knew how much he was savoring this moment. She renewed her vow to make him suffer for this by forcing him to watch his precious cadre of gladiators die gruesomely at her hands.

Herb took the scroll back from Mint.

"It is my determination that the sentence of death imposed upon Mechwarrior Major Shampoo be carried out at dawn on the first day following her arrival on the planet Jusenkyo, that the Elder Council may witness it. As is the right of all soldiers of the Commonwealth, those who wish to set themselves before Mechwarrior Major Shampoo in combat should beg leave from their superiors and report to the starport by midday tomorrow for transport to Jusenkyo."

The gong sounded.

"This concludes the Board of Inquiry. Mechwarrior Major Shampoo, you will surrender yourself immediately for confinement pending the execution of your sentence."

She closed her eyes, and held out her wrists for Lime and Mint to cuff.

Furinkan Combine JumpShip _Imperator_

Capella System Zenith Jump Point

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

4 April 3025

"Tell me, brother dear, were you worried about me?"

Tatewaki Kuno regarded his sister from across the small room. She looked remarkably better than he would have expected for someone who had been so close to death within the last two weeks. It was time to see her moved to that convent in the Periphery with all haste.

"Perish the thought," he harrumphed. "Thy death would have been a boon once I pronounce sentence upon thee for thy treason."

"Treason, brother dear?" she asked sweetly. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Do not play coy with me," Tatewaki returned. "Thy crimes are legion, and thy mutiny hath put the Army into disarray. Full many an officer have I been forced to execute, much to the wounding of our noble cause."

Kodachi measured his words carefully. Upon regaining consciousness aboard the _Imperator_, she had known that any of her troops captured with her would likely be put to swift death. She didn't hold it against Tatewaki beyond a certain personal attachment for some of her officers, as she would have acted in the same fashion had her position versus her brother been reversed.

"Am I to meet the same fate, I wonder?" she mused aloud.

"Nay, sister," Tatewaki replied. "Father would not stand for it, as you well know. Instead, I have decided to send thee away."

"Send me away?" Kodachi asked, knowing where he was headed with this, and simply going through the motions to get him to continue. Tatewaki needed drama in his life the same way people needed oxygen, and when he did not get it, he became rather cranky. It was best not to make cranky the man who held your very life in his hands. Well, not _too_ cranky...

"Aye," Tatewaki continued, pleased that she remembered how the game between them was supposed to be played. "To a convent in the Periphery. There it is to be hoped that thou shalt find and mend the error of thy shameful ways."

"A convent," Kodachi replied dryly. "Should I be surprised that you would think of nuns at a time like this?" she asked teasingly. "I know very well the effect your years of Catholic School has had upon you, you naughty boy."

"Be silent, woman!" Tatewaki seethed. Having renounced Catholicism for the more pliable Shinto/Buddhist blend favored by his ancient Japanese ancestors, Tatewaki loathed even the mention of his time at the Our Lady of Perpetual Misery Elementary School, to say nothing of those trollish nuns who smote his knuckles with such holy wrath. "Thy impertinence earns you only ever more time spent in those dreary halls."

"Very well," she simpered. "To the convent I shall go. Perhaps if you visit me some day, you'll find me wearing one of those short plaid skirts I used to wear in school." She batted her eyes and grinned wickedly at him. "I remember how uncomfortable you used to get when you saw me in them..."

Tatewaki's face reddened.

"Be silent," he said. It was close to a plea.

"Calm thyself, Tachi, dear," she said mockingly. "I wasn't interested then, and I'm not now." She sized him up with a glance, enjoying how easily she could set him on the defensive, even with her position as weak as it was. "But if it will mean my freedom, well, I wouldn't mind indulging you just this once." She began to draw the sheet away from her bare breasts, giving him a peek at her rosy nipples. "I'm a little weak and tender right now in my wounded condition, so you'll have to be gentle with me..."

Tatewaki remembered to avert his eyes.

"Get thee behind me, sister!" he snarled. "Thy shameful licentiousness is a scourge upon the great name of Kuno!"

Kodachi laughed at him with all the mockery she could muster.

"You might be First Lord of the Star League one day, my dear brother, but you'll always remember who it was that could break you with a word."

Tatewaki took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"To think that I let thee live when it was full within the measure of my power to end thy life with but the press of a button..." he muttered angrily. "If such dark times befall me that I ever be considered a fool in the eyes of men, let it be for that singular act of mercy. Good day, O wicked sister."

With that he stepped through the airtight door.

"Oh pooh," Kodachi sighed. "That was just too easy."

She pulled the sheet back up over her breasts, as the room was a little drafty. It really was just too easy to get under Tachi's skin. He might be sending her off to a convent in the Periphery, but the matter of how long she remained there would not be decided by him. Surely at least some of her regiment had escaped from Capra!

She needed to speak to Sasuke. Hopefully the ninja had been resourceful enough to escape execution with the rest of her officers and staff. She decided that he was. Her brother would probably want to keep him close for the moment, in order to establish his loyalty.

Escape ranked high in her thoughts, but another matter lingered in her mind. What of that rogue, Ranma Saotome?

She had returned to consciouness with his name upon her lips. Though they were dreams borne of the delirium of her injuries, she knew that Ranma Saotome could indeed protect her from Tachi. That handsome devil, so brave and gallant on Capra! She had never before beheld his like, and thoughts of him fascinated her.

They also stirred thoughts of jealousy within her bosom, for he was the fiance of that insufferable Akane Tendo! How was it possible that a man like him was shackled to such a vile and shrill girl, when a woman of her own unsurpassed beauty, grace, and breeding was denied?

She would have to rectify that matter. Her darling Ranma deserved far better than the Tendo girl!

A sudden thought brought out a sly, wicked grin. In taking him for herself, she would not only gain such a fantastic prize of manhood, she would also exact yet one more richly deserved bit of vengeance upon the cursed Akane Tendo!

Nerima Confederation DropShip _Palomino_

Transitting the Palatine System en route to Planet Tiber

The Federated Shiratori

1 April 3025

NCDS _Palomino_ transitted the interplanetary void between the marooned starship _Dragonfly_ and the planet Tiber. The voyage would be a short one given their proximity to the world, a mere eighteen hours acceleration followed by another eighteen to decelerate at the end of the trip. The planet itself glowed blue in their telescopes, a welcome sight after the bleak deserts of Capra.

As they neared the end of their acceleration run, the passengers and crew enjoyed supper in the tiny Crew's Mess. Two of the _Dragonfly's_ cooks had come aboard to prepare meals full time, as the number of wounded who were berthed in the 'Mech Bays had doubled the DropShip's normal complement, and food preparation had become more than a simple affair.

"All hands prepare to shift propulsion," the 1MC announced. The ship would be securing its main engines for a brief period of time in order to realign them for deceleration. The sensation of gravity provided by the plasma drives would cease during this time, putting the entire vessel in free-fall.

The crew taking their meal groaned in complaint.

"It figures that they'd decide to do this right in the middle of chow," Ranma complained. Their food was not currently configured for consumption in a weightless environment.

"It's only for an hour or so," Genma replied. "You can wait that long, can't you?"

Ranma was busy stuffing food into his mouth. He paused just long enough to give his father an incredulous look.

"Really, Ranma," Doctor Tofu cautioned. "Eating like that right before going into free-fall isn't healthy."

Ranma grunted in disagreement.

"Are we really surprised at this?" Akane said with a chuckle. "In the past two months I've learned that nothing comes between Ranma and food."

Ranma nodded vigorously as he crammed an entire pork bun into his mouth in one bite.

The rest of the crew stood and began to file through the scullery with their plates. Genma rose with Akane and Doctor Tofu.

"Can I get your plate, Akane?" Tofu asked her.

She gave him a warm smile.

"Why thank you, Doctor!" she exclaimed.

She passed him her dirty dishes. "That's very sweet of you."

"It's my pleasure," Tofu beamed.

"'Scuse me," Ranma grunted, hopping over the bench seat to get past them. There was a hurt look on his face that she had seen before. She mentally kicked herself for not confronting him sooner on the issue, but after the incident in Sick Bay, she had not had a chance to get him alone. The way he hung around other people since the departure of the _Palomino_ made it seem like he was consciously trying to avoid just such a confrontation.

"Ranma?"

"Hey, uh," Ranma muttered, his food gone. "Look at the time. I better check on the LAM for tomorrow, huh."

He slipped past the crew waiting in line by the scullery for their turn at disposing their dishes. His plate sailed over their heads to land neatly in the stack. He disappeared forward before anyone could raise a voice in complaint.

"Ooohh..." Akane hissed. "Not this again." She started after him, feeling the gaze of the entire Crew's Mess upon her as she dashed after him. She could not believe she was doing this. If Ranma wanted to act this way, then who needed him?!

"Securing the Main Engines!" the 1MC announced.

The constant muted rumble of the plasma drives ceased abruptly, and the ship lurched ever so slightly into free-fall. They would drift for about an hour, then position their drives towards Tiber for the eighteen hour deceleration burn. Until then, they were weightless.

It made chasing after him that much more difficult, and she once again questioned why she was bothering.

"Ranma, stop right there!" she yelled at him. "Stop being such a coward!"

She pulled herself around a corner to come face to face with Ranma, who floated idly in the middle of the passageway as if he had been there the whole time. His expression betrayed no insight into what he might have been feeling or what he was thinking in that moment.

"Ranma!" she cried in surprise.

"You wanted something?" he asked nonchalantly.

She decided to let him play his cool act. It was better than facing a crybaby.

"I just felt that you needed to know something, that's all."

"That you're in love with Doctor Tofu?" he asked her. "I kinda figured that out for myself, the way you're always acting around him." He brushed at his threadbare red mandarin blouse. "It's no big deal," he continued impassively. "I understand how you feel. I'm even happy for you."

"You're an idiot," she replied. "And you don't understand anything. I'm not in love with Doctor Tofu. Not anymore."

He looked surprised. So surprised in fact that he didn't rise to her slight.

"No kidding?"

She nodded. "I've had a crush on him for years. That much is true."

He waited for her to continue, then finally asked her the question that burned in his mind. "So now you don't?"

"He happens to be in love with Kasumi," she explained. "He's felt that way for at least as long as I've been able to notice. It didn't change how I felt about him, but I always knew that he would never feel the same way about me as he did about Kasumi."

He nodded slowly at her words. "So what about you two hugging in Sick Bay?"

"He was just comforting me," she said softly. "We had a talk about how I felt, and the fact that he was in love with Kasumi. We're just friends, Ranma. Nothing more. That's how it will always be between Doctor Tofu and I." She grinned mischievously at him. "So stop worrying, okay?"

"Hey," he complained. "Who's worrying?"

She leaned in close to him, making him break out in a sweat. "Whatever you say, Ranma. Whatever you say." She looked him in the eyes. "You know, Ranma, just because I told you that I thought it was cute when you were jealous -"

She ceased speaking. Ranma remained deathly still, his eyes wide and a sheen of perspiration gleaming on his brow under the fluorescent lighting of the passageway.

"What is it, Ranma?" she finally asked him, drawing away from his face.

"Uh, nothing..." he muttered nervously. "I just thought you were gonna kiss me again or something dumb like that."

She smiled. "I think it was more like you _hoped_ I would." She looked him over, then checked to see that there was no one else in the passageway. "Close your eyes."

Ranma swallowed hard.

"Y-You mean it?"

She gave him a sidelong glance. "Just do it, okay?"

He closed his eyes. The sweat was starting to bead around his brow in free-fall like a salty mist.

"Gotcha!" Akane cried, and gave him a push that sent him tumbling away in a slow zero-gravity somersault. She pushed off in the opposite direction with a hearty laugh, and disappeared down the ladder to the Lower Deck.

Ranma opened his eyes as he tumbled away to crash into the far airtight door. His last sight of her was of her laughing eyes as she stole one final glance at him before slipping down the ladder.

"You are sooooo uncute..." he grumbled.

Firebase LIBERTY

Currently on the night side of Oni,

a moon orbiting Shounetsu Jigoku

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

H-Minus 5 Hours, 6 April 3025

Air hummed softly in the cockpit, stirred by several ventilation fans set above and behind the mechwarrior's ejector seat. The tinny whine of an array of gas-plasma displays added to the ambient sound, as did the muted roar of several hundred kilograms of liquid nitrogen rushing through the flashing chambers of the battlemech's heat sinks.

Acting General Kasumi Tendo took in these subtle noises as an indicator of her Atlas' health, in much the same way as her father had taught her when she was little, and the way she would teach her own children - when she finally got the chance to settle down and have some. Her battlemech was in prime combat condition, though she could hear the coolant circulating impellers surging, a consequence of the deep vacuum that surrounded her, as it forced the battlemech's heat sinks to rely on inefficient radiation rather than forced-air convection to shed waste heat. The coming battles were going to be a problem for 'mechs that relied heavily on energy weapons.

Combat was imminent because the moon of Oni posed a strategic problem for the Furinkan Combine that could not be ignored. The greatest threat to them were the three underground bases for GunShips and aerospace fighter squadrons, as they could range between the Jump Points and Nerima in search of Combine convoys, and strike at will at their reinforcements and supply columns. These bases had been constructed during the Age of War, in the dimly-recalled time before the short-lived unity of the Star League. As such, they were built to withstand the terrible firepower unleashed in those elder days, up to and including low-yield nuclear warheads.

Prince Kuno and his Furinkan Combine were not going to be able to simply bombard them from a distance with their far less potent weapons, and hope to succeed. Even if they tried, the bases were protected by heavy gun emplacements and formidable missile batteries - weapons designed to annihilate the great battleships of the First Succession War.

Though no rival Great House had ever faced these weapons before, the guns of Oni had duelled with a seditious branch of the Tendo Family in the Confederation Civil War of 2802. The result of this fateful battle was that the rival Tendos and their allies within the nobility were forced to withdraw from the system before ever reaching Nerima, and had suffered the loss of their pretender to the Ducal Throne when his heavy cruiser was gutted by Naval Particle Cannon fire.

The lethal barrage had come from the very base Kasumi now occupied with the 1st Nerima Guards regiment - on loan from Akane until she returned. From where her battlemech stood, she could see the bowl of the large crater Satoru Tendo's _Shokaku_ had made when it crashed. In the airless void of Oni, such historical landmarks were frozen forever in time.

The only way Kuno and his armies could silence the guns and seize the bases was to launch a ground attack. There were blind spots in the weapon coverage of the firebases that would allow his DropShips to land their battlemechs without losing them en masse to the guns. They would have to make a long trek across the airless wastes to reach the bases, and Kasumi would see to it that they fought for every kilometer of it.

She had three regiments of battlemechs to do the job. It was a sizable force when considering that the entire Confederation had perhaps twenty full regiments of active duty 'mechs, held six mercenary regiments on retainer, and could call upon another four regiments of reserves made up of retirees or from the nobles' personal levies. She also had two brigades of crack Confederation Marines, a close-knit brotherhood of piss-and-vinegar lifetakers who had been doing this kind of ugly close-quarters fighting in a hostile environment for so long that most of the troops had permanent rasps from breathing canned air. Even if the Combine got close enough to the guns to destroy them, they still needed to dig out the Marines if they wanted to get the fighter bases. No matter the outcome, the bloodshed would be terrible.

As she considered the coming carnage, her adjutant piped in from a secure landline plugged into a terminal at the base of her battlemech's ankle.

"General Tendo, Deep Space Tracking reports a large force approaching Shounetsu Jigoku. The raid count is twelve DropShips and three wings of aerospace fighters. Estimated time of arrival is three hours and fourteen minutes."

Kasumi regarded Colonel Mukaida on her display. The last time she had spoken to him in this manner, he still enjoyed the use of his legs. The battle that saw him become a paraplegic had occurred shortly after her decision to step down as Commander of the 1st Nerima Guards. She had done so in order to take over as Castellan of Azure Cloud Castle, and to act as Lady Steward for the Confederation. It was a continuing source of guilt for her, as he had been injured while leading the regiment in the time before Akane took over as commanding officer.

"I see," she replied thoughtfully. "What is the time to intercept for our fighters?"

Mukaida consulted a display in the Command Center that was outside the camera's view. One thing that hadn't changed about the colonel was that he looked just as cramped and uncomfortable in a pressure suit as he had years ago.

"Our 9th and 11th Attack Wings and our 13th GunShip Command should be engaging them within twelve minutes," he declared. A voice off-camera said something that Kasumi couldn't quite hear, causing the colonel to shake his head in disbelief. "Those Combine fools have either underestimated the range of our batteries, or else they're utterly insane. They're coming right for us."

Kasumi nodded slowly. "If we fire, we'll only pinpoint the location of this firebase for them."

"I don't think we should pass up the opportunity," Mukaida countered. "If nothing else, our fighters might be able to take advantage of the situation while those Combine bastards are still busy shitting in their pants from our salvos."

She frowned at his crude but appropriately descriptive turn of phrase. "Very well, Colonel. You may fire at will, but I want you to stop in enough time to avoid hitting any of our approaching units."

Mukaida grinned. It was clear that despite his contempt for a staff job, he relished the idea of commanding such incredible firepower.

"Aye aye, ma'am. I'll inform the regiment to keep their heads down.""Thank you, Colonel."

She trained her Atlas' optics suite to the location in the black sky where the Combine fleet lay. Firebase LIBERTY was currently located away from the harsh glare of Capella, and the stars shined brilliantly in the void. With sufficient telescopic zoom and image enhancement, she was rewarded with a cluster of tiny blue flashes against the colder white of the stars - the plasma drives of the decelerating Combine ships.

"TEN SECOND WARNING TO COMMENCE FIRE," an automated warning from the base's battlecomp sounded in her headset. The batteries of Firebase LIBERTY were about to shake the heavens.

Kasumi waited silently, wishing that none of this had to happen, and knowing that as long as a man like Tatewaki Kuno commanded troops, the Confederation would not be safe from invasion.

"ALL BATTERIES; COMMENCE FIRE! COMMENCE FIRE! FIRE AT WILL!"

Sixteen terawatt-class particle beams lanced bolts of annihilation into the darkness. There was no sound - save for the intense crackle of static over her radio from the electromagnetic discharge of the guns' focusing arrays. Brilliant flashes of light strobed across the airless wastes, creating deep shadows among the boulders and crater-raised ridges of Oni's dead surface.

Kasumi continued to watch her display. It would take less than a second for the bolts to reach the Combine ships, and just as long for the light of any impacts to return.

Four bright flashes of orange and silver light lit up the display almost simultaneously as four enemy ships were vaporized. A relatively small DropShip was no match for the might of four Naval Particle Cannons firing in unison. The guns would need several minutes to cool and recharge their capacitors before the fusillade could continue, and Kasumi prayed that the invading Combine forces would see the futility of their actions and withdraw their attack without further loss of life.

Firebase LIBERTY

H + 2 hours, 6 April 3025

Kasumi Tendo took the news from her starfighter wings with silent despair. The Combine ships the guns of Firebase LIBERTY had destroyed were nothing more than ancient freight-haulers - virtually space-going derelicts. It was a clever ruse by Prince Kuno to expose the guns to the scrutiny of his scouts, and from their observations, to determine the best landing zones.

Now, hours later, she had even worse news.

A second flight of DropShips had landed nearly unopposed just south of the moon's equator, and the battlemechs and troops they disgorged were moving north towards LIBERTY. They were perhaps a hundred klicks from the base. Even now, Combine and Confederation fighters duelled in the airless skies over Oni, their struggles little more than tiny flashes and streaks of light in the darkness.

The battle for the moon of Shounetsu Jigoku was joined.

"Rockstar, this is Hermit One-Five," a voice crackled over the tactical channel. It was one of the 1st Nerima Guards' scouts. "Request fire mission, over."

Kasumi listened intently. The projected location of Hermit One-Five danced within an ancillary cockpit display. The scout was positioned in the volcanic highlands of Oni's Kyushu Plateau, about eighty-five kilometers south-southwest of LIBERTY's outer defensive perimeter. Though the moon's vulcanism had been extinguished eons in the past, the volcanoes themselves had formed jagged peaks and deep rifts in the soil - suggestive of a time when the moon had borne a thin and primitive atmosphere. These geologic formations could screen the advancing Combine troops from fighter attacks, but would ultimately form choke points from which her forces could repel their advance.

"Go ahead, Hermit One-Five," one of the base's officers replied.

"Rockstar, Hermit One-Five; Request fire mission at Alfa-Two-Four-Four by Tango-Three-Six-Niner. Observing enemy battlemechs in company strength."

"Copy that, Hermit One-Five. Alfa-Two-Four-Four by Tango-Three-Six-Niner. 'Mechs in company strength. Wait one."

Kasumi turned her Atlas' head to the east. A battery of five mobile Long Tom artillery pieces was dug-in behind earthwork fortifications near the base. The guns were a vacuum-ready variant of the standard Long Tom, using an expensive binary propellant system that was difficult for current industry within the Confederation to manufacture. In the weak gravity of Oni, the 250mm shells they hurled could reach targets up to three hundred kilometers distant. All they needed was something to shoot at.

She had given orders for the battery to use up all of their propellant in this battle, as the guns were too slow and cumbersome to evacuate should they be forced to retreat. The gunners were only too willing to oblige her, having never been called upon in time of war from their lonely and - at one time - secure posting within the Capella System. They would get their chance today.

She saw the long barrels of the artillery pieces begin to elevate out of their pits, and train on their distant targets. One of the guns belched a silent cloud of burned propellant gas that scattered and drifted like tiny violet flakes of snow upon the dull grey sand of Oni.

"Hermit One-Five, Rockstar; shot out!"

"Copy, Rockstar. Wait."

Kasumi knew that the spotting round was probably still climbing through the airless sky on its carefully plotted ballistic arc. The moon's feeble gravity would eventually tug the high-explosive projectile back towards the surface, hopefully on target.

Fifteen agonizing seconds passed.

"Rockstar, Hermit One-Five; drop two hundred, and fire for effect!"

"Copy, Hermit One-Five!"

The shell had landed two hundred meters behind, but presumably neither to the left or right of the advancing Combine 'mechs. The five guns began belching more violet clouds of burned propellant as they cycled through shell after shell. In the deep vacuum of space there was almost no concussive effect to be had. The shells would need a direct hit on a battlemech to do much good, although shrapnel from the exploding walls of the ravines could cause a reasonable amount of damage. At the very least, it would force them to spread out and seek shelter. She needed to delay them until she could put together a strike force to go out and oppose them directly.

"COUNTERBATTERY WARNING!" an automated prompt sounded from the base's battlecomp. The base's radar array had detected incoming artillery!

She waited silently within her battlemech as a tangled web of data and program commands darted through the base's defensive systems. No one currently living understood exactly what was going on within the computers and systems that managed the base, and if they should be forced to abandon LIBERTY, nothing would be left for the Combine to salvage. Yet another piece of advanced technology from a bygone age would be lost.

As Kasumi pondered this, the incoming shells were tracked, point defense guns rose from their armored bunkers and trained on them, and beams of nearly invisible laser light arced noiselessly across the wastes. Only motes of dust and burned propellant refracting the beams made them visible at all in the vacuum.

She bit her lip as shell after shell exploded with flashbulb spontaneity in the darkness. The Combine had artillery of their own, and were responding to the attack. They were probably safely dug in at their own landing zones, where Combine fighters prowled in numbers large enough to discourage a head-on attack.

She keyed her command mic, knowing that there wasn't much time to lose.

"Break!" she cried over the tac net. "This is Mother! Override fire mission! Shift fire to suppress hostile artillery!"

Shells that survived the point defense guns began dropping around the base. Noiseless explosions threw clouds of rock and dirt into the void. The interior of the base would be safe from these hits, but a 'mech would be in trouble. A vehicle or a soldier standing in the open would be utterly obliterated by a direct hit.

"Copy that, Mother. Shifting fire," the battery commander responded. The guns began to train due south, and then renewed their salvos. To hit the enemy artillery at the Combine Landing Zones would require them to use much more propellant with each shot. Kasumi hoped the Combine's gunners would run out first.

Prince Kuno had certainly come prepared for this battle, she noted ruefully. It was almost as if he had in-depth knowledge of Oni's defenses. she shuddered to think about the implications of that.

Nabiki...

Furinkan Combine Landing Zone Blue

Oni Southern Equitorial Zone

H + 12 hours

Tatewaki Kuno took in the reports of the battle from the War Room aboard his Overlord Class DropShip _Oda Nobunaga_. His forces had managed several landings on the surface of Oni, including a surprise attack within striking distance of one of the cursed Confederation fighter bases. The word from his commanders in the field was optimistic, though casualties were much higher than anticipated.

He chafed to be within the cockpit of his battlemech, personally handing the Confederation their defeat. Until the situation solidified somewhat, he was needed here to direct his forces. Nabiki had not told him everything about Oni, and his troops had earned their education the hard way. All the more reason to have her quietly strangled when the Confederation was at last brought to heel.

Alarm klaxons sounded then, causing his staff to cringe all around him. The deep booming of his grounded DropShip's weapons firing at an unknown foe somewhere beyond the cramped and dim confines of the War Room filled the still air. The ship shook with return fire impinging on the armored hull, but no decompression alarms sounded to warn of a breach.

"Curse those Confederation fighters," he spat. They had been harrassing his landing zones for the past twelve hours, non-stop. The Confederation garrison either had far more fighters than was estimated, or else their pilots were fighting at exhaustion levels. The answer was probably a little of both.

The fighter base his commanders were close to overrunning had already sent its deadly flock away, leaving only hardened positions occupied by Marines and artillery modified for use in vacuum. He ordered the attack to continue, for to leave the base unmolested was only asking for the fighters to return when his back was turned. He would give them no quarter, and no place to rest and regroup.

As he pored over the situation displays it became clear to him the center of the Confederation's resistance was a base known only as LIBERTY to his staff. Nabiki had been especially vague about its capabilities, though his SIGINT (SIGnal INTelligence) group had determined that the eldest daughter of the Grand Duke was personally directing its defense. He smiled warmly at the thought. Though it was not the fair and fierce Akane Tendo, he felt that Kasumi Tendo would make for a worthy opponent. He would have to lead the charge on LIBERTY so that he might get the opportunity to challenge her.

Alarms sounded once again, and once more the _Oda Nobunaga_ shuddered with weapon hits upon its hull. This time a second alarm shrilled in his ears, filling his staff with dread.

"Hull Breach on Deck Eight!" the 1MC crackled. "Emergency bulkheads on Deck Eight indicate shut!"

Tatewaki seethed. These Confederation dogs were relentless! He would have to see them properly chastised.

"Prepare my battlemech," he ordered his aide-de-camp. "Have my battalion commanders assemble in the Ready Room at once! It falls upon the Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine to smite the foe!"

Confederation Main Line of Resistance

At the base of the Kyushu Plateau

H + 12 hours

Kasumi watched as the Combine Ostroc a hundred meters in front of her position exploded under the hit of her main gun - a Class 20 Autocannon with enough punch to annihilate a light 'mech in a single shot. The pilot of the sixty ton Ostroc, hammered by missile fire from her rapid-firing LRM-20 rack, was not used to operating in a reduced gravity well, and had attempted a clumsy break from cover. He found himself haloed in her gunsight a moment later. The hypervelocity depleted-uranium shell shattered the already cratered center torso armor, punched through the musculature and foamed aluminum internal structure, and then rammed straight through its missile magazine.

Missiles corkscrewed crazily out of the glowing wreckage of the Ostroc as the ammunition cooked off. Kasumi was enough of a realist to know that even though the shell had not struck the fragile cockpit, the ammunition explosion had finished the pilot just as surely as a direct hit through the armored canopy.

There wasn't time to say a prayer or to ask forgiveness. The Combine was pouring down from the plateau to the volcanic floodplain of hard, glassy lava that marked the southern extremes of LIBERTY's defensive perimeter. Their axis of attack was along three narrow fronts, into which an entire regiment of battlemechs was being thrown. The understrength 1st Nerima Guards and a battalion of the 3rd Tomobiki Hussars under Lieutenant Colonel Mendo was all she had with which to bar their way.

A barrage of missiles exploded into one of her wing companies on the left. Warning shouts and explicatives crowded the airwaves for a moment as the bombarded Confederation 'mechs sought cover and attempted to return fire. Another wave of high explosives rained down on them, and Kasumi saw one of the Lance Commanders fall into the churned grey rock, his Griffin holed through-and-through with missile hits.

Searching for their attackers, she found a line of Combine 'mechs setting up a defilade on a nearby ridge. They were artillery units for the most part; Archers, Crusaders, Trebuchets, and Riflemen, with some Hunchbacks and Centurions for close support. From their position on the ridge, they could overlook the entire lava plain. In the weak gravity and lack of atmosphere, weapon ranges were ten times longer than normal. They could clobber almost anything they could see.

Kasumi scanned her tactical display. As she had feared, the company of Tomobiki 'mechs detailed to protect the approaches to the ridge had been driven back from their positions with heavy losses. She had been too busy dealing with the enemy Ostroc to notice.

"Rockstar, this is Mother," she called over the command channel. "I need Close Air Support five hundred meters south of my position. Enemy battlemechs in company strength at Charlie-One-Zero-Four by November-Five-Eight-Eight."

Colonel Mukaida handled her request personally, popping up on her HUD.

"Copy, Mother. Close Air is unavailable at this time. All units are either engaged or rearming."

"When can I get some air?" she returned. "We have a serious problem out here."

Mukaida scanned several situation reports at his station. "Nothing for the next fifteen minutes, and probably more like twenty-five before they can reach your position. I just don't have any fighters free and armed at the moment."

"I see," she said tersely. There was no long range artillery left to call for, as the guns had run out of propellant. The Combine unit was laying down a tremendous barrage, pinning her units. She could already see other Combine lances slipping through the choke points and making a break for the open lava plain.

Her Atlas surged forward towards the ridge. The hundred-ton death machine shook the ground as it stomped ponderously on, crunching through the glassy lava rock to leave deep rectangular craters in her wake. Other Confederation 'mechs turned to see her walk out into the open, their pleas for her safety over the commo net falling on deaf ears. Instead, she was giving orders.

"First Battalion, advance by companies on enemy held ridge bearing south by west. Second Battalion, maintain position and provide supporting fire. Third Battalion and the Cavalry mop up the stragglers that get through."

It did not matter that they were breaking cover to attack. She knew that they needed to hit the Combine assault head on and turn it back with pure ferocity. Her enemies had marched several hundred kilometers across an airless waste, while enduring attack after attack by her scout units, platoons of ambushing Marines, her handful of LAM Light Cavalry, and of course, the fighters. They had to be tired and at the low ebb of their morale by now. One good charge could throw them back and send them into retreat.

The Combine fire company on the ridge did not notice her advance at first, as they were trading salvos of missiles with her forward-positioned One-Charlie Company as it broke cover and began to rush the ridgeline. Her main gun trained slowly from her 'mech's hip onto the closest of the enemy, a Rifleman that tracked the black sky above for a sign of the Confederation fighters. The range indicator on her HUD slowly ticked off into the amber, then the green.

Kasumi squeezed the trigger, and felt her Atlas pivot slightly at the waist from the recoil. The dull slamming sound of the feed mechanism loading another round carried through the 'mech's internals to her cockpit, confirming that her weapon had fired. As she noted this, her armor-piercing shell struck the Rifleman in the right torso.

The pristine gull-grey armor plate was spalled off in an instant, huge chunks of aligned-crystal steel flying apart in a spray of molten metal sparks. She watched as the enemy battlemech twisted crazily from the force of the impact, the pilot losing control of his machine. It fell backwards to crash into one of the Trebuchets - knocking it over as well.

Now they knew she was there.

A volley of missiles from two Archers streaked into the sky, eighty high explosive warheads ready to pound her flat. They never made it that far, as an alert Jagermech in her Support Lance trained its light Mydron Model-D autocannons into the sky, and with its formidable Garret D2j radar and aerial tracking system, began trap-shooting the incoming missiles. Their premature detonations filled the void with shrapnel, and the rest of the missiles in the volleys fell to fratricide.

This prompted the Combine units to shift their fire into the offending Jagermech - before it rendered their bombardment useless. A rain of light and armor-piercing depleted-uranium slammed into the Confederation 'mech, obliterating it in a flash of silver plasma. Stifling a cry of horror and anguish at the sudden end to her comrade, Kasumi returned fire with everything she had, and her weapon strikes ripped apart a Centurion limb from mechanized limb.

Laser beams and autocannon shells zipped around her as she approached the halfway point to the ridge. The intensity of their attacks was growing, for they knew what an Atlas was capable of at point-blank range, and they could not miss seeing the large blue and white Ducal pennant extended on one of the 'mech's antennae. Kasumi bit down on her lip and continued on. As the beams and bolts of the enemy exploded around her mighty Atlas with little effect, she was reminded of General DeChevallier's assault on the palace of Stefan the Usurper at the end of the Reunification War.

Her troops began to cheer and shout their encouragement over the tac net. Those that were not presently engaged in close combat continued to throw a barrage of suppression fire at the ridge, forcing the Combine 'mechs back from the cliffs and away from the lumbering Atlas. Her plodding charge went on, churning up a wake of glassy debris behind her.

As she closed the range, she set her LRM launcher to fire in automatic on the ridge line. The unique nature of her launcher was that five launch tubes disgorged four missiles apiece within the ten seconds it took to throw each volley, the net effect being a nearly continuous bombardment of the enemy position for as long as the ammunition held out - about a hundred and twenty seconds.

Such an outpouring of firepower left her free to concentrate on the handful of Combine 'mechs that had broken through, and now ran from position to position before her. The jagged peaks and piles of boulders that marked the boundary of the Kyushu Plateau and the lava plain gave them plenty of cover, and forced her to keep a close watch. More than once her finger tensed on the trigger of her main gun, only to hold back at the last instant when her target ducked behind the cover of solid rock. She only had eight rounds left for her massive autocannon, and she needed to make them count.

Her Headquarters Company had taken up a loose wedge formation behind her. It was a dangerous prospect, for her Atlas had become a fire magnet, but as her personal bodyguards, their duties were clear. They swept the flanks for her as she advanced, and she could hear the grunts and gasps of close combat across the entire battlefield in her headset. More than once she heard the tell-tale crunching sound of a 'mech cockpit depressurizing as it was hit.

She refused to let it affect her. Not here. Not now. She had a job to do, which was throw the Furinkan Combine off this miserable moon, and she was going to do it.

The ridge loomed before her, a graceful sweep of basaltic rock littered with pyroclastic spurs that was too fragile to exist in a place with weather and stronger gravity. The stark beauty of it was also too fragile to exist under continuous bombardment, as chunks of rock and glassy lava were blown free of the sandy grey soil to mingle with the bits of armor and machinery from fallen battlemechs. Her proximity made it impossible for the Combine 'mechs at the top to fire at her, but the reverse was also true. She could not hit them either.

She wasn't sure if the steep cliff of the ridge would support her battlemech's weight in a climb. The rock was brittle, and had been subjected to high explosives. The alternative was to approach from the rear, but that meant a dangerous path into what would certainly prove to be a Combine shooting gallery, with herself as a prize target.

Not wanting to prolong this battle any further, she dug her Atlas' hand into the rock. It seemed to hold the weight of the war machine, and she followed with a foot. It too held. Encouraged by this, she began to climb the ridge in a careful, deliberate fashion - mindful that one stray shot could blast her off without warning.

Her troops saw her climb, and eased up their barrage as she neared the top of the ridge. The loss of suppressing fire was certain to bring the Combine 'mechs back into position. Kasumi was counting on it.

With one more cycle of movement to go, she spied a large metalshod foot step precariously close to the edge. Her Atlas reached out and grabbed the battlemech's ankle, its massive fingers crushing through the weak armor of a Trebuchet and snapping the actuator. The Combine war machine jerked instinctively away from her grapple, but the Atlas was too strong to resist. Kasumi thought her 'mech through the complicated series of motions necessary to wrench the hapless Trebuchet off the cliff, and was rewarded by the flash of a Furinkan Combine pineapple insignia painted on its torso as it flew over her shoulder and crashed against the jagged rocks below.

The Trebuchet began to thrash violently on the lava plain, impaled by a lance-like piece of basalt, and a victim of a slowly brewing ammunition explosion. Kasumi was too busy clambering up the cliff to notice.

She was rewarded for her efforts by a dozen Combine 'mechs freezing up in terror at the sight of her. The Atlas brought down a huge armored fist onto the closest 'mech - a Hunchback. The 'mech tried to dodge the well-aimed blow that was meant to knock out its powerful Tomodzuru Type-20 autocannon, and landed instead on the turret-like head. The Hunchback staggered over, the arms flailing out of control as the mechwarrior's dying neural spasms gave them commands they could not properly interpret.

A Centurion within arm's reach was the first to regain its composure, and tried to gun her down with its autocannon. A 155mm shell gouged a crater in her left torso armor before she caught the cannon-arm in an elbow lock that was a specialty of the Tendo School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, and wrenched it effortlessly out of the socket joint at the shoulder.

Using the inert cannon-arm as a club, she then proceeded to bash the Centurion into a very expensive pile of scrap, ignoring the feeble beams of medium and light lasers from the other 'mechs as she did so. If she showed any mercy, it was only because she did not aim for the Centurion's head. The other Combine 'mechs, being mostly walking platforms for long range missile launchers, and therefore lacking a significant secondary armament, now began to panic.

She took full advantage of this, stomping inexorably towards them with the battered club held high. The grinning death's head of her Atlas had been engineered to be as gruesome and frightening as possible, and the sight of a 'mech that could literally rip any other battlemech apart with its bare hands was enough to give even the bravest mechwarrior pause.

They were good troops, brave and dedicated, but they weren't stupid.

Kasumi let them run, sending volleys from her SRM launcher to speed them on their way. On the floor below the ridgeline, she could see her forces throwing back the Combine advance on all sides. Confederation Eagles, Transgressors, and Hellcat IIs streaked without warning across the starry sky, their hulls scarred and blackened, and their guns rippling fire at their enemies.

Kasumi let out a deep breath, knowing that they had won this time, and knowing that the Combine still had plenty of fight left in them. This was only the beginning.

The War Room of Azure Cloud Castle

Planet Nerima, the Capella System

Nerima Confederation

H + 19 Hours, 7 April 3025

"I'm afraid it doesn't look good, your Grace."

Grand Duke Soun Tendo spared another glance at the report and agreed. Despite their best preparations, the Combine was winning the Battle of Oni. Two of the main bases had already fallen, their squadrons of fighters and GunShips making a desperate retreat to the remaining base, or to the small installation on the hostile surface of Shounetsu Jigoku. There was no word from his eldest daughter, though she was reported to be holding the vital approaches to the remaining base.

"Casualty reports are coming in," an aide announced.

"How bad is it?" Soun asked.

The aide gave him a stoic look. "You should see the other guy..."

Soun nodded. It was true that the Combine had paid a very dear price for their victories, but they also had far more troops to lose. Every Confederation loss was irreplaceable.

"I'm afraid that we've underestimated the Combine's fighting strength," he said to his assembled staff. "Unless a miracle happens, the situation on Oni is untenable."

There were various murmurs of agreement.

"Keep trying to get in direct contact with General Tendo," he added. His faithful Kasumi, shouldering the burden that he should have reserved for himself! "Order her to make preparations to evacuate Base LIBERTY and return with all remaining troops to Nerima. We'll make our last stand in orbit and on the surface of the planet."

"Your Grace," one of the officers broached in the silence that followed his pronouncement. "Shouldn't we take this opportunity to get you and the rest of the General Staff out of the system while we still have enough escort ships to fight our way to the Jump Point?"

Soun frowned. "What are you saying, Captain?"

"Well, your Grace, we know that Prince Kuno has leapfrogged directly to the Capella System with the intention of taking you prisoner, and extorting the surrender of the Confederation from you. If you were to flee the system, we could continue the fight from a new headquarters and force him to keep looking for you."

The Grand Duke nodded slowly. "I agree that your proposal has merits, but the time is past for fleeing. The Combine has enough fighting strength to conquer the Confederation no matter what happens to me. If we must fight, and I believe that we must, it is better that we spare the other systems of the Confederation from further bloodshed and destruction."

He gave them all stern looks.

"We fight here."

"I'm very sorry, Miss Tendo, but your access to this area has been rescinded."

Nabiki Tendo gave the soldier a cross look.

"On whose authority?" she demanded.

"Lady Kasumi, ma'am," the man answered coolly. "My orders are quite explicit. I'm going to have to ask you to leave at once."

She might have known.

"I'm the goddamned Chief of Intelligence!" she protested. "She has no authority to restrict my access to the War Room."

The soldier unslung his weapon.

"Ma'am, my orders were countersigned by his Grace, the Grand Duke. I have no obligation to inform you of this, but given that you're family, I thought you should know. Now, will you leave or do I have to make you?"

Nabiki grimaced. This was not entirely unexpected, but a nasty experience nonetheless. She had counted on having a little more time to gather current data on the defense of the system. She was not going to turn it over to Kuno-chan wholesale, however. She wanted him to pay for his victories, that he might better appreciate her assistance when the time came to offer it. Knowing what was going on in the war was important for her sense of timing.

"Put that thing away," she said to the soldier, gently pushing the muzzle of his rifle down towards the floor with her finger. "I was just on my way out."

She would have the last laugh, she thought with a smirk. I'm ready to act as soon as the time is right. And Kuno-chan is right on schedule.

Dragon of the Black Pool Fortress

Planet Tau Ceti IV, Tau Ceti System

The Jusenkyo Commonwealth

5 April 3025

Shampoo paced her small dungeon holding cell, awaiting her escort to the starport. She had not slept the previous evening, and her eyes were red and puffy with weariness. Those who would see her march to the DropShip would think that her red eyes were from weeping, but she hadn't been able to produce a single tear.

It surprised her, to feel so miserable and yet be unable to cry. Had she crossed over some threshold of pain without realizing it, or was this merely the numb acceptance of fate said to come over the doomed in their final hours? She had no answers, only tears that could not be spilled.

She had spent much of the night thinking about her execution. It would take at least a week to reach Jusenkyo, leaving her with nothing but time to anticipate the end. Why had Herb chosen the capitol, when he could have had the sentence carried out immediately, here on Tau Ceti?

One reason might have been that there would have been few Joketsuzoku willing to step forward into the Fated Circle to carry out the will of the Council. Tau Ceti remained a system loyal to her great-grandmother. It was a plausible reason, but one that did not explain why Herb hadn't chosen a system under his administration, like the Epsilon Indi System, which would not only have provided sufficient executioners, but also satisfied his penchant for irony.

The only reason she could think of that seemed to fit Herb's motives was that her death was meant to bring home the disgrace she had earned her family. Her great-grandmother had exercised a great deal of influence among the Council to grant her a second chance. To have her failure flung back in Cologne's face must have been delicious to Herb.

The sounds of doors opening and closing down the hall made her tremble inside. They were coming for her. As her escorts approached, she wanted to damn Ranma Saotome for her miserable fate, but that too would not come. It was odd, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that he wasn't really responsible for her failure. It was her decision to respond to the security breach in such a way as to violate procedure. It had been her sloppy pursuit that had allowed them to get away on Lightoller. If she had tarried even a few minutes to investigate the wreck of the ATV, she would have discovered that both Saotomes had survived in time to finish the job.

Her failures had truly been hers, she realized. Though the disaster on Capra had been hung neatly on her shoulders, it would never have been necessary to go there had she done what was expected of her on Lightoller. Kima would still be alive. As would Joyful Cloud. Laughing Orchid too, though perhaps she would have found another way to cross Pink. As the sound of footsteps echoed down the dungeon halls, she came to accept the judgement of the Council, and in turn, the sentence of death that awaited her. It made her no less weary, anxious, or frightened, but at least it gave her a way to find some dignity in the whole sad affair.

She would enter the Fated Circle. She would fight with all her skill and might. If Death came for her, as it likely would, then the story of her glorious end would be remembered within the clan for all time, and serve as a just atonement for her shortcomings in life.

Perhaps it was this belief, unrealized until now, but deep within her subconscious, that had kept her from weeping, she mused. She had not only accepted her doom, but embraced it, and in so doing had made peace with herself and the universe.

The sound of keys rattling in a lock grated through the steel door, which slid open with the creak of hinges that hadn't been oiled in years.

"Shampoo?"

She turned at the sound of Mousse's voice. It would have to be Mousse, wouldn't it? she noted to herself. His face was drawn and pale, with dark circles under his eyes that spoke of his own sleepless night. He was alone, which surprised her.

"Go away, Mousse," she told him quietly. There was none of her usual venom.

"I brought you a change of clothes," he said, offering her a duffle bag.

She brushed at her full-dress cheongsam. "I'll go dressed as I am,"she told him. "My rank and station have not been taken from me, no matter the sentence I face."

Mousse shook his head.

"You don't understand," he returned. "I'm here to free you."

"What are you talking about, Mousse?"

"You're being used as a pawn against Cologne by Elder Peony and some of her allies on the Council," he explained. "I'm here to help you escape. Cologne sent word to the Castellan of the Fortress to see to it that you were to be allowed to escape before you could be shipped to Jusenkyo. You've got to believe me, Shampoo."

Shampoo considered it. It sounded like one of Herb's traps. Rather than grant her the opportunity to redeem herself in death, he could heap further disgrace upon her by having her shot in an escape attempt. Poor, dumb, hopeless Mousse would be easy enough for Herb to dupe into making it happen.

"Why?" she asked him. "Why go against the Council for my sake? I'm guilty of the crimes that I'm to answer for." She gave him a stern look. "I'm not afraid to die, Mousse. I'm ready to accept my fate as befits a warrior of the Joketsuzoku. I won't bring further shame upon myself or my family by running from my death."

"Shampoo," Mousse said quietly, his voice pleading. "You've got to understand... This is for your own good. It's the only chance you have left to redeem yourself without dying for it." He looked at her through his thick and wavy glasses, his eyes trembling and watery. "Don't you deserve another chance?"

His words stung her resolve. She did not want to die. She had resigned herself to it as the only possible salve to her wounded honor, but she did not want to die.

"I don't understand how escaping from here will solve anything," she replied cautiously.

"Commonwealth agents in Comstar have intercepted a communique from a Confederation Consulate in the Federated Shiratori," Mousse explained, reciting what Herb had instructed him to tell her. "The Saotomes are stuck in the Palatine System for weeks, pending repairs to their JumpShip. If we can get there in time, we can fulfill your orders from the Council to seize the information regarding Ryuugenzawa, and to kill the Saotomes. If you do that, then Cologne will have the leverage necessary to intercede on your behalf to the Council. You won't just be exonerated, you'll be a heroine to the entire Commonwealth."

Shampoo frowned. Mousse's story sounded awfully convenient.

"And she sent _you_ to tell me this?" she riposted.Mousse nearly shook with frustration. "It isn't just me," he said to her. "Who do you think is letting me walk out of here with you? The Castellan of the Fortress and Cologne have been friends for more than a hundred years."

Shampoo set her hands on her hips. "General Herb put you up to this, Mousse. He fooled you into thinking you could help me, just so he can have me shot for trying to escape."

Mousse blanched for an instant as she declared her belief in Herb's responsibility for the escape. When she continued with some nonsense about assassinating her instead, he gave pause. It was possible, but then why go to all the trouble of this ruse when he could have her 'shot while trying to escape' at any time during the transit? In the split second such thoughts took to cross his mind, he decided that Herb's plan as outlined to him was genuine. He really did want the secrets of Ryuugenzawa, and talk of finding out through other sources was just a smokescreen. Herb needed them, not just to further his own ends, but as a way to distance himself from Peony at the same time as he appeared to be doing her bidding.

He needed to take another tack to convince Shampoo.

"Don't you even care about what happens to Cologne?" he hissed at her. "I wasn't kidding when I said that Peony and the Council are using you against her."

Shampoo arched an eyebrow at him.

"Now what are you talking about?"

"Peony is going to oust Cologne from leadership of the Commonwealth!" Mousse cried. "Cologne has angered enough members of the Elder Council with her favoritism of you to allow a vote of No Confidence in her leadership. If you don't succeed with this mission, then out she'll go, and the rest of your family with her!"

Shampoo's eyes grew large. What Mousse said to her made a twisted kind of sense. She knew of Elder Peony's hatred for Cologne, and figured the elder to be the chief advocate of her death sentence. Still, there were loose ends with Mousse's story.

"So how is escaping from here going to do my great-grandmother any good in the eyes of the Council?" she challenged him.

"It delays the process," Mousse replied, grasping at straws. "Until you can actually enter the Fated Circle, your ultimate innocence or guilt remains uncertain. They can't go after Cologne unless you die in the Circle - proving your guilt, and Cologne's irresponsibility for giving you a second chance." He had to hand it to himself for coming up with such a convincing explanation on the fly.

Shampoo's resolve wavered further.

"Supposing you're right, and Herb isn't just duping you," she began. "What then?"

Mousse recited his briefing from Herb to her.

"There's a ship due to leave the planet in less than an hour. It's a Covert Operations ship masquerading as a Free Trader. They'll get us to the Palatine System. After that, it's all up to us."

"Us?"

"I'm coming with you," Mousse said firmly. "I have all of the contact information, the code words for sending messages through Comstar, and the credit cards for our expenses are under my name and thumbprint."

Shampoo winced. Mousse had gone out of his way to make himself indispensable.

"Are you going to do something about this?" Mousse pressed. "Or are you just going to go off and die - and let Peony win?"

Her blood began to boil at his accusation. Mousse may have been a fool, but his words made a great deal of sense. If there was a chance to redeem herself, and her great-grandmother as well, she would take it. It was an extremely risky proposition, but it was better than taking a dive.

She opened the duffle bag. Within the bag was a small blanket and a squeeze bottle of water.

"I don't understand," she said to him, holding up the bottle.

"You can't just walk out of here, no matter how you're dressed," he explained. "Use the water to change into your Jusenkyo body, then get in the duffle bag. I'll carry you out the same way I brought the bag into the prison. There's mesh on either end so that you can breathe. Hide under the blanket in case someone actually bothers to search the bag. Once we get to the starport, you can be just another stray cat."

Shampoo looked at him. "How do you know what I turn into?" she asked him sharply. "I've never told anyone. Not even Doctor Gaido."

Mousse began to blush. "I - I uh, well..."

"You spied on me," she accused.

"It was unintentional!" he protested. "An accident! Really, Shampoo, I swear!"

She gave him a dubious look. "Never mind that," she said at length. She took the squeeze bottle and pointed the nozzle at her face. "Turn your back," she told him. "I don't like the idea of someone watching me change."

Mousse did so. For a moment she contemplated clocking him on the head and continuing on without him, but checked herself. What were the odds that Mousse actually had on his person all the information she needed?

Instead she closed her eyes and gave the bottle a squeeze. A cold jet of water splashed into her face, and she was hit with a sudden wave of vertigo. She knew that this was because she was rapidly shrinking into her cat body, but the experience was no less unnerving for knowing why.

She meow'd for Mousse's attention. The heavy embroidered silk of her cheongsam surrounded her, and she was unable to free herself without resorting to her claws. Mousse lifted away the folds of the dress and picked her up into his arms. He stared at her for a moment in wonder, and drew a sharp hiss from her to get on with it.

Mechwarrior General Herb's shout rang throughout the dojo as a bolt of heat and pressure - conjured from within his own body - burst forth from his hands and crashed through a stack of bricks. The pile of masonry flew apart in a cloud of red dust as the bolt's report mingled with the lingering syllables of his cry. The last bits of debris were still dropping from the air as he drew himself up from his crouching posture and studied his handiwork.

The hundred-kilo pile of bricks had been destroyed as expected, but the exercise was, for him, a warmup at best. He would face reinforced concrete next, knowing that its compressive strength would represent a formidable challenge. Once he had overcome the concrete, he would move up to a sheet of mild steel plating. The process would continue, with each target for his chi getting stronger, harder, and heavier.

On a good day, he could work his way up to punching through a one-centimeter-thick sheet of aligned-crystal steel battlemech armor with a single blast.

When he saw Lime and Mint approaching with stupid self-satisfied grins on their faces, he knew that he wouldn't get the chance.

"What is it?" he growled. Though he was certain that their tidings were glad indeed, it was best in this place so closely allied with Cologne that he keep up appearances.

"Shampoo has escaped, my General," Mint reported, his face falling with mock gravity.

"What?!" he exclaimed. The chi exercises were good for getting the blood flowing, and he was certain that his face was the perfect shade of livid red. "When and how?" he demanded after a suitable period of silent rage.

"It could not have been more than four hours ago, sir," Mint replied. "The guards were logged as making a tour of the cells then. They reported Shampoo secure. She was discovered missing on the next watch."

"I see," Herb muttered angrily. "How did she escape?"

"It's difficult to say, sir," Mint said with a thinly veiled smirk. "There was only her dress uniform in the cell when they discovered her missing. There was no indication that the door had been forced, and none of the guards saw anything."

"No," sniffed Herb. "Of course not." He shook his head in disgust. "If that fool of a Castellan hasn't already done so, order the starport sealed and all ships grounded until they can be thoroughly searched!"

"Yes, General!"

Herb whirled about, apparently lost in thought for a moment. "Four hours... Four hours... How many ships have left the planet between now and four hours ago?"

Mint had the figures ready. "Tau Ceti is a busy port of call for merchant shipping, my General. At least three ships have left the starport for the Jump Points."

"How convenient..."

Mint waited a moment before speaking.

"Should we send ships to intercept and board them, my General?"

Herb thought about it for a moment.

"No. Let them go. It's likely that she's still on Tau Ceti. She enjoys a great deal of support from the local population because of her great-grandmother, the Matriarch. She could easily afford to wait here until the crisis passes, and then slip away off-planet at her leisure."

"What then, sir?"

Herb's reptilian eyes flashed.

"It is obvious that Shampoo was able to escape with help from within the garrison of the Fortress. I would not put it past even the Castellan herself to have had a hand in this affair. Would that I had jurisdiction on this world, I could begin an investigation into the matter, but lacking that, I can only report this incident to higher authority." He stepped to the mat where his cape lay. Lime hustled wordlessly over to him and draped the shimmering green silk over his shoulders. "Give notice to the Captain of the _Demon-God of the East Wind_ that we shall raise ship as scheduled."

"At once, sir!" Lime and Mint scrambled to comply.

Herb pulled the frogs of his cape closed. Mousse had been a useful tool after all, for Mint was not to have given the word of Shampoo's escape unless it had been confirmed that she and her half-blind companion had boarded the Free Trader as planned. Had they not, then Lime was to have given the report. One could never be too careful in the house of one's enemies.

There would be fallout from this incident. It was necessary for him to keep up appearances and denounce the escape as the work of Cologne sympathizers within the Fortress, and it was no secret that the Castellan was a strong ally of the Matriarch. Peony would seize upon that fact like a mad dog with a bone in its teeth, and never let go.

She would need to be restrained from rash action. He needed to keep Cologne in power for the moment. This would require a personal intervention on his part, meaning that they would still have to Jump to the Jusenkyo System. Once it was clear to Peony that his army was not at her exclusive beck and call, and Cologne was coached to make vague threats about civil war in the meantime, he would have the impasse he needed. If Peony balked at his sudden lack of loyalty to her, that was all she could do. He didn't need her nearly as much as she needed him.

With luck he would have enough time for Shampoo and Mousse to acquire the data regarding Ryuugenzawa. He had a regiment of crack Musk Dynasty troops standing by to deploy to any part of the Inner Sphere to take and hold the legendary world long enough to loot it of all its secrets. Then he could finally drop his charade of loyalty to the Joketsuzoku, and usher in a new age for the Commonwealth: the Age of the Musk Dynasty, with himself as its first Emperor.

Though the blood of the Joketsuzoku flowed through his veins, he did not consider himself one of them. He was a man, and as he had learned long ago, a man had no place in a world run by women. What wealth and station he possessed, he had taken for himself by virtue of his skill, strength, and, as he was proud to admit, by his treachery. Beating the women at their own game was nothing to be ashamed of.

Furinkan Combine JumpShip _Imperator_

Capella System Zenith Jump Point

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

7 April 3025

"Sasuke?"

The ninja melted out of the bulkhead of Kodachi's quarters with a smile. His chameleon suit crackled quietly in the dim light as it powered down.

"I am here, Mistress."

Kodachi chuckled softly. Her ninja retainer was supposed to be on the planet Nerima attempting to make contact with the turn-coat daughter of the Grand Duke, Nabiki. She was certain that Tachi had forbidden, on pain of death, any contact with her.

"It took you long enough," she sniffed.

"My apologies, Mistress," he demurred. "I judged it prudent to wait until Prince Tatewaki had departed for battle, as I am supposed to be on the planet Nerima at this moment."

Kodachi yawned absently at this. She would have preferred to escape out from under her dear brother's nose.

"I assume you have a plan for my release?"

Sasuke nodded. "The JumpShip _Harushio_ is scheduled to depart the system for Capra, and from there into the Combine interior. Several of the ship's officers, including the Captain, are sympathetic to your plight." He did not feel it necessary to mention that the reason _Harushio_'s skipper felt obliged to assist in Kodachi's escape was because one of his brothers had been recently executed by Prince Tatewaki for the crime of being a staff officer in the Black Rose Terror Regiment.

Kodachi waited coolly for Sasuke to continue.

"Once the _Harushio_ has reached the interior, we shall rendezvous with the surviving elements of the regiment."

"Survivors?" Kodachi asked hopefully. Her cool demeanor had given way to something more passionate.

"Yes, Mistress," the ninja replied. "The regiment is little more than a battalion of battlemechs now, but they remain loyal to you alone."

A tear welled at the corner of her eye, and she brushed it away. It was more than she had hoped for. It was certainly enough to quickly rebuild the regiment to its old strength. She would need to find replacements for them, but these she could recruit from within her own marches of the Combine.

Once the Black Rose Terror Regiment had risen from the ashes of defeat, she would need a course of action. Her dear brother would have to pay for plotting to exile her to the Periphery. The game would go on. How best to accomplish this?

Visiting Father in the Alpha Centauri System was an idea, but one she quickly dismissed. Though Father would forbid Tachi to exile her to the Periphery, he would also insist on peace between them, and that was something neither she nor her brother would agree to. He was too close to conquering the Confederation - and ultimately becoming First Lord of a new Star League, and she was too hungry for revenge.

No, there could be no peace between them. Their game must go on until she was the final winner. She did not care for the same conquests as her brother. Her battleground was as much in the mind of her enemies as the actual field of combat. Victory would not come until her brother was a broken man, humbled and powerless. Defeat, though unthinkable, would come only with her death.

She continued to ponder the matter, as she had for the last week since regaining consciousness. Sasuke remained silent and ready to respond at her feet.

It would be best for the moment to withdraw from the Combine, she decided. Once she had rebuilt the regiment, they would need training and battle experience to regain the _esprit de corps_ and the cohesion for which her old unit had been famous. The quickest way to accomplish this was to retire to the Federated Shiratori. Mercenaries were always needed there to fill the ranks of the squabbling nobles who had good reason to avoid the support of Empress Azusa's incompetent army.

Becoming a mercenary wouldn't shame her, as she had always been a bit of a renegade and a maverick within the Furinkan Combine. The only difference now was that she would have to take orders from someone else. It was distasteful, but if she found the right employer, namely one who cared for results more than methods, such distaste could be minimized. There might be an outcry from the Combine's daimyo at her defection, but Father would handle them as he always did.

Once the Black Rose Terror Regiment regained its fearsome reputation, she would see about putting Tachi in his place. She had little doubt that the Confederation would fall before she was ready to return to the Combine, the question was whether or not he would have the dreadful Akane Tendo as his bride.

She hoped that he would. It would make the Tendo witch's death by her hands that much more painful to him.

Of course, if Tachi had Akane Tendo for a bride, then Ranma Saotome would have been dealt with. Dealt with severely, knowing her brother.

Kodachi did not like that idea one bit. Her longing for Ranma had grown more and more within her heart during her captivity aboard the _Imperator_. Having never felt such passion for a man before, she did not question the rationality of it. It did not matter to her that they had met only as foes over the barrels of her Marauder's guns. What mattered was Ranma Saotome, headstrong and handsome devil that he was, holding her in his arms, and telling dear Tachi where he could stick that precious katana of his.

It was imperative that she find him before Tachi did. Of course, wherever Ranma was, his shrewish fiancee was certain to be nearby. It would save her the trouble of tracking the Tendo harridan down.

All in good time, she thought with an inner chuckle. If she did not escape from Tachi's flagship, none of her nebulous plans could be put into practice.

"When do we leave?" she asked him.

The sound of a body hitting the floor outside the door to her quarters punctuated her question.

"Right this moment, Mistress," Sasuke replied with a faint smile.

Blue Thunder Regimental Mobile Headquarters

Kyushu Plateau, the Moon of Oni

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

H + 21 hours, 7 April 3025

"She's what?!" General Prince Tatewaki Kuno demanded over the radio.

"Your sister, Princess Kodachi, has escaped from her quarters," Captain Kyle responded. There was a considerable lag of nearly nine minutes between the two, owing to the considerable distance that separated them.

"Find her!" Tatewaki thundered. He had a war to win, and could not just walk away from an important battle to deal with his treasonous sister! Even worse, he was still almost eighty kilometers from Base LIBERTY and his self-appointed duel with Kasumi Tendo!

"That may be difficult, my prince," Kyle responded after an agonizing wait. "We believe she has already escaped the system aboard the JumpShip _Harushio_. They were bound for Capra, and then the Combine interior."

Tatewaki turned a deeper shade of red. "Thou art certain of this?"

"Yes, my prince. We were able to detain one of the conspirators before he could make his own escape. He told us enough to know that the ninja, Sasuke, was the mastermind of the plot. He also informed us that surviving elements of the Black Rose Terror Regiment are awaiting the return of their mistress, and that when reformed, they would attempt to overthrow you, my lord."

The Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine tensed in the cockpit of his battlemech. Sasuke... His hands clenched around the control yokes of his Thunderbolt. He knew then that he should have listened to the voice of caution and had that cur executed with the rest of them!

"I have news of even graver import to tell you, my prince," Kyle continued. "We have just received unconfirmed reports via HPG that the League of Five Nails has launched an offensive against the Combine border. Six systems have been hit in surprise attacks against our garrison forces. All six systems are believed to have fallen to the League."

Tatewaki could not believe his ears! He was within scant kilometers of seizing his primary objectives on Oni, and then this! His cursed sister had escaped, and now Hikaru Gosunkugi had the effrontery to attack the most powerful nation in the sum of all human reckoning?

"How can this be?" he asked himself. This news was beyond grave, it was staggering! "Speak man," he told Kyle. "What is the nature of this attack? What are their intentions?"

Kyle studied a hastily assembled report from the Intelligence Section, leaving Tatewaki feeling helpless and impotent within his cockpit.

"The main thrust of the League advance seems to be directed towards the Alpha Centauri System," Kyle replied. "Thus far, their intention seems to be one of conquest."

"Conquest of the Furinkan Combine?!" Tatewaki cried in disbelief. "Surely the seed of the House of Gosunkugi hath better sense? Or mayhap he thinks that I, properly distracted in noble combat, will not pay heed to his base deeds, that he might profit from this skulduggery!"

"Whatever his intentions, my prince," Kyle returned. "It seems our interior garrisons are in no position at the moment to form an organized opposition to this invasion. Most of our deployable assets are tied up with our own invasion of the Confederation."

"Of course," Kuno snorted. "Certainly, this is what the cretinous Gosunkugi believes."

"What are your orders then, my prince?"

Tatewaki struggled with his rage for being placed in such a damnable position. He was so close to conquering Oni, the stepping stone to Nerima. But his honor had been sorely wounded by this surprise invasion of his empire by an upstart, and that he could not abide! There was also the matter of his sister, who was no doubt headed straight for their father. The fool would naturally take her side in the matter, and forbid him to take punitive sanctions against her.

It was enough to make his blood boil and his teeth grate.

"It seems that we must answer this challenge to our sovereignty," he said at length. "The Confederation is beaten; that much is obvious by our great victories in battle this day. They shall keep for the nonce. It is the head of Hikaru Gosunkugi that I hunger for now..."

Firebase LIBERTY

H + 25 hours

Kasumi Tendo had never considered the matter before, but the woman who sat in the cockpit of a battlemech and gave orders that sent young men and women to their deaths, was not the same woman who now walked the darkened halls of LIBERTY. Out there she had to be cold and calculating, weighing the losses versus the potential gains of any decision. Away from the fighting she was warm and compassionate, lending her empathy to all who suffered. At that moment she found herself wishing she were otherwise, for there was far more pain here than one woman could ease.

The stench of death was everywhere. The wounded, mostly from the two main bases that had fallen and their secondary bases, lay wrapped in silvery thermal blankets in the halls. Some had enough strength to moan in pain, others, in shock or too proud to cry out, gave her glassy-eyed looks as she passed. The handful of doctors, nurses, and medics available made their rounds like blood-spattered ghosts, their voices soothing and quiet as they gave demerol to calm the ones they could save, and morphine to the ones they couldn't.

The dead had already filled the morgue, and were now being laid out on tables in the Mess Hall.

She stood in the doorway to the Mess Hall, looking at the many still forms lying beneath bedsheets, blankets, even formal capes and camouflage panchos. The steady drip of blood and other fluids echoed hollowly into sheet pans from the kitchen that had been placed on the floor underneath the bodies. Steeling herself, she began to walk silently among the dead, passing a pale and bloody limb that had fallen out from under the mortuary shroud here, or a long fall of once-lustrous green hair that reached the floor over there.

She lifted the sheet that covered a man who could have been Akane's age. By his unit patch and by the prancing horse tattoo on his forearm, she knew that in life he had been a Marine with the 5th Brigade, all but decimated after the battle for base FIDELITY. In death, well, to his comrades he would always be a Marine, she supposed. His handsome face was marred with the bluish tracery of ruptured capillaries - the surest sign of death by explosive decompression. There didn't seem to be any other injuries. One crack, one hole in your pressure suit, was all that it took.

He was one of the lucky dead, she knew. He had a left behind a body that his loved ones could grieve over. There were many who had died out on the dark frozen wastes that would never be recovered. There were pilots, their fighters crippled, that had been flung into interplanetary space. They would hold out for a few days until their life-support finally failed, then slip away into oblivion - tiny new planets orbiting the star Capella for all eternity.

She returned the shroud to its place and left the makeshift morgue. The sight of so much death, so much sacrifice, was more than she could bear. A mechwarrior the tender age of twenty-two, she had never been in a battle so large and so costly before.

"How long have you gone without sleep?"

Kasumi looked up from her cup of chamomille tea to see the haggard face of Colonel Mukaida staring back at her. His wheelchair was draped with flimsies and charts. His voice had a worrisome rattle to it that nagged at her.

"About as long as you have, Colonel," she replied.

Mukaida nodded sagely. "I'm getting word from our remaining fighter squadrons."

"How are they holding up?"

"They're right at the limit. Fifty-percent casualties, most of them fatalities. That's how it goes when you fight in vacuum. Another sixteen percent of the remainder have fighters that are too damaged to go back out. We're down to some Combat Air Patrol around our inner perimeter, a few recon flights, plus an odd squadron or two for Close Air Support. We're running it on a 'Push' basis."

Kasumi nodded slowly. 'Push' CAS meant that unless the 'mech forces requested close air support on a specific, individualized basis, the fighters were free to do what they wanted. At the moment, that meant staying inside the base, resting and replenishing their reserves.

"What about recalling the GunShip squadrons?" she asked. They had sent them out away from the moon to search for a possible Combine end-run around their defenses while they were busy fighting the landing force. So far, the Combine had decided to stick to the battle on Oni. No ships had been spotted trying for Nerima.

"It's possible," Mukaida admitted. "We could use the firepower, but I'm worried about Kuno sneaking past us and making a go for home plate."

"True... I guess we'll have to make do with what we have left." She sipped at her tea. "What was the word from our fighters again?"

"The Combine is withdrawing most of their forces from the moon," he replied. "They're keeping the regiment that's south of us in position, and moving in some Engineer units with heavy equipment modified for vacuum to support them."

"That's odd," Kasumi remarked. "It sounds like they're digging in. Like they plan on staying where they are for awhile."

Mukaida agreed with a grunt. "It doesn't make much sense. They've got us on the ropes. Why pull back now?"

"Could it be that they're just repositioning for a massed attack on us from multiple fronts? Now that the Particle Cannons at the other bases have been destroyed, they can move across most of the surface of the moon with impunity."

"It doesn't look that way. The DropShips are all headed back for the Jump Point. It's like they're getting ready to pull out of the system."

"Oh my," she breathed. "Surely they can't all be retreating. There isn't any logical reason to simply abandon the Jump Points and let our reinforcements get through."

"Whoever said Prince Kuno was logical?" Mukaida returned. "Anyway, we have a respite for now, so get some sleep, all right?"

"Yes, Colonel," she said with a wan smile. "You do the same."

"Yes, ma'am."

He wheeled himself out of her tiny office. Kasumi knew the strain of combat was taking a particular toll on her adjutant. He was too old to be doing this, and too proud to quit.

She finished her tea and set the cup down on the desk. The office came equipped with a couch that wasn't too uncomfortable thanks to Oni's weak gravity. She stretched out upon it and tried to clear her mind enough to sleep.

It wasn't easy. Colonel Mukaida's bombshell about the Combine leaving the moon disturbed her. Being stuck on Oni meant that she was out of the Intelligence loop - at least until they could repair the long range radio array the Combine had bombed early in the battle, and reestablish contact with Nerima. At the moment they depended on a shaky daisy-chain of radio links through the GunShips, but those were line-of-sight and often tenuous given the distances involved and the incessant Combine jamming broadcasts.

The horrendous loss of life also plagued her. Those Marines at the other bases had fought to the last man. In the end they had been forced to pump out the air inside the bases to reduce the effectiveness of the attacking Combine Marines' explosive weapons. That meant that even the most minor injury in battle could be fatal if one's pressure suit didn't reseal. She knew those men prided themselves on their long-knife skills, and that many a Combine Marine had probably died in a flash of cold Confederation steel before the end.

The madness of it all made her shiver. In spite of herself, she had to agree that Nabiki was right about the Succession Wars. They were stupid, brutal, petty squabbles over an empire that no longer existed, and probably never would again. She was trapped in a vicious cycle of hate and violence, with all of the players acting out the crazed fantasies of their greedy, ruthless ancestors.

What was the point of all of this? she wondered painfully. It was painful because she knew that the Confederation was doomed, and that a man like Tatewaki Kuno, as bloodthirsty and delusional as any of the original members of the Star League High Council, was going to prevail. What would the Inner Sphere be like with him as its ruler? Could a man like him be satisfied with dominion over the Inner Sphere, or would he use his time as First Lord to rebuild his armies, and press out into the Periphery as well? He likely would, she reasoned.

And when the Periphery was his? Well, there were legends of early settlers moving beyond even the Periphery in search of habitable worlds, and what of General Kerensky's Exodus? Surely their descendents still lived somewhere far out beyond what was considered Known Space. Would he try to conquer them too? Would people completely innocent of the madness of the Succession Lords have to suffer for Tatewaki Kuno's glory?

This was the paradox which encompassed her. Fight and kill and die for a tired, centuries-old conflict, or submit and let a madman like Kuno export his dreams of conquest into virgin space. How many more like that boy in the Mess Hall had to die before someone was finally satisfied?

It was too much for her to take all at once, and she broke down into tears, her body trembling with exhaustion and wracked with sobs.

Eight Shining Pearls Fortress

Planet Jusenkyo, Jusenkyo System

The Jusenkyo Commonwealth

8 April 3025

Cologne took in the setting sun with a weariness she had never before experienced in the many decades of her considerable life. She had seen through Elder Peony's plot from the very moment of its inception, but her rival had carefully chosen the time to act, and in fact there was little Cologne could do to stop her - short of a civil war. That, she was reluctant to do, but the necessity of it in light of the Furinkan Combine's siege of Capella was obvious. Kuno may have had his hands full with the sons and daughters of Nerima for the moment, but the final outcome was never in any doubt. Once the Confederation fell, the League would crumble, and then the Furinkan prince would turn his hungry eyes towards the Commonwealth.

Peony could not manage the country by herself, and her faction in the Council was represented by the incompetent remnants of a power-clique Cologne had snubbed a hundred years ago when she became the Matriarch. They and their descendents had been nursing their grudge for just as long, and it had festered into a thing of blind hate with a life all its own. They sat on the Council by virtue of their ancestors, and their sole purpose in life seemed to be opposing her in all matters.

Cologne had perhaps four votes on the Council, and all of these were family or allies of her family from the earliest days of the Star League. Their support was unswerving, but not enough to oppose Peony and the remainder of the Council who were fence-sitters - jackals who scented the shifting winds of fortune and positioned themselves accordingly. Any support for her from these opportunists was hollow so long as Peony stood a chance to topple the Matriarchy.

The temptation to have Peony and her ilk assassinated weighed heavily upon her. It was an act that might very well provoke the civil war she wished to avoid. As the sun sank lower into the Jusenkyo sky, mirroring the sunset of her own reign, she looked back upon the bright morning of her rise to the Clan leadership.

It would have been better to have removed them then, and installed her own people in the positions Peony and her cronies now occupied. She realized that had she been a spiteful woman in her salad days, this dilemma would not have come to pass. She was stronger then, politically and physically, and better able to ride the shockwaves such a brutal act would have caused.

What would Happi have done? she wondered idly, knowing full well that the Happousai she had known many years ago had never cared for power so much as he did the pleasure that came with it. He would have thrown all caution to the wind, and had Peony's faction rounded up and killed without a second look back.

That was an answer in itself, she decided, and one which vindicated her decision to hold no ill will against the defeated factions the day she had become the head of the Council. She had gone far in life by _not_ doing what Happousai would have done. She nodded grimly to herself. Civil war was not what she wanted to be remembered for.

In truth, the entire fate of the Commonwealth rested upon the hybrid shoulders of General Herb. He was backing Peony's bid for the Matriarchy with his army - an army loyal first to him, and then to the Commonwealth. Peony's fiscal improprieties in the general's favor had not gone unnoticed by Cologne, and she understood what Peony hoped to gain in making Herb such a powerful and nearly independent force within the Army. What troubled her most was how Peony could possibly believe that she could control him? Was it hubris, or was it naivety on a simply staggering scale?

Herb was the unknown variable in the equation of the Commonwealth's power politics, that much was clear. He could, and would, go whichever way offered him the most advantage, and at the moment Peony was in the ascendant. As far as Cologne saw things, Herb had two options.

He could continue to support Peony in her bid for the Matriarchy, and bide his time until the opportunity to betray her was at hand. Unlike the hereditary Joketsuzoku core of the Commonwealth Armed Forces, his Musk Dynasty was a populist movement. It was true that the core of his army was comprised of male hybrids of considerable skill and power, but on the whole they were inferior warriors when compared to the Joketsuzoku females. What made them a threat to the stability of the Commonwealth were their numerical advantage, and the many worlds under Commonwealth dominion where the common men chafed under matriarchal rule. Herb was probably strong enough to form a breakaway state within the Commonwealth even if total conquest eluded him.

His other option was less likely, but had an ironic twist to it that she knew he might not be able to resist. He could always wait until the struggles within the Council came to a head, and then approach her - knowing that she might be willing to offer up certain concessions in exchange for his loyalty. If she said no, then he backed Peony as planned, and in the end he would still win. Cologne did not like the idea of needing Herb's dubious offer of loyalty, and in particular because she knew what his demands would be.

Herb wanted more territory under his personal administration to increase his power base, and he wanted greater rank within the Army. It was not enough to be a male general in an army run by women. He wanted the rank of Field Marshal at the very least, and if he thought the clan would let him get away with it: Commander in Chief.

The thought made her frown. She had wanted that position to go to Shampoo. Granted she would have needed many more years of experience before she was qualified, but Cologne had planned to be around long enough to see that she got it. It was a bitter disappointment to realize that her favorite great-granddaughter had been the very instrument of her downfall.

Had she really been blinded by her love and devotion to Shampoo? Blinded enough to miss the obvious danger of giving Peony something to use against her? She had called in many old favors on the Council to give Shampoo a second chance, only to see the expedition fail miserably, and Kima slain. It was the opening Peony and her cronies had needed for over a hundred years, and Cologne had practically gift-wrapped it for them.

Perhaps I've grown old and senile, she thought bitterly. This would not have happened even ten years ago. I was stronger than that. Harder. I should have hardened my heart to Shampoo and sought my heir in another child.

The sun, now huge and red, dipped below the horizon, casting rays of orange and purple into the hazy sky. Though the day had passed on, Cologne drew herself up and stood proudly before the approaching darkness. Shampoo's fate was being decided on Tau Ceti, but her own trials were yet to come. Peony would find that her old rival still had tooth and claw.

The Jusenkyo Labs

Planet Lightoller, Epsilon Indi System

The Jusenkyo Commonwealth

8 April 3025

Doctor Gaido was feeling better than he had in years. It helped that his sinister landlord, General Herb, had left the system for Tau Ceti. Not having the hybrid general breathing down his neck was a liberating feeling.

The data for Saffron stood before him on the little computer display in his office. The hybrid represented the crowning achievement of the Commonwealth's Breeding Program, a being of incredible power and physical perfection. His ability to control his chi was innate - very little training had been required before he was capable of projecting devastating blasts of thermal energy generated by his own fighting spirit.

General Herb's own ability to do so was considerable, but if the data was accurate, Saffron eclipsed Herb's might by a full order of magnitude. The Chief Scientist of the Commonwealth knew that Saffron represented the future of the Armed Forces; warriors who were just as dangerous outside their war machines as within. Once the hybrid reached full maturity and his power could be fully established, the production of whole legions of his kind would begin.

These others would, by necessity, be less powerful than the original, but no less fearsome against the troops of the Inner Sphere. Saffron would be their general, and, if the Council could be trusted in this, fully under the control of the Elders.

Gaido wasn't as confident. General Herb was the only example he needed to justify his wariness. Though Saffron's indoctrination was being conducted with great thoroughness, how long would it take before he realized the power he possessed, both within himself and within the ranks of his hybrid army? What if Herb, ever the calculating player in the games of power and politics within the Commonwealth, somehow got his hands on Saffron, and added a little conditioning of his own? The Musk Dynasty could not receive that kind of boost to their ranks if the Commonwealth was to survive.

He knew that Saffron was supposed to be Cologne's weapon against Herb, but now he heard vague rumblings of a schism within the Council that threatened her ouster. Whose finger would rest upon Saffron's trigger then? Most likely Herb, if the rumors of collusion between the general and Elder Peony were to be believed. The fact that Herb had rushed from the planet to the Tau Ceti System on Council business seemed to confirm in Gaido's eyes that the rumors were to be believed. Herb didn't jump through hoops for the Council unless he was getting something out of it, and Cologne would not be throwing the general any bones.

He switched off the display. It was time to take matters into his own hands. Cologne respected his opinion, and she needed to hear his reservations about Saffron firsthand. Before it was too late.

Kanehoe Beach, Maui Atoll

Planet New Hawaii, Alpha Centauri System

The Furinkan Combine

9 April 3025

Hikaru Gosunkugi tramped across the firm wet sand of a beach, enjoying the cool night air and the fresh salty breeze provided by the tradewinds. He was surrounded by his soldiers as they fanned out across the expanse of Maui Atoll in search of their quarry. The atoll was too small and weak to support battlemechs, and in any event, careful observation from orbit had indicated that there were no Combine 'mechs anywhere on the watery planet.

The warm glow of a campfire suffused the darkness ahead. His men were already close to the site, their armed and armored silhouettes darting to and fro against the light. As he neared the scene, he could hear the sound of music and singing.

"Tell the men to exercise restraint," he hissed to one of his officers. "There's no need to go in guns blazing. He can't escape."

"Yes, sir," the man responded with a salute. He passed on the appropriate commands to the troops via the radio.

"It was good to get off the ship," Tetsuo Gosunkugi observed from nearby. Hikaru agreed with his cousin. They had spent entirely too much time on miserable spaceships getting here. He must have lost another vital kilo or two to free-fall sickness during the trip.

"We have the area surrounded, sir," the officer reported. "We're ready to move in on your command."

Hikaru nodded and continued on. There was no hurry. The man was making it easy for them.

As they reached the cordon of League infantry, the crackle of the fire was soothing, and the music was clear and proud. Hikaru pushed his way past the troops and through a stand of leafy saltwater shrubs. His men followed right behind him.

"Aloha, bruddahs!" a husky voice greeted them as they stepped into the ruddy light of the campfire. "You been expected!"

Hikaru turned to the voice and saw the Shogun of the Furinkan Combine, dressed in a floral print shirt and bermuda shorts, casually strumming on a ukulele. Exotic dark-skinned beauties in grass skirts danced a hula, their graceful hands and arms undulating in time to the music. More girls appeared with wreaths of colorful tropical flowers, and set them around the necks of Hikaru and his infantry - giving them each a kiss on the cheek as they did so.

"When you been lei'd, den come over here and siddown. We gotta whole lotta pig to eat tonight, eh bruddahs!" Shogun Kuno told them happily. A chorus of burly men in loincloths and brightly colored capes agreed with their Shogun - or was it Kahuna? - their large feathered hats bobbing with raucous laughter.

Hikaru turned to his cousin, who looked back at him with an expression of equal bafflement. The two shrugged in unison and returned their attention to the father of Tatewaki and Kodachi Kuno. There was no doubt about it, weirdness ran wild in their family.

"We're here to take you as a hostage of the League of Five Nails, your Eminence," Hikaru told the Combine Shogun in his most assertive voice.

Kuno gave the leader of the League forces a big grin.

"Sure whatever, brah," he said laughing. "But first we gonna have us a luau!"

Hikaru looked once again at Tetsuo, who once again shrugged. It _sounded_ like he was agreeing to surrender to them...

"Uh, okay," he told the leader of the Furinkan Combine. He had heard stories about how whacked in the head the guy really was, but until now had never really believed them. He did seem friendly enough, though, and the whole atoll was surrounded by League troops. "Where do we sit?"

"Anywhere you like, brah," Kuno said graciously. "Dis be your party, eh? Siddown, grab one o' dese pretty wahines dere, and eat! We gonna party all night, no shit!"

Again, the burly men laughed loud and heartily in agreement. Hikaru figured that even one of them could eat an entire pig by himself. He then blinked in surprise as two young lovelies of Polynesian stock approached him with bashful smiles, their grass skirts whistling as their hips swayed with the music. It occured to him then that the nights on New Hawaii lasted about twenty hours at this latitude and time of year. As the girls sat down on either side, and as a healthy portion of roasted pig, a bowl of poi, and a tray of assorted pupus was set before him, it also occured to him that he didn't really mind. It was all so surreal that the only way he could deal with the situation was to accept it.

After all, they had days before Kuno could disentangle himself from the Capella System and Jump all the way back to Alpha Centauri, and how often did he get to attend a luau?

Nerima Confederation JumpShip _Dragonfly_

Approaching Drydock Three of the Palatine Orbital Shipyards

in orbit above the planet Tiber, in the Palatine System

11 April 3025

Hinako Ninomiya floated attentively on the bridge near her chair. The approach to drydock was a dangerous time in the life of a starship, and Hinako was determined to see that the maneuver proceeded without mishap. As the ship could not advertise its true allegiance as a ship of the Confederation Navy, she was clad in the worn wool jacket and skirt of a merchant skipper under Confederation flag. The crew was similarly disguised. The cordial trade relationship between the Confederation and the Federated Shiratori made it plausible, and such duplicity was old hat for them as a Special Operations vessel of the Navy.

"Captain, the Orbital Tugs _Pushmataha_ and _Niantic_ are standing to, off our port beam. They request permission to approach."

Hinako took the report from her Communications Officer with a shake of her long brown mane.

"Very well," she purred. "Have them approach to within one hundred meters. Chief of the Watch, what is the status of readying the foc'sle for docking?"

The Chief of the Watch consulted with the _Dragonfly's_ Executive Officer, who had taken charge of the ship's rarely-used Forecastle and its vital docking machinery. The Forecastle, or 'foc'sle' as it was often called, was a compartment in the bow of the ship. It was the location of the enormous hydraulic winches and tackle that would assist ever so carefully in pulling the starship into the cavernous chamber of Drydock Three.

"Captain, the X.O. reports that the foc'sle is manned and ready. All machinery standing by for docking procedures."

Hinako nodded. "Very well, Chief of the Watch."

Ships like _Dragonfly_ massed over a hundred and fifty thousand tons, and to fire their massive drives indiscriminantly within close proximity to an orbital construct was dangerous. Once the tugs had taken hold of the ship, their smaller, highly agile drives would painstakingly ease the _Dragonfly_ into position before the open 'barn doors' of the depressurized drydock.

This manuever alone could take over eight hours, as the tugs' drives, while capable of moving a ship as large as the _Dragonfly_ with ease, also had to coordinate their efforts with absolute precision and timing to bring the ship into position at the exact relative velocity as the orbiting drydock.

Once that was accomplished, the tugs would stand off away from the starship and the drydock, while smaller apparatus - similar to a space-going battlemech in the ten-ton range - would approach from within, and attach meter-thick steel tow cables through the ship's bullnose. The bullnose was a large vanadium-steel ring at the very tip of the ship's bow, and was attached to the starship through a smaller series of winches and tackle in the foc'sle to maintain the proper amount of strain on the tow cables without parting them. The steel cables provided the necessary flexibility and cushion against acceleration forces while remaining strong and resilient, but if they parted, they could snap-back into the hull and tear the bow of the _Dragonfly_ apart.

A gigantic capstan within the drydock, working in conjuction with the smaller winches anchored to the strongest structural members of the ship's keel, would slowly pull the starship inside. The tugs would assist in keeping the ship's stern in position until the very last moment. Hinako had experienced this once before as a junior officer, and knew that the towing process could take six hours or more.

Once fully inside, the 'barn doors' would be closed, and their seals inspected. A web of mooring lines would then be attached to the ship's hull from bow to stern to secure it within the drydock. When the ship was secure, the process of sending over 'pier services' such as shore power would begin. As this was being accomplished, the drydock would be flooded with breathable air, and enormous low-velocity circulating fans would begin to condition it to a comfortable temperature and humidity.

All of this required a great deal of effort, but the ability to work on the repairs to the ship in a shirt-sleeve environment made it worthwhile. The risks of working in an industrial surrounding were unavoidable, but compounding them with a vacuum environment made accidents many more times likely to be fatal. Working in drydock would also increase efficiency and decrease overhead, as the yard workers would not need to spend time suiting up for a job, nor would it be necessary to pay for the maintenance of so many pressure suits and related equipment.

"The tugs are approaching, Captain," her Sensory Officer reported.

Hinako watched the two ships settle fore and aft of her ship. Their bulbous, shock-absorbing gel-filled bows would soon contact the hull of the _Dragonfly_ as they began their slow-motion ballet of positioning the ship.

"Very well, Sensory," she replied calmly. Once they received permission to commence the docking operation, the conning of the _Dragonfly_ would be out of her control.

She took a look at the Palatine Yards on the main telescope display. At the height of the Star League, the facility had been able to service the monstrous Monolith and Starlord Class JumpShips, as well as the great battleships of the Star League Defense Force Navy. Now the Yards were down to only three of the original six drydocks, and these were in danger of shutting down when the last remaining spare parts for the massive air compressors that evacuated them, and the air handlers that conditioned them, finally wore out. She tried to imagine how the Successor States could possibly maintain their fleets, military and merchant, without these incredible constructs, and found that she couldn't.

The starships of the Inner Sphere had been built and maintained in Yards like these. Reverting to the ancient times of working in a constant vacuum would never replace the productivity of the drydock. The attrition alone from accidents would ensure the loss of not only skilled labor, but also the arcane knowledge these engineers and technicians has passed on from one generation to the next. Eventually the entire program would wither and die.

Perhaps on the day when the last shipyard shut down, there would finally be peace in the Inner Sphere. Without drydocks in which to repair and to maintain them, the JumpShips would eventually break down. Without JumpShips, there could be no more interstellar war. The human race would live out its days in whatever star systems they happened to call home. Hinako doubted that even isolated in their own systems, humanity could ever give up on war, but at least they wouldn't be exporting it throughout the cosmos.

Offworld Quarter, the City of Aquila

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

12 April 3025

Genma Saotome left the grounds of the Confederation Consulate to the Federated Shiratori with a frown on his face.

"Hey, Pop," his son greeted him as he stepped through the guarded gates. Ranma and Akane had been standing outside in what appeared to be relatively companionable silence while waiting for his return. "What's up?"

"I've just been informed by the Consul that the _Dragonfly_ has been put into drydock," Genma replied. He began walking down the wide tree-lined boulevard towards their hotel. Ranma and Akane hastened to catch up with him.

"Great. Who's footing the bill?" his son asked.

"I convinced the Consulate to pay, since our reserve of C-bills on board the ship is for emergencies in places where we won't have such assistance," Genma said dryly. He inclined his head to Akane and added in a voice that was almost too soft to hear, "They didn't like it, but with the daughter of the Grand Duke accompanying us, they weren't going to deny us."

Akane harrumphed quietly at this. She was never one to take advantage of her station, and it never ceased to gall her when others felt free to do so for her. Genma continued.

"To make it look less suspicious for us, they gave me the account number to an emergency fund held with the Bank of Sol. Since they act as a clearing house to handle the international exchange for Comstar, it won't raise any eyebrows for a Confederation merchanter to have an account with them, and we won't draw any attention by utilizing it. We have to make a trip to the planet's Comstar facility to have them transfer funds to an account set up with a local bank."

Akane nodded with silent relief. She had been prepared to liquidate personal shares of her stock in the Ceres Metals Corporation if necessary to pay for the repairs to the ship. Even her small portion of stock would have yielded an enormous sum of money, as the Ceres Corp was a vast holding dating back to the earliest days of the Terran Hegemony, and was the very foundation upon which the Tendos of old had built their wealth. Doing so would have also drawn a great deal of attention to herself. Even Kuno's spies would have been capable of picking up on the sale, and drawing the correct conclusions from it.

"Sounds great," Ranma said, interrupting Akane's train of thought. "So what's up with the long face?" he asked his father. "I haven't seen you look that upset since the family 'mech got scrapped."

Genma took his time in responding.

"Well?" Ranma pressed.

"The Consulate has received word from the Capella System," Genma said finally. He was looking at Akane as he spoke. "Kuno's invaded and has them under siege. They don't know how long they can resist."

Akane tensed at his words, feeling absolutely helpless in that moment.

"No way," Ranma gasped. "You're serious, Pop?"

Genma nodded slowly. "I'm sorry, Akane," he said to her. "I'm afraid we might already be too late to help your father."

Akane closed her eyes to keep the tears away. There was nothing they could do. Without the Dragonfly, they could not leave the system, and their faithful starship needed extensive repairs to the power systems that fed its Jump Drive.

"How long will the ship be in drydock?" Ranma asked hopefully.

"Two weeks," Genma replied. "At the minimum. Hinako's already asked for three shifts a day to work on the ship, but it will take at least ten days to machine the replacement components for the Jump Drive main circuit breakers. Some of the parts they can't manufacture here are getting shipped from the nearby Bangalore System. They've already sent an HPG message to the factory there for a rush order, but it will take some time to hire a ship passing through Bangalore to Palatine that can deliver it."

"Damn," Ranma muttered softly. He offered Akane a sympathetic look, which went unnoticed with her eyes closed.

"They can hold out," she finally declared. "I know they can."

"That's the spirit, Akane," Ranma chirped. He turned his attention to his father "We just need that sixth key, right, Pop?"

Genma nodded.

"So where is it, already?" Ranma demanded. "You said you knew."

Akane opened her eyes and brushed away the wetness that had accumulated behind her lashes. "Yes, Mister Saotome. Where is the sixth key?"

The elder Saotome took a deep breath and held it for some time.

At last he spoke. "Azusa Shiratori has it," he declared solemnly.

"What?" Ranma and Akane cried in unison.

Genma withdrew the small notebook journal of the Scout that he kept on his person at all times. "It says here that our predecessor, alias Chance G. King, had the key, but he ended up losing it to the Empress."

"How the hell did that happen?" Ranma demanded, not believing a word of what his father had said. In his mind, Genma had no clue where the sixth key was, and had made up such a ridiculous story to conceal that fact. The fact that he hadn't come forward with his cockamamie story sooner seemed to clinch the matter for the younger Saotome.

Genma however, displayed the tearstained pages of the journal for them to see. They were tearstained because both he and the now long dead Scout had wept over them for what was lost and what might never be recovered. The crabby, almost illegible handwriting of the Scout was there for them to see.

"He was on Genevieve after discovering a small cache of Star League-era materials he had found on Derviso II. He was trying to sell his discoveries to the F-S," Genma explained. "Part of his find included the sixth key, but since he knew what it was, he didn't intend to sell it."

Ranma was tired of the charade. How could Pop do this to Akane when the Combine was laying siege to Capella?

"Yeah, so?"

"So... The F-S being what it is under the domination of the Cult of Azusa, he had to make his pitch directly to the Empress. Most of the booty was still buried on Derviso, the materials being too big for a man of his modest means to move. He was going to sell them the location of the depot, and he used some of the smaller items he had recovered as proof of his discovery. While he was displaying some of the gewgaws he had recovered, she happened to see the sixth crypto key." Genma produced the necklace of the five keys in their possession from underneath his dogi. The brightly colored plaques glittered in the warm mid-morning sunlight. "You've travelled in the F-S long enough to have heard the stories about their Empress, boy."

"You mean the fact that she's like a magpie?"

"Keep your voice down," Genma hissed. "If one of the Cult heard you insult her like that..." He let the threat hang between them. When he was certain that no one had showed any interest in his story, he returned the necklace of keys to their place. "You're essentially correct," he continued quietly. "She grabbed the sixth key right out of his hand and named it on the spot."

Ranma shuddered. He had heard the stories all right. Azusa the First was quite possibly the most spoiled girl in the entire universe. Whatever she wanted, she got. The Cult of Azusa, which had deified her and then subordinated the old feudal system of federation that bound the F-S to the Great House of Shiratori, would see to it that every whim of their goddess was indulged.

"Did he get anything at all for it?" he asked hesistantly.

"Oh, they paid him for the location of the depot," Genma said. It was not necessary for him to refer to the journal in this regard, for he had pored over that sad chapter endlessly, searching for some clue as to the exact location of the key. "Of course what they paid for the key was nothing compared to its real value, but he wasn't about to tell them what the key could be used to find."

Genma looked away for a moment. "He was a broken man after that. You can see it in his journal entries. The separations between entries grows and they become more desperate in tone. He's searched just about everywhere he could manage in the Inner Sphere by this point. An entire life spent looking for Ryuugenzawa. He can't bring himself to give up, and continues the search. He finally finds what we now call the fifth key - for him the sixth and final component to unlock the data disc - but the quest has lost its meaning."

He went silent then, walking on with some hidden purpose.

"Then what happened, Mister Saotome?" Akane asked after a long pause.

Genma sighed. "It wasn't long after he hid the fifth key that the boy and I found him. He had completely lost it by then; drunk, penniless, a little mad, and then at the end, the Nevermore Fever that killed him."

"That's terrible," Akane said sadly. She had never given much thought to the mysterious Scout who had done most of the groundwork for their quest. It occured to her that should they succeed in finding Ryuugenzawa, the Confederation would owe a great deal to this poor, broken man.

"So what you're saying is that we have to steal the sixth key from the Empress?" Ranma asked. For a cockamamie story, what Genma had said to them bore the bitter ring of truth. They had a serious problem.

"I'm afraid so, boy," Genma replied. "You can see why I've been so reluctant to talk about it."

Ranma gave him a grudging look of agreement. "Well... Yeah... But you have a plan, right?"

Genma offered an enigmatic look. "I'm working on it."

The pig-tailed mechwarrior slapped his forehead wearily. "I'll take that as a 'no...'"

Genma harrumphed at his son's lack of confidence in him.

"We can take comfort in the fact that since she named it, it will be in the same place she keeps all of her other precious things."

Ranma scowled. "Yeah, in her Collection of Cute. That is to say, in an armored vault deep in the bowels of her capitol fortress, surrounded by heavily armed and totally fanatical guards. We might as well waltz into Comstar's headquarters on Earth and ask them where they keep all their secret technologies..."

"Oh ye of little faith," Genma scolded. "Giving up already, eh boy? Scared by a girl, are we?"

"I ain't scared of no girl," Ranma bristled. "It's her legions of wacko Cultists I'm thinking about." He glanced briefly at Akane before returning his attention to his father. "And I ain't giving up, neither, got it?"

Genma grinned smugly. "That's what I like to hear, boy. Because if anyone gets the job of infiltrating her Collection of Cute, it'll be you..."

Ranma's scowl deepened.

"Pop, have I ever told you how much I hate your guts?"

"Listen here, boy," Genma returned. "When the day comes that I don't hear that from you, that is the day I know that I've failed you."

"Did he really mean that?"

Ranma looked up at Akane from the low grassy hill where he sat. Aquila Park lay spread out before them, its cool green lake long, sinuous, and winding past tree-covered knolls below, the gentle ripples of the water glittering in the early afternoon sun. Paddleboats splashed through the water, scattering flocks of snowy white ducks before them.

"Mean what?" he asked, knowing what she meant and not wanting to say it himself.

She remained standing in spite of the urge she felt to sit close to him.

"When he said he was failing you if you didn't tell him how much you hated him every day."

"Oh, that," he replied coolly. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that he does."

She eyed him speculatively. "Do you?"

Ranma's eyes grew slightly larger at the question, as if prodded with a dull needle in the back of his neck. Her query had not brought pain, but discomfort, and more than a little surprise.

"Do I hate my Dad?" He looked away from her for a moment, casting his eyes down the hill to the lake and the clots of ducks that congregated close to the water's edge. "I probably should..."

"That's no answer," she scolded gently. "Do you or don't you?"

He looked back at her. "What are you getting at?"

"I want to understand you a little better," she replied, wanting once more to sit by his side, and realizing that he was not ready to accept her so close to him. Not after her line of questioning. "Haven't I said that once before?"

He shrugged, his eyes remaining fixed upon her. "I guess so."

She smoothed the hem of her pale yellow sundress against the breeze. She realized then that the sight of her with the sun shining in her short blue-black hair seemed to be unnerving to Ranma. It was as if all he could do was look at her and admire the way the gentle breeze lifted the delicate locks of hair that fell in front of her ears and made them drift across her eyes. She brushed away the locks of hair and tried not to blush. No one had ever looked at her in that way before. There was an almost childlike reverence in his expression.

"Well? Do you hate him?" she asked, breaking the spell over him, if only for the moment. She needed to say something to him, or else she would be utterly consumed by his gaze. "I'd understand if the answer was yes. If not, why do you think you should?"

"I don't hate him," he declared, and she knew by the timbre in his voice that it was true. "I don't want to end up ever hating anyone, even if they deserve it." He picked at the soft grass at his side, casting the severed blades into the wind. "When you hate someone, you give them power over you."

Akane absorbed this quietly. She was starting to realize that the best way to get Ranma to open up about himself was to get him talking and then avoid interrupting. This time, however, the subject seemed to die with his last word on the matter. Perhaps another prod.

"That's why you can't beat Master Happousai, isn't it?" she pointed out. She expected him to get angry with her, and she supposed that she might have deserved it with that remark. Instead, he surprised her.

"I never thought of it that way," he observed quietly. "I always thought it was because he was a better martial artist than me."

"He _is_ a better martial artist than you," Akane declared with a grin.

"But that's not why he keeps beating me," Ranma returned, not rising to her gentle barb. "He keeps beating me because I let myself get angry with him. I don't hate the little freak, I actually feel sorry for him most of the time, but getting angry with him is a lot like hating him. I lose my head." He slapped a fist down into his palm. "I can finally beat that little bastard. I know it."

"'Little bastard?'" she said teasingly. "It sounds like you haven't learned anything."

"What else am I gonna call him?" he returned. "Sure as hell not 'master.'" He offered a grin to show that he didn't take her jabs as anything more than playful.

She decided that he was approachable now, and sat down beside him. He seemed to tense for a moment, then relaxed slightly as he turned back to the lake below.

"It's good to be on a planet again," she observed after a thoughtful moment's pause to set him at ease. "A nice green planet, too. Even one day on Capra was too long."

"It wasn't so bad," Ranma returned. "Except for the part about us getting captured by the Joketsuzoku, and almost getting killed by the Black Rose, and then ending up as Kuno's prisoners, and finally having to fight our way off the planet... Not half bad at all."

She turned to him and laughed in spite of herself. It took several moments for Ranma to realize that she was not really laughing _at_ him, before he too began to laugh at the absurdity of what he had said. It felt wonderful to be able to sit next to him and laugh, and to hear him laugh with her.

Finally, when the moment had passed, Ranma eased himself onto his back and looked up at the cloud-scudded blue sky. Though he had been smiling and laughing mere moments before, his face now seemed grave, his eyes lined with concerns that would have bowed the back of a person twice his age and experience. In that moment she caught a glimpse of the Ranma Saotome he would someday become.

"What is it, Ranma?" she asked him at length. "What's bothering you?"

His eyes remained fixed on the sky.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "We blew it, and I'm sorry."

"I don't get it," she returned uneasily. "You're sorry about what?"

"You know, Kuno's siege at Capella," he replied. "I'm sorry we couldn't find what we needed sooner. We're too late. Now we're stuck here for weeks, totally helpless. We can't even go back and help your dad make a stand."

Her own face fell as he spoke. She had been trying to put those thoughts aside since Mister Saotome had told her of the siege, and for awhile that day, she had actually succeeded.

"It doesn't matter," she said quietly. "Even if Kuno wins, and my father is forced to surrender, I'm still not giving up. I'll start an insurgency from within the Confederation... I'll even raise an army of mercenaries and fight for anyone who has the guts to oppose the Combine if I have to."

She wrung her hands anxiously.

"I need you, Ranma," she said to him, her voice urgent and making him tense with surprise at her side. She realized that she had said more than she had intended to with the remark, and continued hastily with, "That is, I need you to help me find Ryuugenzawa. I can't give up the fight. I know my chances aren't very good if the Confederation is forced to surrender, but without Ryuugenzawa, I might not stand any chance at all."

Her voice began to break, and she pressed her lips together tightly to keep them from trembling. She willed herself not to cry, not after she had made such a declaration, and not in front of Ranma. As the tremors passed, she rose quickly to stand and face the sun.

He was following her with his eyes, she knew. She wished for a moment that she was alone on the hill, knowing that Ranma was too insecure around her to say and do the things she needed from him for comfort. It was funny in a sad kind of way. Ranma would fight against suicidal odds to protect her - she knew that, had witnessed it - but was too unsure of himself to give her even a comforting hug.

"Y-You okay?" she heard him ask hesitantly. His query armored her, and she bit down on her lip the way Kasumi often did, and willed away her fears and pains.

"I'm fine," she replied coolly. "What's taking your father so long?" she continued, eager to steer the conversation away from what was hurting her. "He should have been here almost two hours ago."

Genma had sent them on to buy lunch and wait for him in the park while he went to the planet's Comstar facility, and then to the local branch of the Bank of Sol to set up the fund transfer into an account. The costs of drydock and repairs to the _Dragonfly_ were to be deducted from that account, with any money remaining going back to the Consulate. The whole setup shouldn't have taken more than an hour from their end, and it had been more than three since they had separated.

Ranma stood. "Good question. Knowing Pop..."

He paused, unwilling to continue.

"Yes?" she asked him.

He offered a lame look. "Well, knowing Pop the way I do, he's probably trying to figure out a way to slip a little of the money from the emergency fund into a private account he can convert to cash."

Akane grimaced. How could the man be so greedy and corrupt?

"You're serious," she remarked.

Ranma nodded slowly. "Oh yeah. I can see it. He's probably getting smashed in some bar with the money right now."

"Great," she spat. "I suppose we should go find him then."

Ranma rolled his eyes. "I was afraid you were going to say that."

Brigadier Ukyou Kuonji stepped down the folding boarding ladder of her brigade tiltrotor as the aircraft's twin turboprop engines shrilled overhead. At least she was on fairly clean tarmac, she supposed as she scooted away from the tiltrotor and towards the staff car waiting for her by the fence. There was less dust that way. Her adjutant, Major Konatsu, was waiting for her with the rear door open, a gloved hand holding down his uniform skirt against the rotor-generated wind.

She returned his crisp salute and slipped onto the rear bench seat. As Konatsu joined her, the tiltrotor's engines spooled up and began to pull the ungainly aircraft into the sky. It banked into a turn, the engines rotating into fixed-wing flight as it did so, before racing away from the airfield for the distant exercise grounds.

"How was your flight, sir?" Konatsu asked politely. The driver took this as his cue to put the car in gear and leave.

Ukyou smoothed her hair back into place with the assistance of the small mirror in her compact.

"The usual," she lamented. "I hate those noisy things. Even a normal helicopter isn't as loud."

"At least the tiltrotors are faster, sir," Konatsu pointed out. "You were able to return in half the time."

"Point," Ukyou conceded. "Any chance to get away from Mikado is worth the sacrifice."

Konatsu nodded slowly.

Ukyou caught the thought-processes behind his nod. She had set aside open talk of resigning for the moment, though he knew that it was never far from her mind. Any mention she made of General Sanzenin was filled with it, even if it went unspoken, and Konatsu knew that.

"Is my Hatchetman ready?" she asked absently as she combed the windblown tangles out of her bangs.

"Yes, sir," he replied. "The Armorer also informed me that your new spatula blade arrived from the foundry yesterday, and that he would be mounting it to the autocannon before noon."

Ukyou beamed. Custom bladework for battlemechs was both tricky and expensive. Her last spatula blade had shattered five days ago during a weapons drill in the field. Mikado had wasted no time in dressing her down in front of the troops for using a non-spec hatchet blade. It was more than embarrassing, it was a stain on the family honor, and she vowed to get even with him for it.

"Good. I feel like taking it out this afternoon," she said coolly, thinking about how good it would feel to someday drive her massive spatula blade through the torso of Mikado's 80-ton Victor.

"Yes, sir," Konatsu sighed.

"By the way," Ukyou added. "I've taken a three day leave of absense, so no matter what, if anyone sends for me, and I mean _anyone_, I'm not available. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," Konatsu replied formally. His eyes then lit up in surprise. "General Sanzenin actually let you go, sir?"

"Not exactly," she replied. "Let's just say that I included myself in the liberty orders for the troops following the completion of the exercises. I'm supposed to route my requests through him, but _technically_ I _am_ assigned to one of the units that was granted liberty."

Ukyou sat back in the seat and relaxed. It was good to get away from the troops for awhile. It was definitely good to get away from Mikado.

"Won't the General be angry, sir?"

"I suppose he will," Ukyou admitted. "But by then, it might just be too late."

Konatsu blinked twice.

"Sir?"

"Not here," Ukyou replied, waving him off. The driver was not her usual chauffeur, and though Konatsu was good when it came to matters of her physical security, he might have missed one of Mikado's spies. "Wait until we get to my quarters."

"Yes, sir," he sighed. He affected a look of unease - probably without even realizing that he was doing it, she supposed.

"It's time you knew," Ukyou told her adjutant. Konatsu stood silently near the door, his eyes fixed straight ahead and unblinking. "I'm going to make a personal appeal to the Empress for an assignment to diplomatic duty. It probably won't be with the Confederation the way things are going, but I'd take an assignment with the League or the Commmonwealth. Anything to get out from under Mikado's thumb."

Konatsu nodded slowly.

"And if the Empress does not grant your request, sir?"

Ukyou tossed back her chestnut mane of hair.

"Then I tender my resignation on the spot," she replied matter-of-factly. "There are mercenary regiments on the border with the Combine looking for good officers. I know of several that have favorable connections with my family, so one of them should be able to come up with a billet for me. I certainly wouldn't mind a little action against Kuno's troops that might actually have a chance of success."

Konatsu closed his eyes and stood silently by the door.

"I'm taking you with me, Konatsu," she told him. "Though you might have to take a demotion from adjutant to aide-de-camp. Of course, that's what you really do for me here, but there would be a pay cut involved."

His eyes flicked open. "Dearest Ukyou, I would live on bread and water if it meant that I could continue serving you!"

"I think we can manage better than bread and water for you, sugar," she said gently. "Thank you for the enthusiasm." All the same, she felt a little guilty.

There were no guarantees that any mercenary regiment she might find willing to hire her would be as tolerant of Konatsu's cross-dressing and effeminate manner as Empress Azusa. His was a situation that was worse than it appeared, because in spite of his habits and his inclinations, he had been forced to face up to his true gender by her, and now harbored no desire for other men. Even what little previous desire he had felt for men had been based on what he had supposed was expected of females.

Despite his obvious heterosexual bent, she had tried without success to get him to become more masculine. Having been raised for most of his life to believe he was female meant a great deal of conditioning to overcome. Conditioning that she had no time or energy to break. Conditioning that had endeared him to the Empress, and, should it have been overcome, would have spelled the end for him in Her Imperial Divinity's service.

While she felt obligated to him for his loyalty and devotion, if it meant that if she was faced with the choice of joining a regiment without him, or crawling back to Mikado for a job, Konatsu would be out of luck. He had been a stray puppy to her for the most part, and stray puppies could be put up for someone else to adopt.

"I need to get out in town for awhile," she told him. "Alone," she added quickly. "I need you to stay here and fend off Mikado in case he figures out too soon that I'm gone."

Konatsu saluted. "Yes, sir. Should I put out a fresh uniform for you, sir?"

Ukyou waved him off. "That won't be necessary, sugar. I'll wear some civvies instead. I might have to get used to them again, you know."

"Of course, sir," Konatsu replied. "Shall I go now, sir?"

"That will be all, Konatsu. Dismissed."

He saluted again, and left the room silently.

Ukyo sighed. He had taken the news better than she had expected, but not by much. She stepped over to her dresser and began to disrobe. A good brisk walk through downtown was what she needed. Interacting with people who weren't soldiers was the cure for what ailed her.

She decided against a shower, as she had done nothing to exert herself that day, and it had been fairly cool up in the highlands where the military reservation was located. She pulled on an old and comfortable pair of black tights and a short belted tunic in her family's purple. She tied a white ribbon into her hair, adorning the top of her head with a cheerful bow. Now she looked very little like the young woman who commanded by default most of the Federated Shiratori's battlemech forces.

The Kuonji's had been both martial artists and merchants from a time long before the dawn of interstellar travel. Specifically, they were purveyors of a certain type of Japanese fast-food: the okonomiyaki. The spatula she often wore on her back was a symbol of that ancient tradition, and of the okonomiyaki-based school of martial arts in which she studied.

There were still branches of the family that sold the pancake-like food, her own included, and she had been required to learn the art of cooking it as part of her training with the battle-spatula. As she strapped her family's preferred melee weapon onto her back, she thought of the possibilty of forsaking the military altogether and going back to her roots.

She knew she was skilled in the art of preparing okonomiyaki. She practiced every chance she got, although since her promotion to Mikado's Whipping Girl, those opportunities had become less and less frequent.

With some assistance from her family, and what she had saved up over the years from her salary, she could probably open up a very successful restaurant on Genevieve, or perhaps even New Osaka. It would certainly be a more rewarding pursuit than fighting the Furinkan Combine or taking part in some petty dispute between the remaining nobles within the Federated Shiratori. For one thing, there were far fewer condolence letters to be written in the restaurant business.

Deciding that it was better not to be noticed, she slipped out the back door. The row of guest houses for general officers on the base was dotted with many old trees, allowing her to reach the alley without drawing any attention to herself. Most of the generals on the planet were still out at the reservation with their commands.

It was a short walk down a lonely tree-lined road to the Chapel Street Gate, and from there into town. She gave a nod to the gate guard as she walked past, and then off the base. He probably figured her for a soldier's girlfriend, and returned her nod with a leering stare which she ignored with the secret satisfication that she could have had him flogged for such an offense against an officer, and a general at that.

The busy thoroughfare beyond the base led straight into downtown Aquila, and with its tree-lined medians and flower beds laid along the sidewalks, was well worth the walk in her mind. Unlike many large cities that boasted Army bases, Aquila had grown up as something other than a military town. The Federated Shiratori Army had come to the planet Tiber only within the last fifty years, seeking a planet better suited for its Spring Manuevers.

Skyscrapers rose into the blue midday sky before her, glassy and bright in a minimalist architectural style that set them far apart from the buildings of Kawaii City on Genevieve. Those horrid things were so cute as to be grotesque. New Osaka was starting to sound like a better place for a restaurant than Genevieve, even if it meant stiffer competition.

When she reached the cool shade of the skyscrapers, she knew she was where she wanted to be. Most of the heart of Aquila was cut off from vehicle traffic, forcing people to get out of their cars and walk places. Far from grumbling about it, the people of the city actually enjoyed the warmth of downtown and its many parks, fountains, and flower gardens. Office girls and junior executives of the planet's many private companies sat and ate their lunches while taking part in that oldest of urban rituals - people watching. Ukyou found that she didn't mind the attention she was getting from the men in this setting.

There was a place near the very center of downtown where she could enjoy a cold beer with some first class teppanyaki, and it was there that she walked. The front door was set a good two meters below the level of the sidewalk, in what was the lower level of a major banking tower. The girl at the hostess' rostrum did not recognize her, which was just as well, she figured. Mikado knew of this place, and he knew that she enjoyed coming here.

She was led to a table near the middle of the establishment. There were three chefs on duty for the lunch crowd, and one seemed to be working overtime serving a rather heavyset man in a worn white dogi. The man was alone and clearly drunk. Many empty bottles of the local beer lay scattered on the teakwood countertop around the griddle, which the wait staff could not have ignored, and therefore must have been ordered to leave alone.

What's his problem? she wondered idly as she pored over the beverage list. She had a mind to try a glass of import lager from New Brisbane that was known only by the cryptic brand of 'XXXX.' Being an import, it was pricey, but she had heard good things about it from some of her staff.

One of the serving girls took her order, and quickly produced a chilled glass full of the crisp amber colored lager for her. She sipped at it appreciatively, and decided that she liked it. The man at the other table loudly ordered another beer for himself.

Ukyou frowned. If he was going to keep this up, she would have to see about getting another table. The place was busy, but if it meant getting away from him, she wouldn't mind the wait.

He began to ramble about something that obviously saddened him. She couldn't help but overhear him, even though she wished he would just pass out and get it over with.

"I failed you, Soun, old buddy," he blubbered. "Failed!" He swallowed the beer in one gulp, and ordered another round, prompting Ukyou to wonder why no one had cut him off yet. "You're gonna lose your duchy, and then there goes our dreams!"

The mention of the name 'Soun' and the loss of a duchy made her perk up her ears. Was this man a Confederation sympathizer? There were a lot of people in the Federated Shiratori who made a living trading over the border. If - _when_, she corrected herself - the Furinkan Combine conquered the Nerima Confederation, all those lucrative trade agreements would go up in smoke.

The waitress took her order and placed it near the griddle for the next available teppan chef to handle.

"And that ingrate son of mine..." the man rumbled on, lurching nearly out of his chair while the teppan chef hastily and without any showmanship prepared his food. "You'd think he could do right by his poor father and marry Akane... But nooooo... Any time I mention it he gets all defensive and tries to blame me for all his problems..." The man lurched upright and confronted the chef. "Ha!" he barked a little too loudly. "He thinks _he's_ got problems... That damn Ranma... O, my ingrate son...!" He then fell to sobbing into his hands.

Ukyou nearly dropped her beer.

Ranma?

It wasn't a very common name, she admitted to herself. One part of her mind tried to write it off as mere coincidence, but that other more rational part of her brain began filling in the blanks. A man named Soun losing a duchy. That could only mean Soun Tendo, the Grand Duke of the Confederation, and a man who was about to lose his holdings to Prince Kuno. Akane Tendo was the Grand Duke's daughter. Akane was the name of the girl this Ranma person, the 'ingrate son' of the drunk, was supposed to marry.

Ranma Saotome was supposed to marry Akane Tendo...

She looked a little closer at the portly man in the dogi. It had been years since she had last seen Genma Saotome, and to be honest, she didn't really remember him all that well. It could have been Genma Saotome, but then again, it probably wasn't. After all, what were the odds of him not only showing up on the same planet, but in the same restaurant, as her?

"Damn fool Ranma..." the man grunted, nearly falling face first into the griddle before the teppan chef could stabilize him with a swift thrust to the chest with the flat of his spatula. "...You bring dishonor to the Saotome name...!"

That tears it! Ukyuo thought angrily. Somehow, the gods had seen fit to grant her the vengeance she so urgently wished for. Somehow, the gods had seen fit to deliver Genma Saotome into her lap!

She rose quickly to her feet. Genma's insobriety was at last garnering the necessary attention, and several of the wait staff prepared to hoist the man out of his seat. The hostess was calling a cab for him. She needed to act now.

"There you are!" she said angrily to him, as she stumped over to his table. The wait staff gave her curious looks before deciding that she was a daughter or perhaps younger lover of the drunk. She saw no reason to dissuade them of this belief. "I've been looking all over downtown for you!"

Genma gave her a dumbfounded look. There wasn't even a hint of recognition in his bloodshot eyes, making her even angrier. The bastard could at least realize who it was that he had betrayed so long ago.

"I'll handle this," she told the wait staff. She dropped her shoulder underneath his armpit to steady him. "How much does he owe?"

"One-hundred and fifty-seven imperials," the waitress replied evenly. "Plus gratuity."

Ukyou reeled for a moment at the number. The place was a little on the expensive side, but damn! Most of it had to have been the bar tab. She spied a fat bulge of cash in the front pocket of Genma's gi, fished out three crisp hundred-imperial bills, and set them on the counter. Such a large gratuity was going to be remembered, but she wanted to get him out of there with absolutely no fuss. "Have a nice day," she told them with a shaky smile.

"We've called for a cab," one of the bus boys offered. Bicycle-driven rickshaws were the only allowed form of motorized transport downtown.

"Thanks anyway," she replied, steadying the hundred plus kilo bulk of her despised and quite drunken foe. "I think a good walk is exactly what he needs to clear his head."

"Do I know you?" Genma slurred to her.

She elbowed him in the ribs. "Of course you do!" she said with an embarrassed laugh. "Come on, Dad, let's go..."

She led him unsteadily out the door, and up the steps to the sidewalk level. It took just about every ounce of strength she had to keep him moving without spilling over.

"Where're we going?" he slurred.

"Never mind that," she snapped. "You _are_ Genma Saotome, right?"

"Yup!" he returned.

"And you have a son named Ranma, correct?"

"Correctamundo!"

There was one final question to be asked, the answer to which would cast aside all doubt as to the identity of the pathetic drunk in her charge.

"Your son is supposed to marry the daughter of the Grand Duke of the Confederation, right?"

Genma grinned stupidly. "You betcha!"

Ukyou wanted to kill him right then and there. If only there weren't so many potential witnesses!

She shuffled him to one of the smaller grassy areas that lay between skyscrapers. The place saw very little sunshine, and was generally shunned by the locals. When she was certain that no one was around to see anything, she let him fall face first into the grass.

"...heeyyyy..." Genma whined, his voice muted by the ground.

"It serves you right, you bastard," she growled at him. "I've a mind to beat you to a bloody pulp, you know! You _and_ your no-good son!"

Genma rolled over onto his back, the world spinning before his eyes.

"What'd I ever do to you?" he asked in a pathetic voice.

Ukyou steamed. She drew the battle-spatula from her back and brandished it for him. "You don't remember who I am?"

Genma blinked several times at the spatula.

"Not a clue," he said with surprising lucidity.

"I'm the girl you left behind!" she cried indignantly. "Ukyou! Ukyou Kuonji! Does that name ring any bells, or do I have to ring some bells of my own!?"

Genma thought long and hard. Drinking slightly less than a case of beer in under two hours was not helping the process.

"Ukyou?" he asked aloud.

"That's right!" she cried. "Do you remember or don't you?!"

He thought some more. The glint of steel that shined in his eyes from the spatula began to accelerate the process, more out of the instinct for self-preservation than any recognition.

"...Ukyou..."

"Quit stalling and answer my question," she growled. If she wasn't careful, she was going to draw unwanted attention. As a brigadier in the Army, she could easily talk her way out of a police entanglement, but it would also mean Genma's escape from her vengeance.

"Could I get another hint?" he pleaded.

Her hands began to grip the spatula with such an intensity that her knuckles cracked.

"I'm the girl you promised Ranma to," she told him through clenched teeth. "My father gave you a controlling share in the family business as a dowry... REMEMBER!?"

Genma thought some more.

"I think I _do_ remember..." he said at length. "It was a chain of okonomiyaki restaurants, wasn't it?"

"That's right..." she confirmed bitterly. "And when it came time for me to go with you on your next training mission, you left me behind!"

Genma tried to sit up and failed. He honestly could not remember this girl, but he remembered the dowry! That had to have been more than ten years ago! Why, he'd liquidated those shares right before they left New Osaka on a training mission. They needed the money to buy spare parts for the LAM...

His bloodshot eyes focused on the girl, now no longer a girl, but a young woman Ranma's age.

"That's right," she said coldly, somehow knowing where his thoughts were leading. "You sold those shares to a competitor and almost ruined my family! Instead of taking over the family business, I had to take our rickety battlemech and join the Army! I dedicated my life to battle because you had ruined any hope I had for a normal existence!"

"D-Don't you think you're overreacting?" he stammered. Fear was doing wonders for his body's metabolization of alcohol.

"Overreacting!?" Ukyou cried furiously. "Overreacting!? You RUINED my life! I was in love with Ranma, you know! When he left the system without me, I was CRUSHED! All my friends started ridiculing me for being dumped, and for my family being sent to the brink of poverty because of you!"

She raised the spatula overhead to strike and end his life. Witnesses be damned, she could claim he was an assassin! The Federated Shiratori's civil unrest in the wake of the Cult of Azusa's ascension simmered just below the boiling point, and vendettas between rival families were often settled over the tip of a poisoned dagger.

"W-Wait!" he pleaded. "You don't look like you've got it so rough now!"

She paused. He was too drunk to be an assassin sent to murder her, she realized. The story would never stick. She relaxed her grip on the spatula and addressed his pathetic attempt to garner a few more seconds of life.

"If that's true, then it's because I worked my ass off to restore my 'mech and use it to rise through the ranks," she told him in an icy voice. "As for my family, it's taken them almost ten years to recover from the damage you did with your lies and deceits..."

Genma lay silently on the grass, ashen faced, waiting.

She gripped the spatula once again, all of the pain and frustration of her life coming back to her in a rush. He was the reason she had to endure the humiliations of Mikado Sanzenin. His abandonment had made it impossible for her to trust a man in any kind of personal relationship, and so he was the reason why she was so lonely. She wanted to split his face wide open. She wanted to deliver his head, wrapped in a preserving sleeve, to her father on New Osaka. She wanted him dead so badly for all the suffering he had caused her.

"I should kill you," she told him flatly.

"But you're not?" he asked hopefully, his eyes drooping drunkenly.

She lowered the spatula to the grass. He was a worm. She realized in that moment that there had been no malice in his decision to abandon her. He was simply a greedy, selfish, pathetic worm, incapable of looking beyond the immediate personal gratification of his actions for any sort of lingering consequences or harm done to another. Thinking about what a pathetic life he must have led, she came to the conclusion that killing him might turn out to be a kindness. He deserved far more in the way of punishment than granting him a swift, if bloody, death.

"Just tell me one thing," she said quietly. "Tell me where Ranma is."

Genma did not answer her, for in the span of mere seconds from the time her spatula touched the ground, he had passed out.

"How dare you," she growled, wrenching him into a sitting position with a violent jerk of his dogi.

His eyes opened blearily, and he muttered something she could not hear.

"What?!" she demanded. "Speak up!"

He slipped back into a dreamless state of unconsciousness without answering her.

"Bastard," she grunted. She leaned him forward, so that he sat more or less upright, his considerable girth preventing him from spilling all the way over onto his knees. She then hauled back the spatula and swung it with all her might.

The wide flat of the blade slapped into his face with a satisfying _smack_ of doughy flesh against steel. Genma's torso pitched over so that he was lying spread-eagle on the grass, his nose bleeding and starting to swell, and both his eyes graced with freshly purpling shiners.

Ukyou looked over the battered destroyer of her childhood and smiled grimly. Though Genma had not told her where she could find Ranma, she had an idea that would bring her long-lost fiance to her.

Nerima Confederation DropShip _Palomino_

Landing Pad #6, Aquila Starport

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

12 April 3025

Ryouga Hibiki looked after the battlemech that had once belonged to his erstwhile companion, Pansuto Tarou. They were planning on selling it in order to defray some of their expenses, Happousai's hospitilization being chief among them. They were going through with the sale in spite of the fact that for some unexplained reason, the Consulate had decided not to accept responsibility for Tarou.

Tarou's innocence or guilt was in question, and no one was willing to resolve the matter. With the siege of Capella, it was clear that ships moving over the border between the Federated Shiratori and the Nerima Confederation were going to be few and far between, and the Consulate itself had no actual jurisdiction to try Tarou for his alleged crime. That was the explanation Commander Saotome had put forward for the Consulate's change of heart, and Ryouga saw little reason to doubt it.

Captain Ninomiya had more pressing matters at hand than giving Tarou a trial, and so he remained in lockup on the _Palomino_. Lockup meant being consigned to his cursed form, mildly sedated, heavily shackled, and kept under continuous armed guard in the Number #1 'Mech Bay. He would have to keep until the Captain decided to try him, or else they were able to reach the Nerima Confederation and hand him over to the authorities - assuming of course that the Confederation had any authority remaining to it at that time.

The fanged mechwarrior tried to mask his regret at suggesting Tarou be held in his cursed form, but after watching Ranma slip his bonds with such ease after being splashed on Capra, it made sense. Tarou could pull no surprises on his captors if he was already in his monstrous Jusenkyo body, and they could control his access to hot liquids much easier than they could with cold. It was true that he was more dangerous in his cursed form, but at least those assigned to guard him could be trusted to keep their distance from him, and to shoot without hesitation should he somehow free himself.

He regretted it because he knew how lonely it must have been for Tarou. Since he was unable to speak in his monstrous form, he was essentially a prisoner of his own body. He was trapped, incapable of communicating beyond grunts, growls, and mournful howls.

In truth, he could not blame Tarou for trying to kill Happousai. He himself wanted the old freak dead as much as his companion did. Tarou's only crime lay in getting caught.

"Mechwarrior Hibiki, sir," a soft voice called to him. He froze at the words, knowing that they came from the lips of Senior Technician Akari Unryuu, the girl Happousai had once mocked him for admiring.

"Y-Yes?" he asked, turning to face her.

"May I ask what you were thinking about?" she inquired. He found himself staring at the delicate streaks of pink that ran down the fall of her walnut colored hair from her temples.

"Um, thinking?" he managed weakly.

"You seem upset about something," she observed.

"I guess so," he replied. For the last several days she had been close at hand whenever he was around a battlemech, particularly his own, and he was starting to get the worrisome impression that she liked him. It was worrisome because he thought she was sort of cute, and very nice, even if she was completely hung up on battlemechs - and especially because he found himself acting like a complete fool in her company, which was rather like the way he did when he was around Akane.

Akari turned away, sensing his reluctance to talk about the matter. "Forgive me, sir," she demurred. "I shouldn't pry."

"Um, well," he mumbled. "It's no trouble. No harm done."

"Thank you, sir," she said, the corners of her mouth rising slightly. "I was wondering, sir, if you would be so kind as to accompany me on a final inspection tour of the Hunchback. It would not do for us to sell a battlemech that wasn't in the best possible condition that we could achieve within our means."

Ryouga found himself nodding.

She brushed lightly at her coveralls before drawing a notepad and stylus from her breast pocket. Her dark eyes seemed to glitter in the afternoon sunlight. "Shall we begin then?" Her attitude towards him seemed to change from meekly subordinate to cheerfully companionable in an instant with her query.

"L-Lead the way," he said to her.

He regretted his decision to follow, for his eyes fell upon her shapely rump as she scaled the gantry ladder around the scaffolding for the Hunchback, and followed her every movement. His face reddened with shame as he realized that he was ogling her, but he could not bring himself to look away. Happousai's admonition that he needed to get laid more often - at all, he reflected sadly - came back to haunt him.How can I think these thoughts about another girl when I have such strong feelings for Akane? he asked himself.

Akari reached the top of the gantry, oblivious to his hungry eyes. When she turned to him, he managed somehow to affect a look of intense concentration for the job at hand - for her sake as much as for his.

"The sensor package needs work," she began, and he nodded mutely in agreement. She pointed out the sensitive photonics through open access panels. "I can replace the telescopic suite fairly cheaply, but the radar might have to be left as is. Tacticon Tracer systems are rare items in the Federated Shiratori."

"It can't be helped," he said with as much authority as he could muster.

Akari pointed out several discrepancies with the Hunchback's Tomodzuru Type-20 autocannon.

"The external reloading mechanism is sticky," she said to him. "In fact there is one round still in the magazine that we weren't able to remove, so we haven't been able to fully inspect the weapon."

"Really?" he asked, looking down into the large armored port in the battlemech's namesake bulging back. He could see the 210mm shell sitting on the feed rollers just inside the port. "Tarou always said you needed to give it a good kick to knock things loose. Usually he meant for me to do it."

"Can you get it out?" she asked him hopefully. Her smile was warm enough to melt hardened steel.

He nodded while shyly taking off his tunic to avoid getting it dirty. Though he was graced with an impressive physique, he did so unthinkingly, and certainly not intending to impress her. The effect, however, was the same no matter his intentions.

Closing his eyes for a moment in concentration, he kicked the feed rollers hard in the usual spot. The shell came loose, and rolled out to the hard-stop detente at the edge of the port. He bent down at the knees and hefted the massive discarding-sabot cannon round up into a flawless clean-and-jerk lift, and set it onto his broad shoulders with a grunt.

"I'll go put it with the others," he said, oblivious to the look of awe he was receiving from Akari. He started down the gantry ladder with the shell across his shoulders, his fingers sinking into the semihard caseless gelatine propellant block. Sweat formed a sheen on his arms, back, and chest from the effort.

"Hubba hubba hubba!" a girl's voice cried out in appreciation, and he turned with embarassment as the two Air Lance pilots, Yuka and Sayuri, rolled down the DropShip's cargo bay ramp in an open-topped ATV. Sayuri waved to him as Yuka tried not to wreck the vehicle while staring at his rippling muscles.

"Hey, Ryouga!" Sayuri called to him. "Is that an armor-piercing shell on your shoulders, or are you just happy to see us?" Her finger pointed to the sharp tip of the superhard tungsten-carbide-lined penetrator dart that gleamed dully in the sunlight from within the ridged discarding-sabot sleeve. The phallic references implied in her remark were not lost, even on Ryouga.

"Oh, Sayuri," Yuka scolded her companion. "Don't tease the poor guy. You know he's soooooo dreamy..."

"Definitely yummy," Sayuri agreed, licking her lips. "You know how I like my beefcake rare..." The two reluctantly drove off down the tarmac for the distant gate into town.

Ryouga, his face a deep crimson from more than just the exertion, could only stand while holding the shell in a pose that he hoped wasn't too statuesque, and watched them go. If it weren't for the fact that those two were known to be ruthless teases by the crew of the _Palomino_, he would have been a total wreck. He was not accustomed to girls adoring him.

"Ryouga, dear!" Akari called to him from high above. "Is everything okay?"

He almost dropped the shell. She called him dear! How many times in his life had a woman other than his mother called him that? His knees began to buckle at the implications.

"Uh, ah, no problem!" he called back, unable to meet her eyes with his own.

Slowly, carefully, he set the shell down into a wooden packing crate with the others before he dropped it. The ammunition would have to be moved into the Ship's Magazine soon, as it was a safety hazard sitting out in the open unprotected. A forklift stood on the tarmac nearby for the job, and he pondered using it as an excuse to escape Akari until he could think the situation over.

"Ryouga, dear! Could you please come up? I need help with one of the access panels."

Every nerve in his body began to tingle at the sound of her voice. Twice! Twice she had called him 'dear!' It could not have been unintentional for her to have said that twice!

"Ryouga, you idiot!" he said to himself. Then, internally, he continued his monologue.

How can you even think about walking away from her? he asked himself. How many girls have _ever_ showed interest in me? I've been wandering the Inner Sphere as a mercenary for years without finding someone whose favor I could bear.

But Akane! another part of him cried. How can you two-time her like this?

"But I'm not two-timing her," he muttered to himself. "You can't two-time someone who's with someone else - even when that someone else is a thoughtless, totally egotistical jerk like Ranma..."

"Ryouga?" Akari's voice was filled with concern.

"Ah, er, I'm coming!" he cried. He spun around and began walking in what he thought was the right direction. Instead of the gantry ladder, he began climbing up the ramp to the DropShip's cargo bay.

"Where are you going, Ryouga?" she asked him. He turned around and stared dumbly at Akari, who was now almost at eye level with him.

"Um... Ooops?"

He started back down the ramp, his face beet red.

"You big silly," she chuckled, and he nearly tripped down the ramp. First 'dear,' and now 'silly?' This was serious!

She was waiting for him with a torque wrench in her small graceful hands when he finally managed to climb the staging that surrounded the Hunchback.

"I couldn't get the bolts broken on this panel," she pointed out in an all-business tone. Then her voice sweetened. "Could you do it for me?"

_I am putty in your hands_... Ryouga thought as he took the torque wrench from her and set to work.

Akane's cell phone began to ring. As they had planned on being stuck on Tiber for weeks, Genma had decided to purchase a dozen phones and a bulk subscription package to allow the crew to remain in contact away from the DropShip.

"You gonna answer that?" Ranma asked her. He despised the idea of carrying one of the things.

She fished the tiny phone out of her handbag. "Of course I am." She flipped it open and set it to receive the call.

"Hello?"

"Where are you, Akane?" It was Sayuri's voice.

She looked around for a street sign. They were walking east along the edge of the park, towards the center of town.

"Sowell Boulevard," she said into the phone. "We're on the north side of Aquila Park."

"Stay there. Yuka and I are on our way to pick you up."

Akane began to look concerned. "Is something wrong?"

"It's not something that we can talk about on an open frequency."

Now she frowned. Though the phones had some of the best encryption standards available, Genma knew from experience that the Cult of Azusa had forced the F-S's various service providers to give them access to the decryption keys. Because of this, they had to observe specific security protocols of their own, and that meant certain topics were taboo over the ether.

Whatever Sayuri needed them for, it was important enough to keep it to themselves.

"Okay," she replied coolly. "We'll be waiting."

"What's up?" Ranma asked. He had been stuck following only Akane's side of the conversation.

"I don't know," she replied. "I guess we'll find out."

They weren't kept waiting long. Yuka and Sayuri drove past, missing them at first, and then shifting over to the far left lane to pull a u-turn at the next light.

When they came back around, they were ready for them.

"Hop in," Sayuri said, giving Ranma a narrow look as she did so.

Ranma, feeling self-conscious under Sayuri's glare, helped Akane into the back of the ATV before leaping in.

"What's going on?" Akane asked as Yuka pulled out into traffic.

"The Consulate called the ship," Sayuri began. "Apparently, Commander Saotome decided to get roaring drunk downtown, and then got mugged. The local police have him in custody for public intoxication. They say they'll release him to us if we plead no contest and pay his fine."

Akane looked to Ranma, who shook his head slowly and shrugged.

"You were right," she said to him.

"I know my old man," Ranma returned. "I say we let him rot there for the rest of the day and get him in the morning. A night in jail will serve him right."

"He's supposed to speak with Captain Ninomiya tonight over the radio to discuss the drydock schedule," Sayuri pointed out. "It's not like she can catch a shuttle down from orbit just to speak with him in the town jail." She seemed to approve of Ranma's attitude towards his father, however, and her near-constant look of mild disgust for him softened.

"Well then," Ranma muttered. "I guess we go spring him."

The police were holding Genma in the 1st Precinct, a solid looking building set near downtown and just far enough out from the heart of the city to allow access by road traffic. Yuka and Sayuri waited in a secure lobby on the first floor as Ranma and Akane were inspected and sent through a metal detector to receive custody of Genma Saotome.

"He's being held on a charge of public intoxication," the police sergeant who escorted the two mechwarriors pointed out.

"We know," Ranma replied gruffly.

"What do we have to do about that?" Akane asked.

"It's a misdemeanor charge, so all you have to do is fill out the defendant's portion of the citation and go over to the City Court Clerk's Office to pay the fine. It's a hundred imperials for a first offense." He shrugged. "Unless you want to fight it, in which case you still have to go over to the Clerk's Office to set up a court date."

"We'll pay the fine," Akane declared.

"Probably for the best," the cop agreed.

"We were told he got mugged," Ranma said to him. "Is he okay?"

"Two black eyes and a broken nose," he said to Ranma. "The medics checked him out, and it doesn't look too serious. In fact, we don't know for sure that he was mugged. He had a lot of cash on him when we found him, and he was face down on the cement." The police sergeant gave them a noncommital gesture with his hands. "It's possible that he was so drunk, he just passed out and fell flat on his face."

"Sounds like Pop," Ranma agreed.

"You said he had a lot of money on him?" Akane asked, and shot Ranma a knowing look.

"Close to five thousand imperials," the policeman replied. They were passing into the holding cells now. "That's why we aren't sure it was a mugging, unless the person who called it in to the emergency dispatch scared the mugger off before he could rob him. Whoever called it in didn't stick around to tell us anything, though."

"What did my Pop have to say about it?" Ranma asked.

"He doesn't remember anything about the incident," the sergeant said. "We gave him a detox shot when we brought him in, but he's still a little buzzed. That must have been some bender he was on." He reached into his pocket and handed Ranma a card. "This is a number you can call for some counseling for him on alcoholism. If you're interested."

"Thanks." Ranma stuffed it into his pocket. There was no way in hell that Pop would ever go to an A.A. meeting.

Genma Saotome sat silently in one of the jail's two drunk tanks. He was watching a game show on a small closed-circuit television with the sound turned all the way down. His face was bruised and puffy in spite of the anti-inflammatories the medics had given him. A white bandage crossed the bridge of his nose and held the bones in place.

"Hey, Pop," Ranma said to him. "We're here to spring you."

Genma turned to face his son, and looked relieved.

"You do your poor father proud," he grunted.

"Shove it," Ranma shot back. "If it was up to me, you'd be rotting here until tomorrow morning."

The police sergeant unlocked the cell door and instructed Genma to step out. The portly elder Saotome did so slowly, as if each step were painful.

"You look like hell," Ranma observed.

"Honestly, Mister Saotome," Akane added. "What possessed you to do something like this?"

Genma gave them both hurt looks.

"Neither of you could hope to understand..." he said cryptically. He turned to the policeman. "What do I need to do to get out of here?"

"I've already explained the legal process to your son," he replied. "As for you, you need to come with me and retrieve your personal effects. We'll also take a statement from you if you so choose, but I'm required to inform you that anything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law should you choose to challenge the citation."

"I don't think he can handle it," Ranma interrupted. "Why don't I go get his stuff, and he can make his way to the door. We aren't going to challenge nothing, so he ain't got nothing to say." He gave his father an angry look. "Right, Pop?"

The policeman looked to Genma to see if he agreed with what his son had said.

"The boy's right," Genma said, casting a hopeless look of shame in Ranma's direction. "Just let me sign the citation and we'll be on our way. You can release my things to him."

"As you wish," the policeman replied. He motioned for Ranma to step through a door at the other end of the holding facility and handed him the release order. "Please follow me, Mister Saotome."

Ranma thumbed through the legal-sized manilla envelope as they drove down the Expressway towards the Starport. Though they had hotel rooms in town, it was decided that Genma needed to dry out for awhile, and that meant staying on the DropShip.

"So how much did you embezzle from the Confederation Treasury, huh, Pop?" he asked his father as they drove. Sayuri turned back to face them for a moment in consternation.

"You can count," Genma replied sourly.

"I'll do that."

Ranma pulled out the fat wad of freshly printed Federated Shiratori scrip. E-money would have been more convenient, but left a data trail that was easy to follow. Bills made laundering the money a simple task.

"There's about forty-six hundred in local cash currency here," he announced. "Plus a receipt from the Palatine branch of the Bank of Sol for a five thousand C-bill deposit in your name. Not bad, Pop. Just enough to live the good life here without taking so much as to be noticed by the Consulate."

"This is shameful," Akane scolded. "I thought you were supposed to be helping the Confederation, not stealing from us."

"I was weak!" Genma wailed. "I admit it! _You_ try life as an impoverished mercenary for twenty years and see what it does to you."

"You don't see Ranma doing something like this, do you?" Akane retorted. Yuka and Sayuri gave each other funny looks as she said this. Ranma began to shrink into the rear bench seat next to his father.

"You don't want to know some of the things Ranma has been a party to with me," Genma grumbled.

Akane was taken aback, but just for a moment. "If Ranma has done anything wrong in his life, it was because you failed to be a good example for him!"

"Hey, easy now, Akane," Ranma said to her gently. "Let's just drop this whole thing, okay? We'll pay the money back to the Consulate before we leave the system, and that will be that. No one's gonna miss the few hundred he already spent."

"I suppose," she agreed. Ever since Ranma's suspicions of his father's embezzlement had been confirmed, she had felt betrayed. She was furious with the man, and wanted to have it out with him.

Ranma went back to looking at the money. The bills were paper thin pieces of plastic with Goddess-Empress Azusa Shiratori's face plastered over most of the available surface not actually needed for such things as watermarks, holograms, serial numbers, and the bill's denomination. Thoughts of having to invade Azusa's Inner Sanctum to get the sixth key made him shudder, but he found himself oddly fascinated with the idea of a culture that could deify a spoiled brat like her.

"Hey, check this out," he cried in astonishment as he flipped through the wad once more.

"What is it, Ranma?" Akane asked him.

"These are supposed to be fresh bills from the bank, right?" he asked.

"I guess so."

"Someone wrote on one of them," he said, pointing to the ink scrawl over Azusa's forehead. "It looks like a phone number." He turned to his father and showed him the bill. "Does this look familiar?" he asked him. "Did you meet someone in the bar?"

Genma shook his head. "I don't remember a damn thing," he replied. "It could be anything."

"It's probably nothing," Akane said.

"Maybe," Ranma returned. "Maybe not. I'm gonna call the number when we get back to the ship."

"What are you saying, boy?" Genma asked tersely.

"I'm not saying anything, Pop. But, if you weren't planning on two-timing Mom with whoever is on the other end of this phone number, you've got nothing to worry about, right?"

Genma flushed crimson. He honestly didn't remember meeting anyone, much less getting their phone number, but it wouldn't be the first time he had succumbed to the loneliness of the life of an itinerant mercenary.His sexless, repressed, wussy of a son just didn't understand! Maybe if he actually got up the guts to screw Akane and thus find out how great sex was, he might finally cut his poor father some slack!

"Speak up, Pop," Ranma pressed.

"Go ahead and call," Genma grunted. "It means nothing to me."

"Fine," he agreed. "I'll do that."

"Let it go, Ranma," Akane said quietly to him. They were on the Flight Deck, which was currently deserted with the ship secure on the ground and its reactor shut down.

Ranma reached for the ship-to-shore telephone anyway.

"Why should I?" he asked sullenly.

"Because all you're doing is setting yourself up to get hurt," she told him. "If that phone number is what you think it is, that's exactly what will happen."

He gripped the receiver tightly in his hand and unfolded the hundred-imperial bill with the phone number.

"Why couldn't he have just gone home to Mom if he was so lonely?" he muttered to himself. "Why does he keep doing this to me?"

Akane rested a reassuring hand on his arm.

"I don't know why, Ranma," she said to him. "I think the only person who can answer that question is your father."

"Fat chance," he spat. "All I ever get from him is lectures. 'Do as I say and not as I do,' and bullshit like that."

"If you know he's cheating on your mother, and that he's not going to stop, then why do you keep trying to find out about it? If what you say is true, it won't make any difference, so why bother?"

"I need to know," he said to her coldly, "so I can look my old man in the eye every time he fucks up, and let him know how much I despise him for it."

Akane drew away from him. Here was something about her fiancee that she wished she did not know. Was this just a taste of what marriage would be like? Finding out about all the dark corners in your spouse's life, the hateful things and dirty little secrets that were best left unsaid, whether you wanted to or not?

Was there a deeper reason behind why Ranma was so against their eventual marriage? Had his father forever poisoned him against marriage by his own shoddy example?

She discovered that as she thought about these things, she had come to her own realization regarding their engagement. Whether she loved him or not - and she was still very unsure of her true feelings for him - she was willing to marry him someday as per her father's wishes. The thought of getting married soon did not appeal to her, but maybe in five years or so she felt she could bring herself to do it.

This realization was coupled with the knowledge that any marriage to Ranma Saotome was going to have its rocky moments, and especially so if it was a loveless one. She would need to bring to bear all of her devotion to her people to make it last if that was the case, and she wondered once again if her father had even bothered to think the idea through when he first agreed to joining their families. It was much easier for him, she decided. His marriage to Mom had been a happy conjunction of love and politics - a rare enough occurrance in the Inner Sphere.

Ranma punched in the numbers on the phone.

"Hello?" a female voice answered. Ranma cringed, because she sounded pretty cute.

"Hello?" the voice asked again.

Stifling a curse, he spoke. "I heard you met my father," he said into the receiver. "You left your number on a hundred-imperial note. I just thought I'd call and say hi."

There was a cold silence on the other end of the line. He could feel an intense hatred there, wherever it was.

"You still there?" he asked her.

"Ranma Saotome..." the voice replied, and Ranma decided that she no longer sounded cute. "Meet me tomorrow evening in Aquila Park. Twenty o'clock sharp, by the statue of Karl Tiber on the east side of the lake. Come alone."

The line clicked dead.

"Are you satisfied?" Akane asked him tersely.

Ranma blinked a few times in disbelief. That was not at all what he had been expecting.

"I ain't sure," he replied distantly. What the hell was going on? Who the hell was this girl, and how did she know his name? He started to punch in the number again, before finally hanging up the phone. Whoever that girl was, she had already set the conditions for their next conversation.

He wanted answers, and so he intended on being there.

Ukyou Kuonji set down her personal cell phone, her body trembling.

She had just spoken to Ranma Saotome, her childhood sweetheart, after more than ten years. She tried to imagine what he looked like by the sound of his voice, a voice that had been tinged with anger and something else. She knew what it was because she had lived with it all her life.

Pain.

She found it disconcerting. Here she was, preparing to exact revenge on him for more than ten years of misery and humiliation, and he sounded just as hurt and miserable as she did. Where was the revenge in kicking someone who was down?

It was the reason why she had not killed Ranma's despicable father, Genma, and the reason why she had contented herself with just one good blow rather than beating him to a pulp as she had dreamed of doing for so long. Was she going to be any more capable of giving Ranma the thrashing he deserved for abandoning her than his father? Or had the gods merely pulled a bait and switch, goading her with the chance for obtaining her revenge and then denying her any satisfaction in the deed?

There was only one way to find out, she decided. She would go to the park tomorrow night and see just what kind of man Ranma Saotome had become. Then she would know if her revenge would bring her any release from pain.

Free Trader _Don Maestro Domingo Diaz de la Vega y Martin _

_de Valencia y Avila el Conquistador y Gruzado la Montana,_

Bangalore System Nadir Jump Point

Bangalore System, the Federated Shiratori

13 April 3025

The Merchant Class JumpShip _Don Maestro Domingo Diaz de la Vega y Martin de Valencia y Avila el Conquistador y Gruzado la Montana_, besides having a long-winded Spanish name, was also one of the most profit-minded spy ships Shampoo had ever heard of. The ship was supposed to be transporting herself and Mousse to the Palatine System in time to catch the Saotomes, whose JumpShip was currently undergoing repairs. Now, a single Jump from the Palatine System, the starship lingered at the Jump Point while its master conducted trade with the planet's capitol city.

She realized that the ship's crew were supposed to be under cover as merchants, but it appeared to her that they were taking their cover a little too seriously. What good was extra money in their pockets when it meant that she would fail yet again in her mission? Her great-grandmother was gambling everything on success. Had she gambled in vain?

The crew itself knew nothing of her mission. Only the Captain knew why they were aboard, and he was currently on the planet selling his cargo. The crew's instructions were to keep the ship's two passengers comfortable and out of the way while the ship conducted its business.

Shampoo didn't mind the privacy, but it disturbed her to realize how helpless she was. She couldn't even send a message to her great-grandmother, as the ship did not possess an HPG array, and they were not to leave the ship until they reached the Palatine System. They were dead weight until then, 'scrubber loads' as far as the crew was concerned - the derogatory term for anyone whose existence aboard ship was simply that of a drain on the life support systems.

Of course, 'privacy' was a relative term. The small stateroom on the Grav Deck she occupied was shared with Mousse.

One thing was for certain, he was still the changed man he had been when he first came aboard the _Jade Lotus_, a day that seemed so long ago after all that she had been through. He was quiet and maudlin most of the time, lacking in all of his old affection for her. He still loved her, it was clear by the fact that he had sacrificed everything to help her, but his love was now carefully guarded. He pled ignorance to her many questions regarding the mission, lending her to suspect that he knew far more than he pretended, and was probably playing on her suspicions to keep himself indispensible to her.

How well he knows me, she observed as she considered this. The moment she discovered the full extent of his knowledge, he knew she would abandon him. A search of his belongings for materials related to this desperate endeavor had proven fruitless. He must have committed everything to memory.

It was possible, she supposed, that she might be able to seduce it out of him. She would have to play that card very carefully, however. The old Mousse, sappy, cloying, and worshipful, would have been an easy mark for her feminine wiles. The new Mousse was wounded and wary, and therefore armored against her. Discovering and exploiting the chinks in that armor would require careful observation and boundless patience.

If nothing else, she told herself, I have plenty of time.

She drew herself up from the room's single chair, set upon her new course of action.

Mousse was currently in the shower. Shampoo could hear the sound of water splashing as she entered the Head, where she knew she could find him because he had left their stateroom with his toiletry kit and towel. None of the crew were present; it was just the two of them.

She slipped out of her clothes and set them neatly on the short bench outside the communal shower bay. Mousse continued to bathe. His face was directly in the spray of the water, and he was oblivious to her. She watched him for a moment, admiring the way his long black hair spilled over his shoulders and down his strong back, reaching all the way to a tight, athletic butt that she grudingly admitted was nice to look at. If there was a scar on his back from Herb's punishment of him, his hair obscured it from her view.

She licked her lips nervously, knowing that her performance had to be perfect, and stepped over the tiled sill that separated the shower bay from the changing area. Mousse heard her bare feet padding over the wet tile, and turned to face her with a look of astonishment.

"Shampoo?" he asked, his eyes drifting down her naked body and lingering in those places men found particularly interesting on women.

"What is it, Mousse?" she asked in a bored tone of voice. She took the showerhead two down from his own and turned the water on as if she were completely alone.

He appeared somewhat crestfallen at her projection of ennui.

"I, uh, I'm just surprised to see you here. That's all."

"Surprised that I bathe?" she asked with a come-hither look. There was a teasing quality to her voice now, which made him suppress a shiver of excitement. A thin smile graced her lips as she noted that another part of his anatomy was starting to betray his true feelings. "Why should you be surprised about that?"

She returned to wetting her body in preparation for scrubbing without apparently caring if he responded. Mousse remained silent, his face starting to burn because he could not stifle his growing erection, and because she was right there to see it. Unwilling to do what first came to mind to ease his affliction, which was turn on the cold water full blast, he settled for turning away from her.

She suppressed a chuckle at this. So far her plan was working as she had intended. This little taste of her naked flesh was designed to provoke his feelings of love and desire for her, and was carefully seasoned with the slightest hint that she might not be as cold to him now as she once was. It was important that she not overdo it, as it might provoke his suspicion instead.

She began to bathe in earnest now, lathering and scrubbing as if she were the only person in the shower. She did not linger in her task, knowing that she couldn't get him too worked up. Of course, a healthy rebuff of any advances he might make could still work in her favor later. It just depended on how heavy-handed he played it. She didn't expect much subtlety from him.

He surprised her by not doing anything untoward. Instead he rinsed, shut off the water, and started awkwardly for the changing area. Her eyes fell upon his back in that moment, and behind the wet locks of hair she saw a livid flash of bright pink scar tissue against his pale olive complexion.

Pink's assessment of the scar was understated, she realized. It looked like a terrible burn that had healed over with only the crudest of skin grafts. What had the General done to him? she wondered. His sudden change in attitude towards her finally made sense. He had suffered torture for her sake, and her treatment of him had been as shabby as always. That would have been enough to make her change her tune, had their positions been reversed, but still the man loved her. He was just more guarded about it now than before.

She felt somewhat guilty about that.

He toweled off in the changing area, casting furtive looks in her direction as she continued bathing. She caught him cold once, and instead of frowning as he might have expected her to do, she offered him a sly look that could have been interpreted several ways. Let him guess what she meant by it.

Kaneohe Beach, Maui Atoll

Planet New Hawaii, Alpha Centauri System

The Furinkan Combine

13 April 3025

"It's been days, cousin," Tetsuo Gosunkugi observed blearily. "How much longer can this party go on?"

"What was that?" Hikaru asked. He lay on his back in the damp sand with an empty half-coconut in his hand that stank of rum punch, and a Force Five Hangover raging within the confines of his skull. His clothes were wet and sandy, and his skin chafed from exposure to sun and seawater. He blinked when he remembered to.

"Hey bruddahs," Kuno called to them. The man had an inexhaustable stamina when it came to partying. He was currently dressed in a day-glo yellow half-body wetsuit and carried a humungous pineapple-patterned surfboard that was at least four meters long. The tiny bonsai palm tree surgically grafted to the top of his head seemed to twitch with excitement. "You awake yet? We go surfin' now. De tides, dey coming in, no shit. Dis be Tube City in another hour, you watch, brah." He gave them appraising looks. "You go get changed, yah?"

Hikaru shook the cobwebs from his head and tried to remember what day it was. He remembered the sun coming up at least twice. Given the forty hour cycles of New Hawaii's day, that meant...

"Gods above and below!" he cried. "It's the Thirteenth if not later!"

"Huh?" Tetsuo murmured. He had apparently gone back to sleep in the interim.

"We've been here four days by the standard calendar!" Hikaru cried. He looked around for his soldiers. They lay scattered about the beach asleep, some with the Shogun's girls in their arms. The sundry debris of a marathon luau lay scattered among them.

What was even more shocking, was that despite his troops' dereliction of duty, the Shogun had made no attempt to escape. The man was either a complete and total nut case, or else he was very, very clever. Hikaru was not certain at this point which, but his suspicions were starting to favor the latter.

He had succeeded in delaying them at least four calendar days from taking him away from New Hawaii and packing him off as a hostage of the League of Five Nails. In that time, Tatewaki Kuno was surely making his way back through captured Confederation space to the Furinkan Combine. While it was no secret that there was little love between father and son, Hikaru knew at the very least that Tatewaki would be coming to avenge the insult the League had given him with its invasion.

"You're setting us up, aren't you?" Hikaru said accusingly to his host/hostage.

The Shogun of the Furinkan Combine looked offended.

"You get first class kama'aina treatment, brah," Kuno returned in protest. "Plenty o' food, booze, music, and da kine wahines, yah?"

Hikaru turned to his cousin. "Get the men up and moving. Signal to my DropShip for an immediate dustoff, and I want a report from my staff on Prince Kuno's whereabouts."

Tetsuo pulled himself upright.

"At once, cousin."

"One more thing," Hikaru said slowly.

"Name it."

Hikaru Gosunkugi squinted at the sun with his watery, bloodshot eyes.

"Get me some ibuprofen. A whole bottle of it."

Firebase LIBERTY

The moon of Oni, orbiting Shounetsu Jigoku

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

10 April 3025

"The burial detail has returned, General Tendo."

Kasumi Tendo looked up from a draft of her detailed action report, and regarded the young staff officer who addressed her. She was barely sixteen, with long brown hair pulled into a ponytail, and a look on her face that told Kasumi this girl was on her first deployment from home. Just twenty-two herself, she tried to remember if she had ever been that young.

"Thank you, Lieutenant Grace," she said to her.

The young lieutenant took this as her cue to leave. She did so reluctantly, as if hoping for another word from her beloved commander. Kasumi wished she could have found something to say.

Their dead were now entombed in three mass graves near the accesses to the base. It had become more and more apparent that they were going to be stuck on Oni for awhile, and the fallen needed to be tended to. She had ordered them buried outside, knowing that the vacuum and cold would preserve their remains until such time as they could be exhumed and properly interred on Nerima. Even if the Confederation fell, Tatewaki Kuno could be expected to grant his defeated enemies that courtesy.

Later, when time permitted, she would don a pressure suit and walk among the buried dead as she had done in the makeshift morgue. There had been no public memorial for them, nor could there be until the fighting was over. Her private prayers of mourning would have to suffice. It was the best she could do until an acceptable resolution presented itself.

The Combine's radio jamming had effectively cut her off from communication with her father's forces on Nerima, leaving her without instructions from higher authority. With a Furinkan Combine blocking force preventing an easy retreat from the moon, she had decided to maintain her position, using the time to reorganize her shattered units and repair what combat mecha they could before the next major attack.

Thus far the Combine had been content to keep her bottled up on Oni, using random probes of her defensive perimeters to assess her strength and to keep her occupied. Where the main body of the Combine forces had gone in the meantime, she did not know. Fragmentary reports from her GunShip squadrons had confirmed that the majority of the Combine's ground attack forces had Jumped out of the system, leaving only the Combine Navy to maintain the blockade.

It was a remarkable turn of events, and she did not know who to thank for it. Perhaps the Jusenkyo Commonwealth had taken advantage of Kuno's daring invasion of the Confederation, and launched one of their own into the heart of the Combine? It was all just speculation at this point, but as long as the Capella System remained in Confederation hands, there was hope.

Colonel Mukaida entered her tiny office with a knock, his gaunt face looking paler than usual.

"We've established a line-of-sight lasercomm link with the GunShips _Leyte Gulf_, _Cowpens_, and _Cold Harbor_," Mukaida said to her. "We have a three hour window of communications with Nerima before their respective orbits put them out of position in the daisy chain."

Kasumi flushed with relief. They had been trying to establish this link for days without success. The Combine had GunShips of its own prowling the dark reaches of interplanetary space, searching for the Confederation vessels. Being a mechwarrior, she could hardly imagine the silent cat and mouse games those ships played with each other in the void.

She punched at the terminal built into her desk. "Wonderful," she said to the colonel. She then addressed the commo tech on her display. "Are we through yet?"

"We're just now getting a signal," the tech replied. "There's going to be about a three minute lag between points, ma'am."

"Send our data first," Kasumi told him. She tapped at her function pad briefly, sending her action report to his station. "We can exchange pleasantries after."

"Yes, ma'am," the tech replied. "Sending all data over the encrypted bands now. Estimated time of transmission, fourteen minutes."

Kasumi nodded in reply. The encryption was a time-consuming nuisance, and in this case, not technically needed. Since they were sending via laser light, it would require a Combine ship to be in the direct path of the transmission for them to intercept it. Her real concern was Nabiki's agents getting hold of the data once it reached headquarters.

Every instinct told her to have her middle sister detained before leaving for Oni, but Nabiki had been clever enough to avoid directly incriminating herself in any form of wrong-doing. There was no legal basis for holding Nabiki, and the best she had managed in her appeals to Father was to have her sister's security clearance and official duties stripped pending an investigation. It would blunt Nabiki's overt probes into the affairs of the Confederation, but Kasumi doubted that she lacked for other resources.

The City of Gondolin

Planet Nerima, Capella System

The Nerima Confederation

11 April 3025

Nabiki Tendo kept on the move.

Though there was no warrant out for her arrest, she was smart enough to operate as if one could be issued at any time. She spent a lot of time in vehicles; from ground-effect limousines to a flock of rented helicopters and tilt-rotor aircraft, and she always had more than one way out of the city if she needed it. She maintained her communications links through privately owned cellular phones, purchased under pseudonyms, and paid for with anonymous blocks of service time purchased with cash through every cell-phone provider in the city at ten different convenience stores.

There was no doubt in her mind that she was living in the most dangerous time of her life. The termination of her position as Chief of Intelligence and the suspension of her security clearance was intended as a warning from her father and eldest sister that they suspected her of treachery. At first she had resented the move for the crimp it put in her intelligence collection efforts, but it did not take her long to feel grateful for their futile wrist-slapping.

If she had been running the show, there would have been no warning. There would have been arrests, not warnings. It may have proved that blood was thicker than water, but in the 31st Century, such sentiments more often than not led to palace coups...

Now she was playing a waiting game. For some asinine reason, Tatewaki Kuno had left the system in a rush with most of his invasion force. She needed decisive action from him if her plot was going to have any chance of succeeding, and his desertion had left her in the lurch with the nobles, who were really getting anxious. What the hell was going on with him? She needed him to keep the pressure on, because her father's futile defiance of the Combine was what she was counting on to spring her trap.

One of her phones rang. A bodyguard handed her the unit, then reached over to the bar and began mixing a drink for her. He must have had the feeling that she was going to need it. Outside the limousine the bright neon and liquid-crystal adverts of the city's entertainment district glittered in the cool summer evening darkness.

"Yes?" she asked with just enough venom to warn her caller that she was in no mood for bullshit.

It wasn't bullshit.

"Terrific," she spat into the receiver. "You tell that son of a bitch that I want to see him NOW. Not tomorrow, not later tonight, not even in an hour from now, but right goddamned NOW. Are we clear on this?"

She disconnected and accepted the drink from her bodyguard.

"Spineless assholes," she muttered between sips of her Chivas and Coke. "Instead of moving things forward, all I'm doing is putting out fires."

Count Baldur Thuringia of Tikonov was getting cold feet. She knew the others were just as bad as the addled Count, but he had been the first to start visibly cracking. If she did not immediately take action to secure his confidence, the others would bolt from her little camarilla en masse. It wouldn't be easy, for her position was weak, and with recent events he had every reason to be worried about the plot's chances for success.

That wasn't going to stop her from trying. If she did nothing, then he would certainly bolt, and the plot would unravel around her. Worse, he could go to the Grand Duke and expose her. A fat lot of good it would do him when the Combine conquered the Confederation, but a frightened man often overlooks these things in his haste to escape more immediate threats.

She keyed the limousine's intercom to speak to the driver. "Take me to the Alcazar Hotel." The Count was staying in the hotel at her insistance, rather than staying in the Castle as the other nobles who had come to Nerima for the final battle had done. Baldur really was the weakest link in the conspiracy, and she wanted him in a place where she could keep him in line.

The limousine took a left towards the starport, leaving the city's luminous entertainment district. It was odd, but even with the Furinkan Combine breathing down their necks, the place was as busy as ever. Perhaps it was the people of Gondolin enjoying their last days of self-rule before they became a vassal state of a vast new empire. Perhaps it was simply easier to ignore one's doom rather than face it with open eyes.

The Alcazar was a luxury hotel that often catered to visiting nobility. True to its namesake, it had been modeled after a Spanish castle from the period of pre-Jump Earth, if a little smaller than the original. The Count would have the penthouse floor reserved for himself and his senior officers. Most of his personal forces were encamped on the plains surrounding the city, close enough to reach Azure Cloud Castle quickly when the time came to declare Grand Duke Soun Tendo, Nabiki's own father, insane.

She had been so close to that moment, she reflected bitterly as the limousine descended down into an underground parking garage reserved for guests of the highest importance. All she was waiting for was news that Oni had fallen, and that the Combine was on its way towards Nerima. Any further resistance would have been clearly futile at that point, and her father's stubborn refusal to yield would have given her the opportunity she needed to publically denounce him as insane.

With Akane gone to who knew where, and Kasumi either killed in the battle for Oni or captured, she would have been the obvious successor to the Ducal throne. From that position she would turn over the Confederation to Kuno and thus end the stupid wasteful war between them. If, for some reason, Tatewaki chose to ignore her terms and take the planet by force, she would have her revenge. She had discovered the combination that would unlock the family's nuclear arsenal, and she would not hesitate to turn Kuno's invasion fleet and landing forces into radioactive vapors - the Ares Conventions and the consequences be damned!

It was a sobering thought, because the use of nuclear weapons on her homeworld both frightened and sickened her, but she would not go down quietly to any of Tatewaki's treachery, and she intended to let him know just how far she was prepared to go during the surrender negotiations. She wasn't asking for much, after all, just the Capella System in exchange for the rest of the Confederation's peaceful surrender.

The limousine came to a stop near the express elevator that went straight to the penthouse level. She needed to draw her focus inward, towards the present, rather than grim possible futures. She needed to reassure Count Thuringia, or at least browbeat him back into line, and that meant assuming an impenetrable mantle of strength.

Two of the Count's men were waiting at the elevator doors as she stepped out of the limousine. Her expression was distant, with a touch of her usual arrogance. Her bodyguards fell into step behind her, their eyes watching for any signs of treachery. There was always the possibility that the Count had already sold out, and would offer her up as a sign of good faith to the Grand Duke.

"His Excellency has stated his wish not to be disturbed," one of the men declared when she made to step past him.

She glared at him in return. A pang of fear knifed into her breast even as he began to wilt under her gaze. Had the Count already sold her out?

"His Excellency knows better than to deny me," she returned. "Step aside."

The man wavered for a moment, but held firm.

"I'm sorry, my lady."

Nabiki's lip curled into a sneer. "You will be, mister. Now step aside. Do not forget that the Count is my guest on this world."

The man wavered once more, his eyes darting to face his compatriot, who offered nothing in the way of assistance out of the situation.

"Last chance," she told them. This is getting worse, she thought. Unless Baldur was pulling some kind of power trip on her, there was every indication that he was more than simply nervous about the plot. She needed to talk to him, and with no further delay. Only then would she know what he had or had not done.

The men stood still, their trembling hands aching to reach for weapons. They dared not shoot down the daughter of the Grand Duke, nor could they take any other sort of physical action against her, and yet they were ordered to keep her from passing them.

Nabiki cocked her head towards her bodyguards, who lashed out with lightning speed to bear down on the two wavering men at the elevator with primed submachineguns. Nabiki stepped past the two hapless agents of the Count and into the elevator. Each of her bodyguards motioned for the men to join her, lest they sound an alarm in the time it would take to reach the penthouse.

She watched dispassionately as the two were forced down on their knees before her in the elevator, each with the muzzle of a fully automatic weapon pressed behind their ears. Her bodyguards pulled themselves just inside the doors, and then punched for the penthouse floor.

As the elevator rode up the shaft to the Count's apartments, Nabiki was talking on her cell phone. She felt like having a little more insurance in case things went badly from here.

The doors opened on the penthouse floor. Her bodyguards got off first, their weapons tucked back under their coats, but easily reached if need be. Nabiki stepped out imperiously, leaving the two men to cower in the elevator as the doors slid shut behind her.

They were not expected.

One of the Count's bodyguards began reaching for a phone as she approached. She could feel her own muscle men tensing at the sight, waiting for her orders. She decided to let the man call the Count. It would make him wonder about how she had managed to get this far, and perhaps would think twice about continuing to believe that he could avoid her.

The bodyguard spoke softly on the phone, then waited with nervous patience for instructions. Nabiki waited coolly, knowing that one way or another, she would see the Count. Her bodyguards were the epitome of impersonal menace.

Finally, the Count's bodyguard put down the phone.

"His Excellency will see you now," he told her, as if there had never been an edict against her visit.

"Marvelous," she replied. "You don't know how pleased I am to hear that."

Now came the moment of truth.

The bodyguard opened a set of double doors before her, and led her into the Count's parlor. The lighting was set low; several lamps of wrought iron and brass that glowed dully from the corners of the room, and the rest supplied by lamps illuminating oil paintings - some of which dated back to the Terran Hegemony.

The dark leather of the furnishings seemed to soak up what little light was available, and the deep pile carpeting absorbed the sound of their footsteps. The library was stocked with a selection of leatherbound and digital media books that she doubted the Count had the education or the temperament to appreciate. She noted that the bar was in use, with an assortment of glasses and decanters scattered about the hand-rubbed amaranth wood surface. Whatever discussion had recently taken place in this room, it had been a difficult one judging by all the booze consumed.

The first man to appear was Baldur's son, a young man of twenty-one with more bravado than brains, and who, by Nabiki's personal estimation, wasn't half as good in bed as he thought he was. That didn't stop her from fucking the living daylights out of him when the Count's party first arrived on Nerima. As she was well aware, Count Thuringia was the weakest link in the camarilla, and it was always good to have a loyal replacement waiting in the wings.

"Hello, Rolf," she purred for him. He returned her sloe-eyed look with one of piggish lust. A man of appetites more than ambitions, Rolf Thuringia would make, at best, a temporary replacement for his father if circumstances came to that. She had no intention of stringing him along any longer than absolutely necessary before turning him over to the mercy of relatives with a keener sense of politics than his. After the surrender to the Combine, it wouldn't matter an iota to her who actually held Tikonov's seat.

"Want a drink?" he asked her as she took the chair that would allow her to best dominate the rest of the room with her presence. His grating and hollowly insincere chumminess only served to remind her of how odious a chore sex had been with him.

"Please," she returned coolly. "I was having a Chivas and Coke when the necessity of this conference brought me here."

Rolf stepped around behind her to the bar, pausing long enough to look down her scoop-neck black satin top. Nabiki could feel his eyes plunging into the depths of her cleavage, and suppressed a cold shudder of disgust. Though he was fairly handsome, with rough angular features that a man of his tender years shouldn't have possessed, his very nature left her feeling as if she needed to bathe herself after every little contact - even visual.

She reflected briefly upon their one liaison, and wondered if she hadn't made a mistake in assuming that sex was the best way to approach the man. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on her part, because his libido had been the key to unlocking the nature of his relationship with his father. Which was to say that Rolf would have sold the man without batting an eye as long as he got to take over when the dust cleared. She was, of course, incapable of seeing that same quality in herself for the horrid thing that it was, and instead saw only opportunity in him.

Count Thuringia stepped into the parlor from his personal chambers as Rolf searched the bar in vain for a bottle of Chivas. He was accompanied by his aide de camp, a lieutenant colonel in the Confederation Army with a reputation as a petty schemer. The colonel was right up Nabiki's alley in most respects - ambitious, bright enough to be reliable, and of a suitably flexible moral character. With the present difficulties in regards to the Count, she now saw the colonel in a different light. He had hitched his star early to the Count, and was considered extremely loyal to the man. Should she decide to promote Rolf to Tikonov's seat, the colonel would have to be removed as well. She saw danger along that path, and resolved herself to find a solution to the problem as quickly as possible.

"I see you've made yourself at home," Baldur sniffed at beholding her in his favorite chair.

"This _is_ my home," she reminded him curtly. Rolf, having given up on finding any Chivas, returned with an ordinary bourbon and coke, and set it down on the end table by her elbow.

She sipped at the drink, her nose wrinkling slightly at how strong he had mixed it, and wondered if this wasn't some sophomoric attempt at getting her drunk for another round of the old in-and-out once his father went back to bed. She tried to keep a rein on her bile, and directed the scathing look she longed to give to Rolf at his father instead.

"I've heard some very disturbing things about you, your Excellency," she said to him, letting the implications of this hang between them.

"No doubt the reason you're here at this hour," Baldur returned.

"Do you want to tell me about it, or will I have to get it from you one question at a time?"

The Count sighed heavily and ordered his son to pour him a glass of brandy. Rolf did so sullenly, realizing at last that this was not going to be a social call on Nabiki's part.

"It's too dangerous," he said after taking a sip of the brandy. "We have to call the whole thing off."

"Nothing's happened yet," she returned, wondering what he knew. Her dismissal as Chief of Intelligence was not public knowledge as far as she was aware.

"The Grand Duke knows!" Baldur hissed. She could see the fear in his eyes, how it paralyzed him and made him a slave to his instincts. He hadn't sold her yet, she realized. He was just weak and stupid and afraid.

"My father doesn't know a thing," she countered coolly. "If he did, I'd be under arrest by now, and so would the rest of you. If you would pull yourself together for a moment, you'd realize that." She needed to coddle him a little, and see if it had any useful effect. If it looked like he would respond to her, she would be content to let things continue as planned. If not, there was always Rolf.

Baldur averted his eyes from her, and looked down into his glass of brandy.

"Oh he might suspect that I'm up to something," she went on. "But his suspicions will come to nothing as long as we all keep our mouths shut." She gave him a penetrating look that he did his best to withstand. "You _can_ keep your mouth shut, can't you, your Excellency?"

"Of course," he replied. "Of course I can."

"Good," she purred. She was not entirely satisfied with his response, but a little more encouragement might help. "You realize that our little arrangement is the best hope the nobles have of retaining their titles, don't you, your Excellency?"

"Yes, of course I do," Baldur replied. Like so many other nobles within the Confederation, his chief worry was the fear of Prince Kuno stripping them of their lands and titles and giving them to rivals, or worse yet, to the daimyo of the Furinkan Combine. Nabiki's plot, while treasonous, held out some measure of security for them that they would not otherwise have.

"Then I don't see why you're having second thoughts," she said to him. "Running away from our pact will gain you nothing in the end. Your _only_ hope for the future rests with me. As long as you do your part in this endeavor, we will succeed, and then we shall all reap the rewards of our efforts."

Baldur nodded slowly. Nabiki could see that there was still some lingering doubt within him.

"What is it?" she demanded.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked uneasily.

"I can see that you aren't entirely convinced," she returned. "I don't want to feel as if I'm wasting my time with you, your Excellency." Her eyes narrowed. She had played it soft with him, and now it was time to play it hard. "Take this any way you like, your Excellency, but understand that you are not irreplaceable within this pact."

Her eyes flicked briefly to Rolf, a gesture that went unnoticed by the Count. The colonel merely seethed in silence near the bar.

"You wouldn't..." Baldur muttered, realizing that she meant to replace him more than she meant to replace his role within the plot.

"I will," she replied coldly. "As long as I remain unconvinced of your dedication - not just to me, but to every other noble who has joined us." She gestured to herself. "_I_ won't have to lift a finger against you, your Excellency, should it come to that. Once the others realize what a threat you represent to their futures, well... I needn't go into details that you can surely provide for yourself."

His eyes trembled in their sockets, and she knew that, for the moment, she had him. Rolf would just have to wait a little longer for his chance, she decided.

"It's good to hear your voice, Father."

Grand Duke Soun Tendo cracked a wan smile on Kasumi's display. There was a three minute lag between the time she had spoken and the time he could reply, making the conversation that followed a painful exercise in patience.

"It's good to see my daughter safe and sound," he replied.

"Did you receive my reports?"

Soun nodded. "I haven't had the time to go over them. I felt it was more important to speak to you directly."

"Of course, Father. We continue to hold base LIBERTY. The other bases have fallen. Our casualties are high, but we are consolidating and reorganizing our remaining forces into effective units to continue the defense of Oni, or to effect a retreat if ordered to do so."

This last she let hang between them, as if hoping her father would indeed give the order to retreat.

"I understand," Soun replied. "I would gladly give the order to return to Nerima, but with recent developments..."

Kasumi bowed her head. She had expected this.

"Yes, sir," she returned. "We shall continue the defense of Oni."

"I'm sorry, Daughter," Soun said grimly. "Prince Kuno's withdrawal from the system has left us baffled, but we can't let an opportunity like this go. I've ordered a mission to Shounetsu Jigoku space to resupply your troops, and to allow you to evacuate your wounded. I'm sending what little I can to reinforce your position as well."

"What are my orders, Father?"

"Kasumi, you are to reestablish control of the moon. Intelligence indicates a modest enemy presence there, probably just enough to threaten your retreat. You are to attack and destroy that force. From there, you are to support a naval operation to harass the forces defending the Jump Points so that we might break the seige before Kuno can return."

Kasumi knew that without a great deal of reinforcements, liberating the Jump Points would be a tall order. Father had to know that. Perhaps it was his real intention to make the conquest of the Capella System so costly that Prince Kuno would withdraw rather than lose more men and materiel. The League of Five Nails and the Jusenkyo Commonwealth had to be watching this conflict, and assessing the Combine for weakness.

"I understand, Father," she said to him.

The Grand Duke's eyes began to water. "You make your father very proud, Daughter."

Kasumi bowed respectfully, her cheeks tinged with red.

"How are things on Nerima, Father?" she asked after an embarrassed moment of silence.

"As good as can be expected," he replied. "Morale is still high."

"And Nabiki?" She had to ask. She was going to have to stay on Oni for a little longer, and that meant only Father stood in her sister's way.

"I have taken your suggestion to heart and suspended her of her duties. Military Intelligence has taken over for her organization, and her people have been reassigned." Soun thought about this. "Of course, that meant only those who were on official payrolls."

"She won't be without resources," Kasumi agreed.

"Really, Kasumi," Soun harrumphed. "It's not like you to be this way regarding your sister. You don't know how hard it's been for me to even hear this kind of talk from you."

"I know, Father, but I wouldn't ask you to do such things if I felt they weren't justified. Nabiki was set on surrendering to the Combine in order to end the war. You remember her reaction when we agreed to allow Mister Saotome and his son to search for Ryuugenzawa, and she was furious when you honored your promise to marry one of us to Ranma."

Soun nodded slowly, his mustache drooping at the corners of his mouth.

"That I do. It doesn't make talk of treason any easier to hear. If it had come from any other lips than yours, I wouldn't have even listened."

"I know how hard it must be for you, Father," Kasumi assured him. "I don't like to think about it either, but I can't deny my conviction that she is plotting something terrible against you."

Soun gave her a dismissive gesture. "Fear not, Daughter. I've quietly banished Nabiki from the Castle and suspended her bank and credit accounts. She's living off of whatever she's managed to squirrel away for herself right now. When she runs out of money, she won't be as much of a threat."

"Be careful, Father. That might only make her more desperate."

"In any case," Soun continued. "She can't sell us out to the Combine with Prince Kuno off chasing his tail. The wait will hurt her more than us."

"If she does try something that you can hang on her, and fails, what will you do to her?"

Soun considered this for a moment.

"Exile, perhaps," he replied. "Maybe a few years in the South Tower. I don't know, Daughter. A year ago I wouldn't have even imagined such a possibility as a betrayal by my own flesh and blood. This is like some nightmare out of the early days of the First Succession War, when our family nearly ripped itself apart." Streams of tears fell down his face. "I had thought we were beyond that now..."

"One last question, Father," Kasumi pressed. "Before our time runs out. Have you heard anything from Akane?"

Soun looked away. "I received word from one of our foreign Consulates that she is alive and well. I dare not say where she is out of fear that somehow Prince Kuno will find out. Their expedition continues with some minor difficulties. That's all I know."

The transmission began to break up as the GunShips that maintained the lasercomm link drifted further and further out of alignment. They were risking so much already by maintaining such predictable orbits for so long.

"Take care of yourself, Daughter," he said to her. "Again, you make me proud."

"I will, Father," Kasumi replied. She brushed away a tear. "Good bye for now."

The transmission broke up, leaving her to wonder if her father would even receive her farewell.

Offworld Quarter, the City of Aquila

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

13 April 3025

Ranma Saotome was not a man at peace with himself. He had been playing the conversation with his father's mystery lover over and over in his head ever since she had hung up on him. It bothered him that she seemed to know who he was and, worse yet, despised him.

Was she even a lover at all? he wondered. It didn't make much sense, now that he had considered it for so long, but what else could she be? They had been on the planet less than two weeks so far, and Ranma was certain that they had never come here in the early days of his youth. Who would possibly know them here?

Genma had been no help. Whether he was simply feigning an alcohol-induced amnesia, or he had really been that drunk, Ranma could only guess. All he knew was that whoever the girl was, she had met his father that day between the time they had left the Consulate, and the time he had been arrested for public drunkenness. She might have been the one responsible for Genma's injuries, an idea that Ranma was forced to consider following her hostile reply to his call.

He pulled the hundred-imperial note from his pocket and studied the handwriting. It was not his father's chicken scratch, but a girl's neat, loopy script. She had given his father her number. Why?

"You aren't seriously planning on meeting her, are you, Ranma?"

He tried to ignore Akane's question as he walked down the hallway of their hotel.

"Ranma?"

She had been nagging him about it ever since he had made the mistake of discussing the phone call with his father. His biggest mistake, though, was telling Genma that he was going to meet the mystery girl as requested.

"I'm not going to be ignored, Ranma," she added indignantly.

"Yes," he barked, still walking for the elevator. "I _am_ serious about this. I want to find out who knows us on this planet, and how they know."

"You just want to confirm if your father's having an affair," she countered.

"Maybe," he agreed. "But I don't think it's that anymore. It's weird that she would know my name, and I want some answers."

They reached the elevator doors. Ranma stabbed at the call button repeatedly, as if by pressing it over and over again, the elevator would somehow move faster.

"Okay, fair enough," Akane conceded. "But I'm coming with you."

"Will you please stay out of this?" Ranma said, his voice pained. "I don't need you tagging along."

Her eyes narrowed at him. "You said yourself that she sounded hostile over the phone. What if you're walking into some kind of ambush?"

"All the more reason for you not to be there," Ranma returned. "There's no need for you to get hurt over this." The elevator doors opened, and he stepped inside, his finger shooting to the 'door close' button before Akane could join him.

"I happen to be a decent fighter, Ranma," Akane countered. She stepped past the threshold as the doors started to close, breaking the light beam that acted as a safety feature, and propping the doors back open to Ranma's obvious chagrin.

"Yeah, maybe."

"What do you mean, maybe? Where were you when the Black Rose was attacking Port Said?"

Ranma grimaced. "You don't have to remind me. I've seen the newspages."

"So how about a little credit then?"

"I still don't want you coming."

She stood up on her tip toes and pressed in close to meet his gaze. Tiny beads of perspiration began to form on his brow. "I already know where and when you're supposed to meet her, Ranma. You can't stop me."

He leaned back against the wall of the elevator, his face a mask of surrender.

"Whatever," he said finally. "But if you get hurt, I don't wanna hear about it, okay?"

"Fair enough," she agreed smugly.

Her smugness grated on him.

"And don't think I'm gonna jump in and save your big butt, either," he added, knowing full well that if things did go wrong, he would do so without hesitating, as if it were a reflex.

By her sly grin, she seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. She was so pleased with her estimation that she let his big butt remark slide - at least for the moment, there would be time to make him pay for it later.

"That's fine with me, Ranma. I don't need your help."

Ryouga Hibiki strolled down the warmly lit sidewalks of Aquila Park with Senior Technician Akari Unryuu by his side. Happiness was such a transitory emotion with him that he remained uneasy even in the presence of such a lovely young woman - one who obviously adored him - waiting for the other shoe to drop. They were thoroughly lost, of course, but Ryouga knew that as long as they stayed on the sidewalk and didn't cross any streets, they would be okay.

He certainly didn't remember crossing any streets, but by the same token, he was sort of tuning out the world around him. Including Akari, who had amazed him with her ability to talk. And talk. And talk.

The primary topic of her monologue was battlemechs. No surprise there, he figured, but she had an anecdote for just about any situation a Tech could possibly have encountered in dealing with them, each as dry and uninspiring as the last. He found that he wasn't even required to make the appropriate interested noises, because that would mean that Akari would have to pause first to allow it.

Despite her phenomenal talent for prattle, Ryouga was quite at peace around her. Adoration was not something he was accustomed to, and he found himself drawn towards her like a man starving for affection. Which he was, he quickly realized.

The words "...So it's quite obvious that you're the man I'm going to marry someday..." passed through his ears. They bounced around inside his skull for several seconds looking for something fragile within his psyche to run into. Eventually, the words "you're," "I'm," and "marry" met up within his head to the delicate sound of a train derailment.

Ryouga stopped in his tracks, leaving Akari to take several more steps before realizing that he had done so.

"Wh-Wh-What was that y-you said again?" he stammered softly.

She stopped and offered a sheepish grin.

"I said that it was obvious that you're the man I'm going to marry someday..."

Ryouga blinked. The sound of his eyelashes clicking together was defeaning to him. A rushing sound filled his ears as he pondered this.

"That's what I thought you said."

He swooned, and then, darkness...

He awoke to the curious mingling of perfume and traces of molybdenum grease that was Akari's trademark scent. Warm hands brushed at his brow, soft fingertips tracing down his temples and over his ears. He opened his eyes to see Akari's face looking down at him. His head was apparently in her lap. She didn't seem concerned in the least about his collapse. Instead, she looked quite wistful.

"My grandfather always said that I should marry a man who pilots a BattleMaster," she told him with a smile.

"A-A BattleMaster?" he asked dazedly.

"Yes!" she beamed. "Isn't it so romantic?"

She likes me just because of my battlemech? Ryouga wondered, his heart sinking. That's it?

"But what difference does a person's 'mech make in who they are as a person?" he asked her. It was such a bizarre sentiment that he simply had to get an explanation for it.

"My grandfather always said that men who piloted BattleMasters were brave, noble, selfless men, the kind of man who would make a good husband for me. No one knows me better than my grandfather. He raised me, and taught me everything I know about being a Tech, so it just makes sense that he would know who was best for me as a husband."

Ryouga's eyes crossed at her twisted sense of logic.

"B-But it's just a machine," he protested. "How does a machine make a person brave and noble and all that...?"

Akari shrugged. "I don't really know," she admitted with a giggle. "But in your case, it's all true!" She leaned over him to touch her brow softly against his. "It's all true, Ryouga, dear... I didn't think much of it when you first joined us, but since then I've seen that you are all that my grandfather said and more."

Ryouga's face began to burn with a great heat.

"Y-You mean, you _really_ want to marry me?"

Akari shrugged. "It seems like a good idea. I can't think of any reason why not."

The Dreamer in Ryouga began shouting, _She wants to marry me! ...ME! O, a ray of light in a dark and lonely universe!_

The Logical part of him then began to vigorously slap the hell out of the Dreamer. _Wake up, stupid! it bellowed. Don't you think this is a little sudden?_

"But we hardly even know each other!" he blurted, his heart about to burst in his chest. "D-Don't you think this is a little sudden?"

She brushed at his hair some more, her eyes huge and trembling. "I'll understand if you say no," she whispered. "I know this is all so sudden, but I'm willing to wait for you as long as it takes to say 'yes,' Ryouga, dear."

WOO-HOO!!! the Dreamer part of his mind whooped gleefully.

_It'll never work_... the Logical part countered. _A marriage based on a battlemech? Puh-lease!_

Ryouga's face fell with this realization. The internal conflict raged on.

Akari is beautiful, she's sweet and kind, she absolutely adores us_... So what if she talks too much and is hung up on battlemechs?_ the Dreamer put forward. _How many girls in the universe have ever even given us the time of day? This one wants to marry us!_

_Sorry slugger_, the Logical part returned. _I didn't want to have to do this... BUT WHAT ABOUT AKANE!?_

Ryouga flinched as if he had been struck. How could he let Akane go so easily? What kind of man was he to do something like that?

"What is it, Ryouga, dear?" Akari asked him.

"Ummm..." he murmured, his heart close to breaking. "Can I think about this...?"

Akari offered him a tiny smile. "I said I'd wait for you. Take as much time as you need."

Ryouga Hibiki closed his eyes, knowing that he might need a long, long time to figure this all out.

The bronze statue of Karl Tiber was pitted and weathered with centuries of age. Ranma paused from his search of the surroundings to note the plaque dedicating the statue of the colony's founder in 2519. There was no sign of the girl who had directed him to come to this place.

The statue was only a few meters from the lake. The paddleboats had all been returned to the rental pier as the sun set, and the surface of the water was glassy and reflective of the bright yellow crescent moon hanging low in the evening sky. The area around the statue was freshly cut grass, with lines of tall, billowy trees of local origin set on knolls to either side.

Akane remained a good distance from the statue, over by the paddleboat rental shack, hopefully watching out for him without being too obvious about it. The mystery girl had been very specific about meeting him alone. As long as Akane didn't screw up and scare whoever it was off, he would get his answers.

For a moment he wished he wore a watch. As it stood, he had no idea what time it was. She could be late for all he knew. She might even have decided to stand him up. He paced back and forth with this thought in mind, eventually dismissing the idea.

Where the heck was she?

Ukyou Kuonji watched the man she believed to be Ranma from the shelter of the trees. There was a passing resemblance to the elder Saotome from what she could see of Ranma, mostly around the brow, chin, and the general arrangement of his face. The odd style of dress he affected pointed to offworld origins. What she had remembered as Ranma's long ponytail was now carefully braided.

It had to be him. He was a stranger, standing where she had directed him and at the appropriate time. He looked a little like Genma Saotome, and his movements as he paced suggested long practice in the martial arts.

The question then, became one of what to make of his shadow, the girl who watched him from the boat rental. A sister? she wondered. One she had not met before? It didn't seem likely, she decided. She looked about the same age as Ranma, and there had never been any mention of any siblings in his family. There was also the fact that there was little resemblance between the two of them.

A sudden thought occured to her.

"That can't be Akane Tendo," she muttered to herself. "Could it?"

"Yes sir, I think it is. She's cut her hair, but I pride myself on being able to recognize important political figures of the Inner Sphere."

Ukyou looked up at Konatsu, who watched the unknown girl through a set of magnigoggles while perched atop a handy tree limb. Her adjutant was dressed in his kunoichi attire, something he had not worn in her presence in years.

"I thought I told you not to come, Konatsu."

Konatsu gave her a sheepish look and put away the magnigoggles.

"Um... Would you believe my being here is just a coincidence?"

Ukyou scowled. "Not now, not ever, sugar."

He held up the magnigoggles.

"How about this: I've taken up birdwatching."

"Konatsu, get down off that tree before I get any angrier with you."

The one-time kunoichi dropped onto the spongy ground and stood at attention before she could finish her threat. Ukyou looked him over.

"What are you really here for?" she asked him.

Konatsu remained at stiff attention.

"Begging the General's pardon, sir, but as the General's personal bodyguard as well as her adjutant, I was looking after her physical security. Sir."

"So you took it upon yourself to violate my orders and follow me," she pointed out sternly.

"No sir," Konatsu replied formally. "The General did not specifically order me not to accompany her. I believe the General's exact words were, and I quote:" His soft falsetto then became a frighteningly convincing facsimile of Ukyou's voice. "'Konatsu, honey, I really don't think you should come along with me.'" His voice then shifted back to his usual breathy falsetto. "Unquote. Clearly, sir, no such order was given."

Ukyou blinked several times in exasperation. She hated it when he did impressions of her. It was spooky the way he could duplicate her voice and mannerisms. Mimicry was part of his kunoichi training, no doubt.

"Very cute," she said dryly. "Now here's an order you can appreciate, Konatsu. I ORDER you to return to the base, and to stay there until I direct otherwise. Is that perfectly clear?"

Konatsu bowed low.

"Crystalline, sir."

He bounded off into the woods, disappearing within moments.

She blew her bangs out of her eyes with a huff. She should have expected this from him. His devotion to her wouldn't have permitted anything less.

She returned her attention to Ranma Saotome. He was getting visibly impatient, and she wondered how much longer she should keep him waiting. Looking at him brought back all the old memories of childhood, and she fought back a sniffle at the pain she had endured after the Saotomes walked out of her life.

Could she really blame Ranma for getting left behind? He was, what, nine years old at the time? What was she really expecting from this meeting?

She had set the whole thing in motion on a whim. The phone number on the bank note was just a lark. She hadn't really expected them to notice, it was more like wishful thinking on her part. When Ranma had actually called her, she had reacted in the worst possible way.

Now she was here, having called him out to this place to meet, and she didn't know what to do or say. Half of her wanted to rush out and join the boy she had fallen in love with - perhaps even recapture those happy days of their childhood before Genma had taken Ranma away. The other half wanted to walk away, and put Ranma out of her mind forever - that part of herself that knew one could never truly recapture a particular moment in time. After all, he had Akane Tendo now... Right?

"Screw this," Ranma snorted to himself. "I'm outta here."

He started towards the boat rental pier. Akane watched him leave the statue, presenting him with a 'what gives?' gesture as he approached.

"Ranma, wait!" a voice called to him from the trees to his back.

He spun around. A girl with long chestnut hair tied with a white satin ribbon bounded from the tree line. She wore black tights and a purple belted tunic, and a large axe - or shovel, or _something_ - with a squarish blade was strapped to her back.

This was the girl who had penned her phone number on a hundred-imperial note?

He had to admit, though, that his old man had shown remarkably good taste for once. She was actually pretty darn cute.

"You're the girl I talked to on the phone yesterday?" he asked her as she ran towards him.

She drew within two meters of him, her face betraying her mixed emotions of that moment. To Ranma it looked as if she wanted to come much closer, and wasn't sure if she should. She didn't seem angry or vengeful in the slightest, which was a sharp contrast to the voice he had heard over the phone.

"You don't recognize me, do you?" she asked in a quiet voice.

_Do I_ know _this girl?_ Ranma thought frantically. _I'd have to remember someone as cute as her, right?_

"Um?" he offered lamely.

"I guess not," she said mournfully. "It's been over ten years. A lot can happen in that time."

"You mind telling me who you are?"

Her green eyes flashed hopefully. "I'm Ukyou Kuonji. I'm from New Osaka originally."

Ranma wracked his brain for some kind of confirmation. He remembered New Osaka, as it had been his first time away from the Nerima Confederation, and also one of the few planets where they had spent any decent length of time. He didn't remember any girls though.

"That means nothing to you?" she asked, her voice edged with sorrow.

"I'm thinking," Ranma protested. "I moved around a lot when I was little."

"I suppose you have," she agreed.

The name Ukyou came back to him suddenly. Those were the days! he reflected happily. Me and Ucchan! The brawls we'd get into... The food... Sparring together in the mountains while on a training trip with Pop... Food... Shredded-cabbage pancakes or something like that, but _gooood_...

He looked at the extremely cute girl standing before him. There was just no way.

"I remember my best friend on New Osaka," he said to her. "A boy named Ucchan."

Ukyou's jaw dropped. Her mouth flopped open and shut several times, as if she were trying to speak, and no sound would issue forth. Finally, she managed to get her vocal cords to obey.

"A... BOY!?"

"You ain't looking like any guy I ever met," Ranma pointed out. "What are you, his sister or something? I don't remember Ucchan having any sisters."

Ukyou's face took on a deep red hue.

"You thought I was a BOY!?"

Ranma cocked his head to the side. There was something he was missing in this conversation, and he wasn't quite sure what it was.

Ukyou did not give him any further opportunities to ponder this.

"You... You... YOU IDIOT!"

The next thing he knew, the large flat-bladed shovel she carried, or whatever it was, was suddenly slamming down on the top of his head. He saw lots of pretty lights after that, and then, a close-up perspective of the grass.

Ukyou looked down at her handiwork, the spatula warm in her hands from the energy of the impact. It had all happened so fast! One moment she was seething mad at having been mistaken for a boy all these years by the one person she had ever loved. The next, she was clobbering him with her ancestral weapon.

"RANMA!" a young woman's voice cried out in the distance. It was the girl shadowing Ranma. The Lady Akane Tendo, Heir Apparent to the Nerima Confederation, by Konatsu's estimation.

Ranma's _fiancee_...

The girl, Akane, whoever she was, was charging straight towards her.She was yelling "Get away from him, you!" and variations on that theme.

_What have I done?_ Ukyou wondered, her mind in shock. _I've killed him_...

Then, as if to make her feel even more foolish, Ranma began to stir.

"What'ya do that for?" he groaned from the grass while rubbing his head.

"Ranchan!" she cried with relief. She knelt over him and began to hug him. "I'm so sorry! I don't know what came over me!"

Ranma, still dazed from his blow to the head, sat back dizzily and let the girl, who had just clocked him, now put her arms around him. A annoying buzzing rang in his ears, and he realized that it was the sound of Akane's voice. She was probably ragging on him for something he had done wrong, he supposed.

In the meantime, this girl who was hugging him sure smelled nice...

"You keep your hands off him!" Akane raged at Ranma's assailant. She had her cell-phone in hand. "I'm calling the police!"

"It was a mistake!" the girl protested. "I didn't mean to hurt him!"

"Ha! Like you didn't mean to hurt Mister Saotome yesterday!?" Akane shot back. "I saw what you did to his face with that big, er, whatever it is!"

She began dialing the emergency assistance number when a miniature version of the mystery girl's melee weapon cut through the phone with a flash of sparks and shattered plastic. The throw had been so precise that she hadn't even been injured by the blade as it passed.

"You're making a big mistake," the girl told her, a brace of the mini-spatulas in her right hand as she cradled the dazed Ranma's head against her bosom with the other. "Now stop overreacting and give me a hand with him."

Akane stood still, eyeing the oddly-shaped throwing weapons warily.

"Just who do you think you are?" she demanded of the girl.

Ukyou gave her a tight-lipped and sad little smile.

"I'm Ranma's fiancee."

Nerima Confederation DropShip _Palomino_

Landing Pad #6, Aquila Starport

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

13 April 3025

"Well, it doesn't look like there's any permanent damage," Doctor Tofu said as he studied the scans from the DropShip's portable MagRes Med-Imager in Sick Bay. "It's been my opinion based on previous experience that Ranma has a pretty thick skull..."

"No kidding," Akane huffed, casting a contemptuous look towards Ranma, and the girl who sat by his side to comfort him. His _fiancee_!

"So he'll be okay?" Ukyou asked the doctor.

Tofu patted Ranma's shoulder. The pig-tailed mechwarrior's head was topped with a cold compress.

"He should be just fine," he replied. He looked to Ranma. "Now remember, Ranma. If you should feel even the slightest bit dizzy or nauseous within the next few days, you let me know," he admonished.

Ranma shrugged it off.

"Sure thing, Doc."

Tofu continued.

"I'll want to run another scan in the morning in any case, just to make sure nothing's changed with your condition. It's good that you caught me when you did, as I was about to make a run over to the hospital to check on my _Dragonfly_ patients." He gathered up a bag. "You kids play nice now, okay?"

He then stepped through the Sick Bay door and into the passageway beyond.

Once Doctor Tofu was gone, Akane turned back to Ukyou.

"Ranma's going to be okay," she pointed out. "Now are you going to explain this fiancee business or not?"

"Fiancee?" Ranma blurted. He had not been terribly coherent during the trip back to the starport. "No thanks, I've already got one, and -"

"- That's what I've been trying to tell her," Akane said snidely.

"- And if you'd let me finish," Ranma shot back. "I was gonna say that one fiancee was one too many."

She gave him a dirty look. "Jerk."

"Tomboy," he riposted.

"Anyhow..." Ukyou interjected, more than a little amused at their verbal sparring. "It's all true. I was promised to be Ranma's fiancee over ten years ago on New Osaka. His father even took the dowry for me and then spent it all."

Ranma shook his head slowly. This was news to him, especially the part about his old chum Ucchan being a girl - and a very cute one at that. Had he been that completely naive not to notice?

"That figures..." he muttered. He looked around Sick Bay. "Where is my old man, anyway?"

"I don't know," Akane answered him. "He wasn't on board when we came back to the ship." She looked down at the deckplates. "How could he?" she asked herself. "How could he just promise Ranma away like that?"

"It gets better," Ukyou said to her. "Instead of taking me with them like they were supposed to, I got left behind." She tried not to think about the pain, the humiliation. "Genma used my family like a pair of ramen-shop chopsticks, and then he threw us away."

"Is that why you smacked him in the face?" Ranma asked her coldly.

Ukyou drew back from him, afraid of what he might do next.

"Yes," she said flatly.

"Good," he snorted. "It sounds like the old prick deserved it."

"Ranma can't be your fiance," Akane pointed out in the silence that followed his remark. "He's engaged to _me_."

Ukyou looked first to Ranma, and then to Akane.

"From what I've heard, you two only got engaged in the last three months or so. I've been promised to Ranma, and the dowry paid for mind you, for over ten _years_. If anyone has precedence here, it's me."

"That's ridiculous!" Akane retorted. "We've only got your word for it that it's even true!"

"I believe her," Ranma said evenly, before Ukyou could reply. "Why would Ucchan make something like this up?"

Akane whirled on him. "So you're telling me that you WANT to be engaged to this girl, who comes from out of nowhere and says she's your long lost fiancee, and piles on this sob story about how your Dad cheated her family out of a dowry?"

He failed to detect the hurt tone in her voice before he replied.

"At least she's cute!" he retorted. "Not like some people I could mention, who run around complaining about how they don't get any respect from me, and hit me when they get mad, and..."

He stopped when he realized what his words were doing to her.

"Akane, I -"

"Save it, Ranma," she replied bitterly. "Have fun with your cute fiancee."

She stormed out of Sick Bay, leaving Ranma and Ukyou alone at last.

"Let her go," Ukyou said, tugging at his sleeve as he rose to chase after Akane. "This can't be easy for her. I know it hasn't been easy for me."

"Stupid, uncute tomboy," Ranma growled. "She's just like her Warhammer, always overheating, always flying off the handle at every stupid little thing I say or do. I don't know why I even bother sometimes..."

Ukyou gave him a penetrating look, her green eyes filled with hope.

"You don't like Akane?" she asked him.

"She drives me nuts," he replied slowly.

Ukyou wanted to ask him another question, but held off when she detected something else in the tone of his voice. Better not to push the issue any faster than she already had, she decided.

"So? Are you glad to see me?" she asked him.

He blushed slightly. "I don't know, uh, sure, I guess."

"That sounded very sincere," she pointed out mockingly.

"Geez, Ucchan," he said, standing. "Akane's right. You came out of nowhere, and I honestly didn't know you were a... well... A girl."

"A cute one too, according to you," she added with a shy grin. She felt like she was thirteen years old in that moment. Ranma was so handsome standing there, even with a cold-pack on his head. His rocky relationship with Akane was more than she could have hoped for.

"I guess I did say that," he replied quietly.

"Ranchan," she said to him. "I know this is sudden. And I know that I haven't approached this situation in the best possible way. I was angry, Ranchan. Angry at your father, and angry at you for leaving me behind all those years ago. But I don't blame you anymore, Ranchan. Not even for thinking I was a boy this whole time."

"That was pretty stupid of me," Ranma said, blushing. "I'm sorry if I offended you, Ucchan."

"You're forgiven, as long as I am too, for hitting you over it."

He rubbed at his cold-pack. "You're forgiven, Ucchan."

She smiled brightly for him.

"I'm glad," she said warmly. Thoughts of Mikado Sanzenin and the Federated Shiratori Army were parsecs away from her now.

"Hey, I've got an idea," Ranma broached. "Let's go out for awhile, and catch up on old times."

"That's a great idea," she returned. "Did you have any place in mind, or can I recommend?"

Ranma pointed to the ceiling. "I have just the thing." He reached for the intercomm and pressed the 'call' button for the Tech Shed.

The Boomerang, freshly unpacked from its stowage crate and assembled on the tarmac, sat before the two mechwarriors. The moon had risen higher in the sky, though its light was overwhelmed by the lights of the starport.

"What do you think?" Ranma asked Ukyou.

She had planned on somewhere a little more comfortable, but she didn't want to dampen his obvious enthusiasm. "It's not quite what I had in mind, but that's okay."

"Great. Let me give it the once-over, and then we'll get going." He pointed to the sky. "No one can bother us up there."

Ukyou saw his point. "Lead the way."

Ranma did a preflight inspection of the turboprop recon plane while Ukyou watched. When he was satisfied that the aircraft had been properly assembled, he signalled her to hop in.

"Ever flown in one of these?" he asked her when they were seated.

She had, once. As a Brigadier in the Federated Shiratori Army, she didn't get much of an opportunity to become more familiar with the planes.

"Just once," she replied. At least the seats were side by side. The cockpit was actually kind of cozy. "Does this thing have an autopilot?"

"Sure," Ranma replied. "A simple one. Why do you ask?"

She blushed at the thought of getting in some smooch-time that was long overdue. "Oh, I don't know. Things happen."

Ranma, ever the dense one, didn't make the connection.

"Whatever."

He lowered the canopy and sealed it. The powerful turboprop engine roared to life behind them as he hit the starter. He sat there in comfortable silence with Ukyou as the aircraft's engine warmed up for take off.

Akane watched as the little reconnaisance plane taxied down the tarmac until it was well clear of the DropShip, then turned back to face parallel to the ship and accelerated. It leaped into the air within the length of the _Palomino_, reminding her of a time only weeks previously that she had spent with Ranma in that very plane. This time it was Ukyou flying with him.

She watched the little plane soar into the night sky, its collision lights swamped by the yellow-orange haze of the starport's high intensity sodium lamps. The symbolism of it wasn't lost on her. Ranma was flying away, escaping from her with his new fiancee - a girl he had only just met.

His cute fiancee.

_Damn you, Ranma!_ she railed at the sky. The Boomerang was lost to her sight against the glow of the starport, but without the muffler engaged, she could still hear its low, throaty buzz. _I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!_

But she didn't hate him, and that was why it hurt so much.

She turned away from the open 'Mech Bay Door, past the hunkered, furry mass of Pansuto Tarou, who was drifting through a sedative-induced fog until he could finally be brought to justice, past the crewman with the assault rifle whose job it was to shoot Tarou if he tried to escape, and past the techs who had unwittingly abetted in Ranma's betrayal of her.

As she reached the Lower Deck, she encountered Yuka and Sayuri. Both fighter pilots were dressed to go out for a night in town. The two offered unsolicited looks of sympathy for her as she passed them. It was obvious why they were doing this, as they were the ones who had driven the three of them back to the ship from the park. On small ships like the _Palomino_, there were no secrets among the crew, and Ukyou must have been a pretty hot gossip item.

"Forget about him, Akane," Sayuri said to her.

"He's a jerk, just like his father," Yuka added. "Don't waste your time."

She let it go, pretending not to hear them as she climbed through the open hatch to the next deck.

"So, ah, Ucchan," Ranma began as he levelled off from his turn. The muffler was now engaged, making the ride smooth and quiet. The lights of Aquila were receding behind them as they flew south over moonlit farmland. "What do you do now? Are you still making that okonomi- ah, you know..."

"Okonomiyaki?" she teased. "Not really. I used to, but recently I just haven't had much time for it."

"Too bad," Ranma returned. "It was good stuff."

"Would you like some?" she asked him. "When we land, you can come back to my place and I'll make you as much as you want."

Ranma's eyes lit up.

"Really? That'd be great!"

He goosed the throttle and pulled up into a full loop, whooping with glee. Ukyou tried to keep her stomach under control throughout the maneuver, but was secretly pleased by how happy he was.

"Of course, you'll know what I do for a job once you see where I'm living," she added. Konatsu might have to receive some very explicit instructions later, instructions that involved in no uncertain terms his removal from the premises for the rest of the evening. And hopefully well past breakfast, too...

"So what _do_ you do, exactly?"

She smiled. "Well, you'll be happy to note that I'm a mechwarrior now."

"Really?" Ranma gushed. "Cool."

"But I don't get much time in a cockpit," she added. "I'm a Brigadier, commanding most of the Federated Shiratori's battlemech forces."

"Whoa," Ranma gasped. "That's _way_ cool, Ucchan." He gave her a funny look. "You're not pulling my leg about this, are you?"

"Not at all, Ranchan," she replied. "Although I've been thinking about going back into the okonomiyaki business."

"Why?" he asked her. "I mean, if your okonomiyaki is anything like it used to be, you'd do pretty well, but the job you've got sounds pretty good."

"Not really," she lamented. "I hate my job. And I hate the man I'm working for. I've been seriously considering resigning my commission."

Ranma shrugged. "Well, whatever. If it makes you happy, I'm all for it."

Ukyou blushed. "Do you mean that?"

"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I? We're friends, right?"

_Friends_, she thought. _I want to be so much more, but I guess that's a good place to start_.

"Of course we are," she returned.

"So why do you hate your job?" he asked. "Is the regular army that bad?"

"This one is," she answered ruefully. "The Federated Shiratori Army doesn't exactly inspire fear in the hearts of our enemies. Most of the officers are totally incompetent, and the enlisted are usually nothing more than a heavily armed rabble. I've been here since February directing the Spring Maneuvers just so we can get up to par, but I know it'll just be a waste of time because the Empress will undo everything, just because she suddenly doesn't like one of my commanders and sacks him."

She gave Ranma a stern look.

"You can't run an army like that. Sacking commanders left and right and promoting others just because you think they're cute. Morale goes straight to hell and..." She stopped, realizing that she was venting, and that she didn't want to do that around Ranma. Not when every moment they were alone together was so important. "Sorry, my job has really been getting to me lately."

"It's okay," Ranma told her. "I get the picture. It sounds like you're not happy with it, so move on."

He flipped a switch on the simple instrument panel, and then let go of the control column.

"Autopilot's on," he said to her. She blushed at the thought.

"So what have you been doing all this time?" she asked coyly.

"The usual training up until about three years ago," he said to her. "Then we lost the family 'mech. It got too worn out to fix, so we had to scrap it. Bill collectors took most of what we got for it, and we were too broke to buy another 'mech."

"I see. Then my dowry was ultimately for nothing, then."

Ranma shook his head in disgust for what his father had done to Ucchan.

"I guess," he murmured, uncomfortable with the subject. "After that we became Scouts. We've been chasing after this myth called Ryuugenzawa ever since."

"Ryuugenzawa?" Ukyou chirped.

"You've heard of it?"

"What mechwarrior hasn't?" she replied. "I can see what you mean by myth though. It can't possibly exist."

"My old man thinks it does." He thought about what Akane had said to him in the park the day before, about how she needed Ryuugenzawa if she was going to take back the Confederation from the Furinkan Combine. "Heck, I've even started believing in it. Well, just a little."

"Why?"

Ranma wondered how much he should tell her. She was, after all, a high-ranking officer of the Federated Shiratori Armed Forces.

"We've found a few things," he said at length. "Artifacts. Stuff that points to where we might find the place."

"Really? Where do you think it is?"

"Not a clue. We need to find one more piece of the puzzle, and then we'll have our answer. That's one of the reasons why we're here in the F-S."

Ukyou was intrigued.

"You think it's here. On Tiber?"

"Nah. It's on Genevieve," Ranma replied glibly. "Azusa's got it in her Collection of Cute." He clamped a hand over his mouth just a little too late. "I, uh, probably shouldn't have told you that..."

"It's okay, Ranchan," she assured him. "Why would I tell anyone about this?" She leaned in close to him. "We're friends, right?"

"Yeah," Ranma affirmed. He eased ever so slightly back into his seat.

"Hey," she said after a moment. "Maybe I can help you get it."

He gave her a dubious look. "You? How?"

"Well, you see I was planning on going to Genevieve anyway," she began. "I was going to petition the Empress for diplomatic duty, and if she said no, then I was going to resign my commission and go home to New Osaka."

He thought about what she had said for a moment.

"I don't see how that can help us, Ucchan."

"I know my way around the palace," she said to him. "I'm not proud of this, but I'm also one of the Empress' favorites. I can get you access you'd never get on your own."

Now he was starting to see the possibilities.

"Hey, yeah," he exclaimed. "I get it. If you could help us, that would be so cool, Ucchan."

"Wouldn't it, though?" she asked with a grin. The grin faded. "There's only one problem though."

"What's that?"

"Akane. I don't think she likes me."

Ranma shrugged. "What's that got to do with anything? She's not in charge of this expedition. My Pop is."

Ukyou's eyes lit up.

"Really?"

"Yeah. The only reason Akane's tagging along with us is because her Dad, the Grand Duke, sent her away from the war at home."

"So you don't think your father will have any problem with me helping you guys out?"

"The way I figure it," Ranma said to her. "He owes you big time for this whole dowry thing. He doesn't have a choice."

He turned back to his instruments for a moment, then cast his eyes out across the darkness. Ukyou watched him for some time in friendly silence. She felt so comfortable around him. Words were not necessary between them.

She leaned back in her chair. Ranma was like a dream come true, she realized. Handsome, thoughtful, kind, and instantly open and friendly to her even after ten years of separation. It was too bad he was shackled to a shrew like Akane. In spite of herself, she grinned. But he won't be shackled to Akane for very much longer, she thought.

She sighed happily to herself, secure in the knowledge that she was still in love with Ranma, and even if he was a little clueless for a guy his age, she knew that he would eventually come to love her back.

Eight Shining Pearls Fortress

Planet Jusenkyo, Jusenkyo System

The Jusenkyo Commonwealth

17 April 3025

"I'm very disappointed in you, General Herb."

Herb's red reptilian eyes flashed in response to Peony's declaration. "How so, Elder?"

The wizened crone that was the Commonwealth Chancellor of the Exchequer gave him a toothless sneer. Unlike Cologne, who Herb had known through the clan's portraits to have been an extraordinarily beautiful woman in her youth, Peony had always been homely. Age had done her no favors.

"You allowed Shampoo to escape justice and become a renegade."

"That's hardly fair," he sniffed. "Given that it was your decision to hold the hearing on Tau Ceti, where she would not lack for allies."

"I had little choice in the matter," she returned indignantly. "Once again Cologne abused her power as head of the clan to insist upon a favorable venue. My hands were tied."

Herb remained silent. He had expected Peony to have already gone through the roof in a rage over the matter, and bring the conflict within the Joketsuzoku leadership to a head. That was the reason for his coming to Jusenkyo, to stave off such a disastrous turn of events.

Instead, Peony had done nothing. Did she already suspect that he was less than loyal to her cause? At this point it would mean little to him, as he had been prepared to tell her so outright had she taken the expected course of action. He needed to discover her intentions.

"What do you intend to do about it, Elder?" he asked.

Peony grunted. "For the moment, nothing. Cologne and her family will bear the brunt of Shampoo's dishonor and disgrace. In time, it will bring the other elders who have not yet taken sides into my circle."

Herb frowned inwardly. Had a hundred years of being second best to Cologne finally granted Peony a measure of patience? If so, he had badly misjudged her, and that was dangerous. Furthermore, if she was willing to let Shampoo's escape go with little fuss, he would have very little to offer Cologne.

His position had just been weakened considerably, for his power lay with the strength of his army - and the threat of its use. Now there was nothing to rattle his saber over. His only consolation was that he had not exposed himself too soon in the game. He was still Peony's obliging tool, at least for the moment, and Cologne knew that he continued to represent the balance of power.

Since nothing else had changed in the game, it was incumbent upon him to change his own position and strength. Cologne had certainly guessed by now where his true loyalties and ambitions lay, and with no crisis to force her hand, would be maneuvering against him.

Even worse, it was possible that she suspected his involvement in Shampoo's escape. Since Peony had not pounced, who else could have stood to gain from it?

"What are you plotting, General?" Peony asked him then, nearly startling the wits out of him with such a direct accusation.

"Pardon me, Elder?" he asked in return, trying to sound offended by the idea of plotting anything.

"Strange whispers come to me from many corners of the Commonwealth," she said, her toothless mouth hissing sibilantly as she spoke. "From time to time I entertain them with my ear."

"Rumors," he scoffed. "Whispers. Show me an authority figure who isn't whispered against, Elder. You should know that as well as I."

Peony nodded slowly in agreement. "Do not presume to remind me of such things, young hybrid." Her rebuke was mild in tone, but Herb sensed the anger in it.

"Of course not, Elder," he returned humbly. "May I inquire then, as to the nature of these rumors?"

Peony's breath rattled in her throat. "I hear of the Musk Dynasty," she said to him. "A rabble of men who believe that they should rule over the rightful affairs of women. They grow in strength on worlds administered by you, General." She gave him a rheumy-eyed look. "Some would question your loyalty, General..."

Herb affected a look of indignance. "Do you question my loyalty, Elder?"

Peony closed her eyes. "I do not," she replied. "But there are those on the Council who fear you, General. Fear is a dangerous emotion. It clouds the mind and smothers the spirit. It breeds lies and hate." She gave him another stern look. "You have many enemies, General."

Herb realized at last where this was going, and had to stifle a laugh.

"You mean Cologne, do you not, Elder?" he asked haltingly.

Peony nodded. "I do. And you would do well to realize that in your future dealings with her. She would destroy you were it not for my intervention."

Now Herb was rolling with laughter on the inside. The old bag was trying to reinforce their alliance by frightening him with the spectre of Cologne! It was too rich.

"I-I thank you for the warning, Elder, and for your benevolent protection," he said reverently. _That's right, you stupid old hag, I'm just a scared little boy, lost in the halls of power with no woman to guide me. Please let me take your hand!_

Peony seemed pleased by this, and smiled her toothless smile. "You may keep your silly fraternity, General. I have no reason to fear them."

Herb bowed indulgently. _Oh, but you do, you mindless, senile old biddy_.

_You have EVERY reason to fear them_.

Cologne regarded her Chief Scientist carefully. For the man to have journeyed all the way from the Epsilon Indi system to Jusenkyo unannounced, it would have to be something important.

"Yes, Doctor, what is it?"

Gaido bowed low for her.

"I humbly come before you to discuss the matter of Saffron, Elder."

Cologne puffed thoughtfully on her pipe.

"Dispense with the formalities, Gaido. We've known each other for many years. Say what is on your mind."

Gaido relaxed slightly at this.

"I have analyzed the data," he began.

"Is there a problem?"

The portly scientist sucked at his teeth for a moment. "Not with Saffron specifically. Indeed, he has exceeded all expectations for his performance."

"What then?"

"It has to do with his indoctrination," he said to her. Lazy coils of blue smoke wafted over his head as Cologne puffed indifferently on her pipe.

"You're concerned that Saffron is too powerful to be controlled," she said, seeing straight through to the heart of the matter. It was little wonder why she was the Matriarch. "I must confess that I too, from time to time, worry about that possibility."

Gaido took her words as hope for his cause.

"I have supported you in all things, Cologne," he said to her. "The Breeding Program especially. But right now I fear for the future of the Commonwealth. What we've been able to achieve with Saffron has no precedent. We cannot guarantee control over his power, or his loyalty."

"There is no guarantee of loyalty for anyone," Cologne countered. "Even you, Doctor." She blew a smoke ring. "Trust is a vital component of society, which is why treason and betrayal are accorded universal hatred among all of humanity. Saffron will be as loyal as any warrior of the Joketsuzoku can be when raised and conditioned with the values of the clan."

"General Herb would be a good example of this then," Gaido snorted.

Cologne favored his outburst with a penetrating gaze. "General Herb has become what he is because I let him," she said coolly. "For good or ill, I have allowed him to achieve a position of power and authority, even knowing that he could abuse his station and become a threat to our society."

Gaido's mouth gaped open. Cologne was talking madness!

"For what purpose?" he asked.

Cologne closed her eyes for a moment in reflection.

"Our society is very old," she said in soft voice. "Thousands of years old, from a time long before humankind reached out for the stars. We began as pastoral farmers on the fringes of China, calling ourselves Chinese, and yet paying only lip-service to the Emperor and his bureacracy. Always we were a clan, ruled by a council, and that council was made up of women.

"Throughout our history we have been subject to the influence of outsiders, from Genghis Khan and his warriors of the steppe, to the British and American colonialists, to Japanese occupation, to Mao Zedong and his idiotic communists, and even to Jiang Kao Xian's New China Sphere, and despite them all, we have always done things our way. We maintained our identity. When the Jump Drive became commonplace, the ancestors of this clan went into space as mercenaries. We fought using modern technology, but it was our ancient customs and our ideals that gave us unity as an army, and allowed us to conquer our enemies.

"In the early days of space travel, our clan, the Joketsuzoku, grew wealthy and powerful. We expanded our influence from matters of war to the colonization of the Inner Sphere. We founded the Commonwealth from this very world, and now we control over a hundred planetary systems. In all that time we were a clan, ruled by a council, and that council was made up of women."

Cologne took another puff on her pipe before continuing her history lesson.

"Would that our hegemony be so uniform," she muttered. "Our numbers were never very many, and our warrior nature prevented us from ever truly colonizing these worlds within our sphere. Mongrel races live in our empire, Doctor Gaido; foreign cultures with foreign ideals. We can't stamp them out, and it would be foolish to try. We need them, foreigners to our way that they are. They run our factories, work in our mines, and grow our food. Their taxes finance our armies and our fleets."

She set her pipe aside in a small clay bowl.

"And therein lies the mortal danger to our clan, Doctor. We are an empire populated by strangers to our ways. It does not matter to these people that we have existed as a unified culture for millenia with women as our leaders. They see only what they perceive to be discrimination. These views infect us, Gaido. General Herb and the Musk Dynasty are but the most threatening symptoms of our exposure to these alien thoughts."

Gaido frowned. "I don't understand exactly what you are getting at, Cologne. What does this have to do with allowing General Herb to become a threat to the Joketsuzoku?"

Cologne snorted. "You've spent too much time in your laboratory, Gaido. You should know that from time to time we must experience crisis if we are to be reminded of ourselves and what we stand for. I myself have gone soft these last ten years, doting on my great-grandaughter, Shampoo, who has become such a terrible disappointment to me. Her bitter failure, and the shame it has brought me, has opened my eyes. I am truly awake for the first time in years."

She regarded him closely. Gaido could see the deep lines of concern in her face, and knew that she had been contemplating many difficult paths of inquiry into the future of the clan.

"When I say that I have allowed Herb to become what he is, I do not mean that such was my intention. Now I see once again with the wisdom of my predecessor, that Herb is a test for the Joketsuzoku, and that it is my responsibility as Matriarch to allow that test to come to pass. Dust and cobwebs clutter the minds of our people, Gaido. We have become complacent, even tolerant in the face of customs that are anathema to our clan. It is time for a cleansing of spirit and a rededication to our ideals. For with the Furinkan Combine waxing in the ascendant, and Prince Kuno soon turning his questing eye towards our worlds, we cannot face them without unity of purpose, and hope to prevail.

"In the coming struggle we shall either triumph and thus preserve our ways, or else we shall be swept away on the tides of history, our clan and its culture lost to the antiquity from whence it sprang."

Gaido did not find the reassurance he was looking for.

"I see, but what does this have to do with Saffron?"

"General Herb is the symbol of the Musk Dynasty. Without him, they would be nothing more than a rabble; brutish, stupid, and easily controlled. Herb himself has seen to that - he hates competition. If we are to crush the man-symbol of disobedience to Matriarchal rule, what better way to do it than with another man? A man loyal to the Council, with power and might far beyond a normal human being - and yet still loyal to his clan." She offered him an indulgent smile. "I understand your fears, Doctor Gaido, but Saffron will continue as is. Herb will never even meet Saffron until such time as it becomes necessary for him to be destroyed."

"Until it becomes necessary?" Gaido asked incredulously. "I would think it was necessary right now!"

"Not so," Cologne countered. "He bears a close watch, but to destroy him now, before he can commit his treasonous heart to concrete action, would be to make him a martyr. I don't want him to become a martyr. I want him to be remembered as a villainous traitor to the clan. His fall from grace must serve as a lesson to us all. Until he does something unquestionably treasonous, and furthermore worthy of his removal, he is free to cook up whatever plots his heart desires."

Gaido gave her a guarded look.

"You play a most dangerous game with our clan, my oldest friend," he said to her. "Perhaps it was best if I returned to Lightoller. I have neither the heart nor the stomach for such intrigues."

"Go, my gentle scientist," Cologne said to him warmly. "I don't fault you for wanting to be well away from this place."

Kyushu Plateau

The Moon of Oni, orbiting Shounetsu Jigoku

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

14 April 3025

The soft hum of air stirred by ventilation fans set above and behind the mechwarrior's ejector seat mingled with the tinny whine of an array of gas-plasma displays, as did the muted roar of several hundred kilograms of liquid nitrogen rushing through the flashing chambers of the battlemech's heat sinks. To this chorus of sound was added panting breaths of nervous tension, echoing in steady, measured counterpoint to the myriad noises of the machines. Kasumi Tendo sat anxiously within her mighty Atlas, waiting for the moment to attack the Furinkan Combine reinforced regiment that threatened her tenuous hold on the moon of Oni.

The star Capella lay far over the horizon, shrouding the furrowed, glassy lava plain that was the Kyushu Plateau in near darkness. The only visible light came from the reflected glory of Shounetsu Jigoku, the harsh hell-world that held Oni in its gravitational thrall. The soft pink and cream bands of cloud were beautiful and deadly, for they were filled with corrosive compounds, and trapped the intense heat of the world's rampant vulcanism. There were installations there - owned by the Ceres Metals Corporation - for the exploitation of Shounetsu Jigoku's vast strategic mineral resources. Though they could provide refuge for her rag-tag army in the event that evacuation back to Nerima proved impossible, she did not look forward to going there.

She knew that the harsh environment of Shounetsu Jigoku would wreak havoc on sensitive and even irreplaceable battlemech components, forcing her army to stay within the shielded domes and deep caverns of the mines. It was true that the Combine would not come after her there, but they wouldn't have to. The planet depended on shipments of food and other supplies from Nerima to continue operations. All Prince Kuno needed to do was take Oni, use it as a base to intercept the resupply ships, and then starve the planet into submission.

A winking of light in the darkness caught her eye. It was a signal lamp, flashing from the cockpit of one of the 1st Nerima Guards battlemechs. The regiment was observing radio silence for the sneak attack on the freshly constructed Combine base, and so all pre-strike messages were sent via lamp. The method was awkward and slow, but it was secure against electronic forms of eavesdropping.

"ALL-UNITS-IN-POSITION," her compatriot declared.

She nodded absently in reply, a gesture that the man in the distant Ostscout was unable to see. It was time for the attack, and that had to commence with as much precision as possible.

Kasumi unlocked a small armored cabinet on the left side of her cockpit and undogged the door. Within the cabinet lay a dozen metal cylinders, each festooned with arming pins and red paper tags. Taking care to select the correct device, she withdrew it, secured the cabinet, and then began pulling the arming pins.

When she had prepared the device, she inserted it into the breech door of a metal tube set in the overhead of the Atlas' cockpit, then locked down the breech. The tube was a signal ejector, and the device a 7cm Pyrotechnic. Kasumi took a deep breath, then stabbed at the 'launch' button next to the ejector.

A red starshell fired from the Atlas' head, just above the 'mech's right 'eye.' The pyrotechnic device sailed across the starry black sky, trailing lazy crimson sparks as it flew. On this signal, the 'mechs of the 1st Nerima Guards charged to the attack. Father had promised her aid to keep the pressure off of Oni, but so far, nothing of the sort had materialized. She could not see the tiny black shapes moving through the void millions of kilometers above the cold dead moon, their armored hulls causing the stars to wink out briefly as they passed.

Somewhere within five million kilometers of

Shounetsu Jigoku, the Capella System

Nerima Confederation

14 April 3025

The ships of the 777th Strike Squadron drifted through the void, their drives quiescent, their passive sensors straining for any sign of their foes. They were an ancient unit, their Balao Class Corvettes dating back to the Star League. They had been known as the 'Triple-Sevens' in those early days, before they rejected Kerensky's Exodus and joined the House of Tendo. By the time of the Third Succession War, they had become known by another moniker, one fitting of their deadly reputation.

The Terrible T's.

There were six ships remaining in the squadron; _Tang_, _Tautog_, _Trepang_, _Tarpin_, _Tunny_, and _Thresher_. After the devastation of the First Succession War, these six ships had their Jump Cores removed to keep them in service as combatant vessels. Though some considered them to be little better than GunShips at that point - converted DropShips that needed to be carried into a battlezone by a noncombatant JumpShip - the Tendos knew otherwise. These were no mere GunShips, but BattleRiders, proud ships of the line.

These modified Balao Class warships carried weapons far more powerful than any simple GunShip; weapons designed to attack and destroy the capital ships of Stephan Amaris the Usurper during the Reunification War. In particular, they carried the Barracuda antiship missile, a deadly torpedo that no current Successor State could effectively defend against. There were only a handful of these torpedos left in the inventories of the Great Houses, and their use was reserved for only the most desperate battles.

The Siege of Capella was one of them. Grand Duke Tendo had ordered the 777th Squadron into battle, and the Terrible T's obeyed. With the proud traditions of their ancient unit behind them, the officers and crew of the 777th - each descended from the squadron's original crews - left port in orbit above Nerima. In the belly of each sharklike warship sat the entire Confederation's remaining stockpile of Barracudas.

The ships of the 777th enjoyed one other advantage over the Furinkan Combine ships that had invaded the Capella System, and that was in their special hull lining. The Balao Class had been been designed to minimize their radar-cross-section signature, and constructed with black, energy-absorbant coatings over the armor plating which made them difficult to detect at long range with radar. They were stealthy ships, ghosts in the darkness.

Time and tiny micro-meteoroid impacts had taken their toll on the hulls, however, and the ability to manufacture the special hull coating had been lost with the First Succession War. The corvettes had patchwork hulls now, and there were parts of the ship that were vulnerable to radar detection. The crews had to minimize the enemy's exposure to these parts of the ship, and their tactics reflected this weakness.

"This wasn't the mission I had in mind," the Captain of the _Tang_ remarked to his X.O.. The 777th was supposed to be in orbit above Nerima, docked with the ancient Corvette Tenders _Mare Island_, _Murmansk_, and _Holy Loch_, to have their Jump Drives reinstalled. The squadron would then have been available to evacuate the Tendo Family and the General Staff from the system in order to continue the war.

The Grand Duke had surprised everyone, however, with his firm intentions of staying on Nerima and making a stand against the Combine. Plans for refitting the squadron had been scrapped. The deadly and rare Barracuda missiles had been taken out of mothballs from the Tendo Family Armory, and loaded aboard.

"You've got to admit though, that this is the mission we've trained for, and hoped for, all our lives," the X.O. pointed out. "Those metalhead grunts on Oni are depending on our interdiction of local space."

"True," Captain Hauptmann agreed, wondering if his subordinate and friend was aware that one of those 'metalhead grunts' was the Lady Kasumi Tendo, eldest daughter of the Grand Duke.

He looked to a portrait on the bulkhead of the Wardroom. It was of a man who had been dead for over a thousand years, the famous captain of _Tang_'s ancient namesake: Richard 'Killer' O'Kane. Beneath the portrait was a silver-plated cribbage board, worn and pitted with tarnish over the centuries despite dilligent preservation efforts. Legend had it that this artifact was the actual cribbage board used by O'Kane during an ancient and practically forgotten war, a war at sea rather than in space, and the numerous plaques that adorned the board testified to a tradition of passing it on from ship to ship throughout its nearly eleven-hundred-year history.

The spirit of the Star League-era Corvette was much like that of the ancient Fleet Submarine; attack without warning, from a position of maximum advantage, without being detected. Hauptmann knew this as well as any of his crew. With their new orders from Grand Duke Tendo, they had been given their opportunity, perhaps their _only_ opportunity, to resurrect their ancient heritage.

"I never thought I'd see this day," Hauptmann went on. "I just hope the missiles still function. If they don't, we'll have to get in close like the damn GunShips, and slug it out point blank. Any damage we take in the process will only make us more visible to enemy radar."

"They've been checked out," the X.O. assured him.

"Nothing's certain until we shoot."

The phone squawked for attention, interrupting their conversation. Hauptmann picked it up and listened intently. He gave a few terse orders and then hung up.

"Time to go to work," he said to his Executive Officer.

The 1MC crackled to life as he finished.

"MAN BATTLESTATIONS!"

"Captain's on the Bridge!"

Captain Hauptmann floated through the airtight door and onto the cramped Bridge. Gas-plasma displays glowed in the dim lighting around him as he assumed his position on the conn. He had repeater displays for every vital station on board the ship at his disposal; from sensors, to weapons, to engineering. The muted murmurings of the crew bubbled over the chirps and bleeps of the instrumentation as they set to work prosecuting their first target of the engagement.

"Captain, the ship is manned for Battlestations," the Officer of the Deck informed him. "We hold contact Echo Five-Five on our passive sensors."

"Very well, Mister Patel," Hauptmann grunted.

"Conn, Sensory," the Sensor Supervisor called out. "Contact Echo Five-Five designated as a Union Class DropShip. Contact now bears Three-One-Zero minus Three-Five. Sensory holds no other close contacts."

The Officer of the Deck looked his supervisor in the eye. "Very well, Sensory."

Hauptmann noted the data streaming on his displays before asking his Officer of the Deck any questions. _Tautog_ was the closest friendly ship to them, about four light-seconds distant on their port beam. If the Barracuda missed, it might be up to them to destroy the fleeing target.

"This is the Captain," he announced. "I have the Deck. Mister Patel retains the Conn."

The various stations on the Bridge acknowledged this. He continued.

"Fire Control, I intend to attack contact Echo Five-Five with a Barracuda. Make tubes One and Two ready in all respects."

"Make tubes One and Two ready in all respects, Fire Control, aye."

"Range to target Echo Five-Five; two hundred-thousand kilometers," Sensory updated. It would be a medium range engagement for the formidable Barracuda.

"Conn, Fire Control; tubes One and Two ready in all respects."

"Very well, Fire Control," Hauptmann replied. "Firing Point Procedures!"

This was the moment of truth. They would launch a Barracuda missile at the Combine DropShip. If things went well, the enemy would not detect the ejection of the weapon from the tube. They wouldn't be able to retaliate at this range even if they did, but Hauptmann wanted to give them as little time as possible for evasive maneuvers.

"Firing solution set," Fire Control announced.

"Fire One," Hauptmann ordered coldly. This was his first Barracuda fired in anger. His first Barracuda fired ever.

"Fire One, aye... Weapon away!" the Weapons Officer announced to the hushed Bridge crew.

The Barracuda antiship missile, a command-guided and self-homing torpedo, was catapulted with an audible _thunk_ from the Number One launch tube of the _Tang_ via an electromagnetic ejection system.

"The Weapon is running hot, straight, and normal. Estimated time to Weapon-Enable Point: one-nine minutes, mark."

"Very well, Fire Control," Hauptmann acknowledged. He left the conn to observe the attack from Sensory.

It would take nineteen minutes for the torpedo to reach the point at which it would enable itself. In that moment, the weapon would energize its radar and laser homing sensors, and begin searching for Echo Five-Five. Once it found the target, it would engage its plasma drive and make a beeline straight for the enemy spacecraft.

Captain Hauptmann hunched over his Passive EMS Sensor Operator's shoulder, and scanned the displays. They were continuing to avoid the use of their own radars, which would only give away their location.

"Any indication that they detected our launch?"

"No sir," the man replied. "Not yet."

The minutes ticked off with an agonizing gait. Still, the Combine ship had not detected the incoming torpedo. No other ships appeared on the passive scopes that could threaten them.

"The Weapon has enabled," the Firecontrolman finally announced while studying the feedback from the torpedo's on-board computer - via tightbeam laser datalink back to the _Tang_. "The Weapon has acquired the target, and is homing."

Several moments passed as more sensory data streamed in. The smudge of green radiance on the display that marked the Combine DropShip began to shiver and quake with multicolored bursts of light. Hauptmann saw it as soon as the Passive EMS Sensor Operator did.

"Echo Five-Five has engaged its drive," the enlisted rating announced. "They are radiating from their primary search-and-acquisition radar."

Hauptmann's response was automatic. He had to know which direction they were running in order to decide whether it was worth the risk of radioing the _Tautog_ to pursue.

"Mark bearing rate."

"Echo Five-Five is turning to port," Sensory declared. "Bearing rate indeterminate..." He continued to study the data as it streamed in from the Target Motion Analysis computers. "He's reversed his turn to starboard, now putting on negative pitch... Now turning back to port... He's maneuvering very erratically, Captain."

"They're scared," Hauptmann said solemnly. "They've never had to deal with this type of attack before. With just a handful of Barracudas left in the entire Inner Sphere, it's no wonder."

"The Weapon has shifted to terminal guidance mode," Fire Control updated.

"Torpedo!" the Sensor Operator of the Furinkan Combine Union Class DropShip _General Belgrano_ cried in terror, her eyes wide and flashing with panic.

The aged Captain of the _Belgrano_ paled as well. "Are you certain?"

"Yes, Captain Peron," the Sensor Operator replied. "Incoming torpedo bearing Two-Eight-Eight, plus Two-Nine. Range: fifty thousand kilometers." Her eyes closed wearily. "Speed: plus two-thousand meters per second,

relative."

Captain Peron did the math. Given range, speed, and their own course and velocity, the torpedo would hit them in just under thirty seconds. That wasn't a lot of time. "Sound General Quarters!" he ordered. "Helm, take evasive maneuvers! Communications, notify Theater Command at once of our position and situation! Sensory, go active on radar, and find the ship that launched that torpedo! Weapons, all gunners prepare to shoot down incoming torpedo! Have them commence fire as soon as they are in range."

It would take almost five minutes for his crew to man Battlestations, more time than they would probably get, but at least he had been prudent enough to keep a third of his gunners on station at any given moment. They might be the only chance the ship had.

_General Belgrano_ began to lurch with erratic thruster burns in the hope of shaking the torpedo. Barracudas and their like were such rare weapons in the Inner Sphere that DropShips like the Union and Leopard Classes no longer carried any kind of countermeasure systems. Only the Overlord Class, itself a rare sight in the Inner Sphere, had the radar jamming and laser-spoofing systems necessary to confuse an incoming torpedo.

"Confirming incoming torpedo as a Barracuda-type," Sensory updated. "The Weapon has acquired us with active sensors and is homing." She consulted the angry red numbers in the upper left corner of the display. "Estimated time to intercept: twenty seconds... Mark."

Peron nodded slowly. There wasn't time to don a pressure suit. Even their light-speed message to Theater Command at the distant Jump Point would take longer to reach its destination than the torpedo would give them before impact.

"Helm, continue evasive maneuvers," he said, sitting down in his acceleration chair. "Use full overthrust until the five-seconds-to-impact point." The crew dashing to their stations would be unable to move, might even be injured by the sudden five-gee burns, but it was their only chance outside of shooting the weapon down. That was what the last five seconds were for, to give the gunners their chance without the high-thrust evasive maneuvers spoiling their aim or pinning them helplessly in their chairs.

"Torpedo continues to home," Sensory declared, her voice strained by the sudden gee-forces that afflicted her. "Time to intercept: ten seconds... Mark."

The torpedo was a single-minded entity possessed of all the ruthless efficiency of any cold, calculating machine. Its sole reason for existence was to locate the target programmed into its memory banks using its active sensors, home in on it at extremely high velocity, and destroy it. Its passive sensors noted the bursts of infrared and visible light from the target's drives, and the microwave emissions from its radar and commo systems. It then analyzed these inputs for a split second to determine that the data was spurious, and to be ignored. Only the time-stamped data encoded into its own radar energy reflected from the target was a valid input to the Target Motion Analysis subroutines.

The target was attempting to evade it, though its relatively feeble drive was no match for the sheer power of the torpedo's own plasma drive. A plasma drive sending a torpedo on a one-way trip could be asked to put out levels of thrust far greater than any manned spacecraft could hope to match. Its relative velocity was so high that only a computer-controlled, radar-directed point defense weapon could hope to shoot it down, and those systems no longer existed on ships like its target.

It was close now, and the fractional reserve of reaction mass used for terminal guidance was now released for use by the Guidance Logic. The target could not evade. It could only be destroyed.

"Torpedo impact in five seconds," Sensory announced. Her voice was clear and high, with only a slight tremor of fear.

The flashes of light and rumble of autocannon fire through the hull announced the gunners' desperate attempts to shoot down the torpedo. The _Belgrano_'s erratic maneuvers ceased, making the flight through space as smooth as glass.

Gunner's Mate Second Class Akira Takeshi squeezed the firing studs of his heavy laser array again and again, heedless of the overheat warning he received from the computer. If he didn't hit his target in the next few moments it wouldn't matter if he burned out the focusing optics. The target was nothing more than a blue-shifted blur in his scope, more a projection of where the computer assumed the weapon would be in the near future, than an actual, solid target.

All Akira could do was train his laser along that thin swath of black sky designated by yellow tracking lines in his HUD, and start shooting.

There was a flash of light in his scope, and he whooped in triumph, sure of a direct hit. He couldn't have been more wrong, but there wasn't time left to realize that.

The torpedo ignored the incoming streams of impotent light and armor piercing shells. Its sensors were locked onto the looming spherical hull of the Furinkan Combine DropShip _General Belgrano_. At five seconds to impact, the thousand-kilogram high explosive warhead armed itself. The bursting charge was buried deep within a diamond-hard penetrator assembly located just behind the sensor package within the sleek armored hull.

The Barracuda antiship missile struck the _General Belgrano_ square amidships, just a meter to the right of one of the DropShip's maneuvering jets. The sensors which had faithfully guided the weapon were smashed into tiny bits an instant later against the hull, and the torpedo's considerable momentum forced the penetrator through the six-centimeter-thick armor plating. Even as the rest of the Barracuda was being obliterated by the force of impact, the penetrator continued on into the _Belgrano_. It blasted through the pressure hull, snapping through structural members, power conduits, and miscellaneous plumbing, before the detonator fired.

Akira watched as the outboard bulkhead facing his station bowed inward as if the treated steel plating were made of rubber. Time slowed down for him as the fresh white paint on the bulkhead began to blacken, the stain spreading out from the center of the distortion like a cancer. In the fraction of a second before he was vaporized by a thousand kilograms of detonating plastic-bonded high explosive, Akira realized that the black stain on the bulkhead was the paint being burned away by the tremendous heat of an exploding torpedo on the other side.

_General Belgrano_ shuddered with the impact, its hull rippling outward like waves of water from the surgically-neat hole created by the torpedo. Viewports in the path of the ripple cracked and burst their seals. Whole sections of armor plate popped free from their mounting. Tiny flakes of paint and motes of accumulated dust were flung from the hull in a hazy white nimbus.

The warhead detonation split the DropShip nearly in half from within, fire and light streaming from fissures in the hull and fountaining from the impact point. Parts of battlemechs and unrecognizable pieces of scorched technology scattered from the ruptured _Belgrano_ and into the void. The tremendous heat of the blast had vaporized the organic matter of the crew on three entire decks, including the 'Mech Bay, and so no corpses followed.

Some of those spared the blast died as concussive forces threw them against unyielding metal and each other. The entire Engineering Watch Section died within seconds as the breached reactor vessel vented star-hot plasma into the spaces. Others died in the moments after as the through-deck seals ruptured and the compartments depressurized. The pitiful survivors that Fate had spared from instant death were now subjected to hard gamma and neutron radiation from the leaking reactor plant, and the flood of radioactive coolant gas venting through ventilation ducts whose bulkhead flappers had been knocked open by the impact or had failed to close in time.

The Captain of the _General Belgrano_ knew his ship was dead, even as he knew that he would soon die. The Flight Deck was smashed. All but the failing Emergency Power was lost. The slow hiss of escaping atmosphere filled his ears, a sibilant harbinger of doom over the moans and cries of his surviving crew.

There was no sense in asking for a damage report. He could see through the cracked viewports an entire third of his ship peeling away from the superstructure like the rind of an orange. Shards of metal and other wreckage tumbled in free fall outside. The ship was totally destroyed.

There was only one duty left to him.

"Communications," he croaked. "Can we still transmit?"

His Communications Officer, her scalp split wide open and streaming blood, pulled herself up to her station.

"We have a low-power radio set," she moaned. "All long-range comms are down. We might be able to reach another ship, if it's close."

"Activate the automated distress beacon, assuming it still works," he ordered. "If the Main Computer is still functional, purge all memory banks and destroy all crypto material."

He picked up the 1MC mic and was surprised to see that it still worked. The question now was how many of his crew would be able to hear him. "All hands abandon ship," he commanded. "All hands abandon ship."

There would be no abandoning ship for the Flight Deck crew, he realized. The escape pods were located a deck below, and the section of the pressure hull that connected them was depressurized. They were trapped, doomed to die as the compartment slowly bled its air into space. He lay back in his chair and watched the viewports for the sight of an escape pod, just _one_, that would tell him some of his crew would live.

There were none.

He let out an anguished cry, the only one he would permit himself.

The Captain of the _Tang_ watched _General Belgrano_'s death throes through the high power telescope monitor. His crew watched with him. A single Barracuda had torn the 3500-ton DropShip completely asunder.

"Captain, we're picking up an automated distress beacon from Echo Five-Five, along with some low-power voice-only transmissions requesting assistance."

His X.O. gave him a questioning look.

"Should we lend a hand?" he finally asked.

"No," Captain Hauptmann replied, his voice taut with loathing. "No, we can't do that. Combine GunShips will be closing on this area in force, and they'll be blazing away with their radars to find us. Our job is to find and destroy them without being detected, not to get ourselves killed playing rescue."

"But there are survivors over there," the X.O. pointed out. "Look at that wreck, Skipper. You know they can't last long."

"I know that. Don't think for a moment I don't. My decision stands."

Hauptmann looked to his Officer of the Deck. "Get us the hell out of here, Patel. Remain at Battlestations for an hour. If there are no close contacts at that time, call me in the Wardroom and we'll secure from Battlestations."

As he floated through the airtight door he noted that the triumphant expressions on his crews' faces were gone, replaced with the silent knowledge that next time, it could be them out there left to die in the cold airless void. He thought back to the days of Killer O'Kane, where combat had been on the similar terms of attack-without-warning and no-quarter-given, and wondered if the man had felt just as sick with himself after a victory as he did.

Nerima Confederation DropShip _Palomino_

Landing Pad #6, Aquila Starport

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

14 April 3025

Akane sat sullenly in Crew's Mess. One of the ship's crew casually swept the center aisle between the tables, his broom making a sighing sound as it brushed against the linoleum deck. She could feel his eyes upon her from time to time as she hunched over the table, her chin resting on her crossed wrists.

It must have been quite the joke among the crew, she thought angrily. Grand Duke Tendo's daughter and her cipher of a fiance, Ranma, fighting once again, she mused. 'And did you see that cute girl Ranma was with?'

He had called her 'uncute' before. It was a stupid insult when she thought about it, something a ten-year-old would come up with, and so naturally the first time she had ever heard the term was from Ranma. She could deal with his childish insults, knowing that it was just his usual way of getting back at her for something that was clearly his fault. But when he had compared her to Ukyou, and the 'long-lost' fiancee had been judged the winner, _that_ had hurt.

What did Ukyou have that she didn't?

Was it the hair? she wondered. Her hair had been longer than Ukyou's once; shiny, silky strands of blue-black that she had considered one of her best features. Then she had cut her hair for the expedition. Didn't everyone, including Ranma, say that they liked her short hair better? Were they just being polite?

No, it couldn't have been that simple, she decided. It's just Ranma being his usual childish, insensitive self. It's no secret that he doesn't like the engagement with me. I don't like it either, so why is it somehow _my_ fault?!

"Ranma, you jerk..." she muttered to herself. The young petty officer sweeping the Crew's Mess paused for a moment in his duties to observe her.

She looked up to regard him, an action that turned him away quickly in embarrassment, his sweeping motions becoming more vigorous as he tried to pretend that she didn't exist and wasn't looking right at him.

She knew him peripherally. The _Palomino_ was too small of a ship for her not to know the crew by sight. She knew some of them by first name. He was a Sensor Operator on the Flight Deck, and doubled as one of the Mess Cranks during off-watch meals. He was about her age too, and kind of cute in a boyish way.

It would serve Ranma right, she decided. I'm not going to sit here and sulk over him!

"What are you doing after this?" she asked him.

The young petty officer started, then turned back to her.

"M-Me?" he asked in a small voice.

"Yes, you," she said with a smile. "Do you have liberty after you finish up here, or are you stuck on the ship?"

The man set his broom aside. "As soon as I'm done here, I'm cut loose for the night, ma'am," he replied. "But I really wasn't planning on going anywhere."

She turned up the heat in her smile.

"Do you think you could change your plans?" she asked him.

The young petty officer began to perspire.

"Um... Do you mean go o-out with you, ma'am?"

"Something like that," she replied.

"I'm not sure if I should, ma'am," he demurred. "I mean, you being who you are and all..."

She should have expected this, she realized. To the crew, she was the daughter of the Grand Duke no matter what pretense they happened to be operating under.

"Forget who I am for a night," she said casually. "I'm looking for company, and you look like a guy who could show a gal a good time."

The petty officer flushed red.

"Y-You mean that, ma'am?"

"'Akane' will do nicely," she corrected him gently.

"Yes, ma'am!" he said, wincing as he as said it. "Um, yes, Akane. I, uh, it's... I'm gonna need a few minutes."

"I'll meet you down in the Cargo Bay," she told him. "Don't keep me waiting long."

She rose from her seat and gave him a wink.

The petty officer tried to stop trembling with anticipation as she left Crew's Mess. He looked at the deck, then to his broom.

"Screw this," he said, tossing the broom into the Galley, and headed for Berthing to get changed.

They were seated in a beergarden, near the park, that Akane had seen when they first made planetfall on Tiber. She had been curious about the place, which was sunken into the side of a sloping hill below the level of Sowell Boulevard. The soft whir of electric automobiles moving nearby was a gentle sound, mingling with the pleasant hum of conversation, and muted by the hanging vines that clustered about every table. The lighting was soft, provided by candles at each table and by the evening glow of the city that surrounded them.

It was a spot she had hoped to take Ranma, assuming she could have ever talked him into it. Her 'date' for the evening sat across from her. It was not the pig-tailed mechwarrior, but Petty Officer Third Class Thaddeus Howard, the _Palomino_'s Sensor Operator.

Thaddeus, or Tad, as she had often heard the crew call him, was a true gentleman. It was a welcome change from watching Ranma shovel food into his mouth while arguing with his father, to note that Tad understood a napkin belonged on the lap, not tucked into the collar of your shirt, and that a lady appreciated it when you showed her to her seat. She knew on an instinctual level that it more than simply hollow courtesy for one of the nobility on his part, that such etiquette and respect for a lady came naturally to him.

The Pig-Tailed Jerk and his cute fiancee were out of her mind, at least for the moment.

She had not eaten before the meeting in the park with Ukyou, and now she was famished.

"Hungry?" she asked Tad.

"I could go for a little somthing," he responded. Her beau for the evening was understandably nervous with the whole affair, and she resolved to make the night as stress-free as possible for him.

One of the menu items showed particular appeal to her. A large pepper, indigenous to Tiber, stuffed with three kinds of melted cheese, seasoned bread crumbs, fresh cream, and shredded savory herbs. It was exactly the kind of food that Ranma would despise. She ordered for both of them.

They also ordered beer, which seemed to flow in this place from an endless tap. Buxom waitstaff in archaic bodices and skirts whirled around them with silent efficiency and pleasant smiles, each carrying a fistful of quart glasses filled with the golden brew.

Akane wasn't at all a drinker, and she had never been terribly interested in beer, but when in Rome... She sipped tentatively at her glass of pilsner, noting the bite of the hops and the crisp finish of the lightly-bodied beer. It wasn't half bad, she decided. She could see why men liked drinking the stuff on a hot day.

Tad drank his with gusto.

"What do you think?" she asked him.

"It's good," he replied, agreeing with her assessment. "I'm not much of a lager drinker, but this really hits the spot."

She took a larger drink from her glass. The beer's effervescence tingled in her nose and throat, a sensation rather like drinking champagne, she decided, only without most of the cloying sweetness. She was liking beer better and better.

"Have you come here often since we first arrived?" Tad asked as she put away her first glass in three giant gulps.

"This is my first time," she replied, now feeling a little bloated by so much liquid taken at once. Their waitress immediately noted the empty glass and replaced it with a full one. In spite of herself, she took another drink.

"Ma'am, I mean, Akane..." Tad began. They had just finished their stuffed peppers, and were starting on another round of beer.

"What is it, Tad?" she asked him. She was feeling very warm and fuzzy at the moment, and her grin was perhaps a little too wide.

"Um, if you don't mind me asking, why exactly did you invite me along to dinner?"

"Two reasons," she blurted, alarmed by how easily the words just slipped out of her mouth. "The first is that you were there when I wanted to go."

He seemed to take that in stride, with only a little disappointment showing on his face.

"The second," she said, wobbling slightly in her chair. "Is that you're really damn cute..."

When he blushed, she giggled a little too loudly, and then took another drink of her beer.

"Actually, there's a third reason," she added. "You aren't that stupid, insensitive jerk, Ranma Saotome..."

"Excuse me for saying this," Tad returned, his expression clouded with concern. "But aren't you engaged to marry Ranma Saotome?"

She snorted into her beer. "Ha! Don't make me laugh, Tad. Why would I _EVER_ want to marry a clod like him?"

"Begging your pardon, ma'am," Tad said uncomfortably. It was now very clear to him that Akane was more than just a little buzzed, but the fact that she was the Grand Duke's daughter could not escape him. He would have to tread lightly. "But wasn't this your father's idea?"

She set her glass down heavily on the table, sloshing beer over her hand as she did so.

"Now you see here, mister," she said in a slurred, angry tone. "My father is a total idiot for doing this..." Her eyes lost focus for a moment before she continued. "...For even _associating_ with a couple of con-men like the Saotomes... I mean, who in their right mind would want to join families with an asshole like Genma Saotome? He cheats on his wife, steals from the Treasury..." A dark thought crossed her mind. "...I bet he even robbed Chance King before the poor guy died...

"And Ranma," she went on. "Sometimes I feel sorry for him because he had to grow up with that loser of a father, but then he does something like this!" Her cloudy eyes lit up with fire. "He thinks she's cuter than me," she muttered bitterly. "Jerk... Asshole... Bastard..."

Tad waved off the waitress before she could bring them another round.

"Nabiki was right," Akane moaned. "This was a terrible idea. A crazy idea. I should be home right now, fighting the Combine, not sitting here safe and sound in some restaurant two hundred light-years away..."

Tad had no reply to that. News of the Combine's siege had been a blow to the ship's morale, made worse by the fact that they were stuck in the Palatine System until the _Dragonfly_'s repairs were complete.

"Maybe we should get back to the ship," he suggested.

Akane set her chin down on the table, her eyes heavy with sorrow and weariness.

"I have to pee," she said to him, ashamed that she wasn't able to observe even the slightest decorum in her speech. "But I can't stand up on my own."

Tad looked away for a moment, wondering how in the hell they had come to this moment. "I'll help you up," he told her.

While Akane did what she needed to do, Tad waited outside the restrooms. There was a pay phone situated between the Men's Room and the Lady's Room, and he considered using it to call the ship. Lady Akane was extremely drunk, and it was probably a bad idea for her to be like this in public, much less in public on a foreign planet.

"What's taking her so long?" he wondered, hoping that she hadn't passed out or something.

He continued to wait, watching as patrons came and went. Still, there was no sign of Akane.

Finally, he asked one of the ladies who was about to enter the restroom if she would look for Akane. When she returned, she shook her head in the negative.

"I'm sorry, sir," the lady replied. "But there was no one in there fitting your descripton of her."

"What?" the young petty officer cried. "You've gotta be kidding me!"

"I'm afraid not," the lady replied. "You know that there _is_ another door to the restroom. It leads to the cafe inside."

The color drained from Tad's face. She didn't...

He thanked the lady for her troubles, then plunged through the door to the Men's Room. Like the other restroom, this one had a door set on the opposite wall, and it led into a small cafe. Through the windows he could see the bright lights of the street beyond.

There was no sign of Akane in the cafe, or outside.

"Oh man," he groaned. "I am SO screwed..."

Genma Saotome awoke from a deep dreamless sleep in Berthing. The Captain of the Palomino stood next to his rack, shining a flashlight at the deck.

"Commander Saotome," the Captain addressed him. "We have a serious problem on our hands."

"What is it?" he asked blearily. He could not imagine any problems in that moment, other than the JumpShip's jump core being somehow irreparable, or that the Confederation had finally fallen to the Combine.

"The Lady Akane is missing," the Captain told him gravely. "She went out into town with one of my crew, got drunk, and disappeared on him."

Genma blinked away the sleep. Akane, missing? Drunk? With some other guy?

"Where is my idiot son?" he demanded.

For the first time in his life, Ranma Saotome felt completely relaxed in the presence of a girl. It amazed him how well he and Ucchan had been able to pick up where they had left off more than ten years ago. True, his best friend from childhood wasn't who he had always believed she was, but that didn't seem to matter much now.

"It's getting pretty late," he said to her. "We're coming up on 'bingo' fuel."

"Yeah, we should probably head for home," she agreed. Thoughts of continuing their time together in more personal surroundings was foremost in her thoughts.

Ranma banked the plane into a turn for the starport.

Akane Tendo staggered down the wide tree-lined boulevard near the Starport Expressway, alternately crying her eyes out and cussing hard enough to strip away old paint. Though she had stopped drinking an hour previous to this moment, she was getting more and more drunk as her system absorbed ingested alcohol into her bloodstream. It seemed that her forward motion was more an act of sheer stubbornness than any sort of coordination between her brain and her feet. In fact, she had only a peripheral awareness of heading back to the DropShip, as if her feet were engaged by a subconscious autopilot.

Her thoughts flew from one extreme to the other, hating Ranma for what he had done to her in one moment, then railing against herself for treating him so poorly at the castle. She pitied herself and then pitied Ranma for having such an awful, mixed-up childhood. The next moment she was raging at the night, shaking a fist into the sky as if Ranma and Ukyou were right above her.

Finally, without realizing it at first, she had returned to the _Palomino_. She did not recall tearing a ten-meter section of chain-link fence from its posts on the perimeter to get there, nor did she recall tramping across a kilometer of grassy fields and stretches of concrete tarmac, oftentimes only just avoiding certain death from the arrival or departure of a spaceship. All that she was aware of was that she had returned to the _Palomino_.

As she staggered past the steel-tube staging around Tarou's Hunchback, the throaty sound of the Boomerang's engine filled her ears. She looked up, her bloodshot eyes wincing at the intensity of the aircraft's flashing collision lights as it passed overhead. Ranma had returned.

She watched the Boomerang circle lazily around the DropShip before diving sharply at the ground. Her heart nearly seized up at the idea of him crashing, and then he pulled out of his dive to flare out neatly for a landing. Only then could she breathe again.

The Boomerang rolled to a stop near the ramp up to the 'Mech Bays. Ranma killed the engine with an absent flick of his wrist. He turned back to Ukyou, who was giving him an adoring look which he misread as simply having enjoyed the flight.

"Well, here we are," Ranma announced to her.

"Are you still interested in some okonomiyaki?" she asked him coyly.

"Am I? You bet I am!"

"Terrific," she said to him. "But first I want to thank you for the ride."

Ranma began to say "Aw, it was nothing," but got as far as 'it' when she reached over and kissed him. Her parted lips pressed firmly against his as she curled her arms around him to draw her fiance into a deeper embrace.At first he was too surprised to do or say anything. Then he started to enjoy it.

It was only when her tongue began to slide into his mouth that he panicked. What in the hell was he doing with her?!

Ukyou sensed his negative reaction to the new direction she was taking with their embrace, and parted with him. He looked like an animal caught in the headlights of an oncoming car as she drew away.

"Something wrong, Ranchan?" she asked softly.

"Uh..." Ranma murmured cogently.

"You don't get kissed very often, do you, honey?" she noted. She knew she was correct in this, and that only made her chances with him better. If he wasn't smooching Akane, then he didn't really love her. Right?

"Uh... I guess not..."

She chuckled. "That'll have to change." She popped the canopy release and lifted the clear polycarbonate to step out of the plane. "Come on, Ranchan, that okonomiyaki awaits."

The mention of food snapped him back to reality.

"Oh yeah," he said brightly. "Cool."

Akane watched as the two lovebirds walked towards the _Palomino_, oblivious to her presence. Anger welled within her once again, and she lurched forward towards the DropShip.

"Where the hell have you been, boy?" Genma Saotome asked his son in a tone of voice that brooked no bullshit. He cast a furtive glance towards the girl accompanying his son, trying to remember where he had seen her before.

"What's it to you, Old Man?" Ranma retorted. He was in no mood for his father's crap anymore than Genma was for his. Not after hearing in gory detail the story of Ukyou's abandonment and the accompanying theft of her dowry.

Ukyou bristled by his side, only the sight of Genma's bruised and swollen face keeping her from hitting him once again.

"Akane is missing, boy," Genma growled. "Apparently she ran off with one of the crew and got drunk. Now she's lost in town."

"What?!" Ranma blurted. Akane and some other guy? It couldn't be Doctor Tofu, or Pop would have said as much.

"You heard me," Genma told him. "And from what I can see, it's all your fault, boy."

"Then you're blind," Ranma retorted. It's all HER fault, he thought.

"If anyone is to blame around here," Ukyou added, pointing an accusing finger at Genma. "It's YOU."

"Who are you, anyway?" Genma asked her, his voice filled with anger.

Ukyou brandished her battle-spatula.

"Does THIS ring any bells?"

It did. Genma fell backwards in his haste to avoid another blow from the dreaded implement of okonomiyaki cooking.

"Don't hurt me!" he wailed, bringing his arms up to ward off attacks from her. Some of the assembled _Palomino_ crew looked on with amusement from the deck of the open 'Mech Bay above.

"What a coward," she spat at him. She turned to Ranma. "Aren't you embarassed to have him for a father?"

"Constantly," he muttered in reply. He looked down at his father. "You're pathetic, Pop."

Genma had no rebuttal for this.

"So now what?" Ukyou asked Ranma.

He blew out his breath in a heavy sigh. "I guess I gotta go look for Akane," he told her.

This was not the answer she was hoping for, but she could see how he was obligated in the matter. She considered the possibility of lending her assistance in the search.

"I'm right here, Ranma," Akane said behind them, her voice ringing clear and sad in his ears.

Ranma spun around to see her. She was not a pretty sight. She was drunk and disheveled, her skin blotchy and her eyes red from crying. Her feet were caked with mud from walking across the open ground of the starport, and her arms were scratched from her encounter with the chain link fence. The smell of burnt synthetic rubber from the soles of shoes that had walked across recently plasma-blasted concrete mingled with the strong scent of beergarden brew.

"Akane!" he cried a little too cheerfully. "You're okay!"

"Not that you'd care," she retorted, wobbling slightly as she did so.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked her.

She gave them both appraising looks, her head drooping involuntarily as she glanced at them in turn. "I suppose you two have plans for the evening, right?"

"As a matter of fact," Ranma told her. "Ucchan and I were going to go back to her place to eat okonomiyaki. Right Ucchan?"

For all of Ukyou's desire to be rid of Akane, she was very uncomfortable with the present situation.

"Uh, yeah," she replied.

Akane closed her eyes and lurched forward towards Ranma.

"Izzat a fact now?" she asked him in a slurred voice. She opened her eyes and gave him a hard stare, a shaky finger pointed at his face. "I suppose that smudge of lipstick on your mouth got there by ACCIDENT?!"

Ranma's hand came up to his mouth, brushing at his lips and coming away slightly waxy and tinged with red. Genma wailed with dismay about how his son had betrayed Akane.

"H-Hey, uh," he stammered. "T-This ain't what it looks like."

Her face screwed up with anger.

"Don't LIE to me!" she screamed at him. "I HATE YOU!"

Her open hand smashed against the side of his face. The blow and the emotional release threw her off-balance, and she began to swoon drunkenly. Ranma caught her in his arms, his cheek red and stinging from her wrath.

As she sank against his body her tired, aching eyes fell upon the crook of his left arm, and the narrow burn scars that cross-hatched his skin. It was the aftermath of his wounding in the garden, where an assassin's laser had come close to slicing off his arm. He had earned those scars saving her life.

The sight of them brought back all of her lingering questions and doubts regarding the pig-tailed mechwarrior, and in her vulnerable state of body and mind, she broke down into sobs.

"Why, Ranma?" she moaned softly, her voice slurred almost beyond coherence. "Why did you do this to me?"

He held her close, his eyes trembling with uncertainty and shame as she continued to cry quietly in his embrace. Then with a final shudder she passed out in his arms. Ukyou looked away uncomfortably from the scene. The _Palomino_ crew did as well.

"I need to get her to bed," Ranma said to Ukyou at length. "Sorry about this."

"No, no. I understand," she replied. "I'll call you tomorrow."

Ukyou turned and started to walk away from the landing pad. When she was out of sight she would call Konatsu and tell him to bring a car to the starport. Until then, all she could think about was Ranma's relationship with Akane.

It was clear that Akane had feelings for him. It was also clear to Ukyou that the Tendo Heir had been jealous of her from the moment they had met, and her drunken breakdown in front of Ranma had been an affirmation of that belief. The only question that remained was Ranma's feelings for Akane.

She didn't want to believe it, but her fiance seemed to have more than simply a grudging involvement with Akane. There had been real pain in his eyes at her tacit accusal of betrayal, and he had chosen to see to her well-being rather than leave with his 'cute' fiancee. Sure, part of it was his obligation to Akane, but there was more than that.

Ukyou clutched her arms around herself as she walked, and shuddered. He wasn't lost to her yet, but she had to make an effort to get into his life quickly, and win him over before it was too late. She couldn't bear the idea of losing him a second time.

Ranma Saotome was conscious of the many eyes upon him. Most of them were unsympathetic, some were downright hostile. He had never seen the crew like this before.

He cradled Akane's dead-drunk body in his arms and started slowly up the ramp, his eyes glaring back at his silent accusers. They turned away from him, each unwilling to answer his unspoken challenge. Genma watched his son enter the ship, conscious of the crew's sudden shift in attitude towards them both.

There was no elevator leading from the 'Mech Bays to the living spaces aboard the _Palomino_, an oversight of the Leopard Class that had never been addressed despite centuries of production. He would have to put her on his back and carry her up the ladder. This he did, taking care not to injure her as they passed through several deck hatches to the Lower Deck.

It was easier for him now, as the ladders were more like steep stairs in the living spaces. Akane was a lot heavier than he expected her to be, but that might have been because she was so drunk. He made it as far as Berthing when he realized that she was starting to throw up.

He dashed for the Head, making it to a stall, but not in time to keep her from vomiting all over his red mandarin blouse. Steeling himself, he wiped away the stinking muck from her mouth and chin and set her down over the bowl. She murmured thanks and began another round of retching.

Ranma ran the sink while she continued coughing and spewing. Between heaves she sobbed and mewled, making him feel about ten centimeters tall. It wasn't his fault that she was like this, but he felt guilty just the same. He peeled off his puke-stained shirt and tossed it into the sink to get the worst of it off before he put it into the Ship's Laundry.

Akane lost what little strength she had regained, and slumped against the bowl of the toilet. He had to prop her up to keep her from heaving one final time onto the cold terrazzo floor. When it looked at last like she was finished, he gently pulled her out of the stall and let her lay on the deck.

She was filthy, he realized. Her feet were muddy, her clothes covered with spattered vomit, her face tear-stained, and her mouth dribbling a combination of drool and the dregs of her digestive system. A clump of wetted paper towels cleaned up her face, but the rest of her needed work if he was going to put her in her rack. That would mean getting her clothes off - a task he balked at almost immediately.

Still, he had to do something. He couldn't leave her here. Even if he wanted to, the crew hated him enough already. He didn't need to give them any more ammunition.

As he pulled her shoes off, he couldn't help but think that this was actually somehow his fault. At least a little. He felt like it was, anyway. It was a stupid thing to believe, he told himself, because HE wasn't the one who had gotten so drunk that he couldn't take care of himself!

"Dammit, Akane," he grunted. "Why'd you have to freak out on me like this? I don't understand why you're so mad at me. I didn't do nothing."

But he did, he realized. He had kissed Ukyou. Sort of. It was more like she had kissed him, but until she started getting weird with her tongue, he had been content to let her.

"The kiss was nothing," he said to Akane. "I mean it. I had nothing to do with it. It was all Ukyou's idea, okay?"

Her head lolled on her shoulders, and her eyes fluttered, but she did not reply. Now that her shoes were off, he was back to the impasse of getting her out of her clothes. His face flushed at the thought. What could he do?

"Hey, uh, Akane," he said to her. "We need to get you out of these clothes, okay?" She murmured something incoherent. "So, ah, I'm gonna close my eyes and unbutton your blouse, all right? I promise that I ain't gonna look."

He closed his eyes and turned his head away for good measure before his fingers began fumbling with the buttons on her blouse.

Man, I hope she's wearing a bra...

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Saotome?" an angry voice asked him.

He opened his eyes and looked at his accuser. Yuka and Sayuri were standing in the open door of the Head, looking at him, shirtless, and in the process of taking Akane's clothes off...

"This ain't what it looks like," he said tersely.

"Didn't we just hear that line of crap from you?" Sayuri tossed back at him.

"What a pig," Yuka agreed.

"For your information," Ranma bristled. "I was trying to get her cleaned up. She's covered in puke. You want me to put her to bed as is?"

"We'll take over now," Sayuri declared. "You've done enough damage for one night."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" he demanded.

"What do you think, you neanderthal?" Yuka asked him angrily. "Can't you see what you've done to Akane?"

Ranma stood, jabbing a thumb at his chest. "I'M not the one who decided to get falling down drunk!" he retorted. "So how the HELL is this all MY fault?"

"Are you blind?" Sayuri riposted. "Can't you see how much she feels for you? Don't you understand how badly you've hurt her?"

Ranma flinched at her question. "Her? Feel for me? Gimme a break."

"She _loves_ you," Yuka returned. "Why she loves you, I can't possibly imagine. And in spite of her feelings for you, you betrayed her for some cupcake with a ribbon in her hair. Pig."

Sayuri gave him a look of disgust. "You're worse than blind. You're a total fucking idiot. You _and_ your half-wit father."

"Don't piss me off, lady," Ranma menaced, his teeth clenched.

"Or else what?" she returned.

He stood in cold silence. He did not hit girls, he told himself. Even girls who deserved it. Even these two, who had hated his guts from Day Fucking One...

"Stand down, Saotome," Sayuri continued. "Just get the hell out of here. Leave. Do us all a favor - especially Akane - and go find your little local honey. When we finally get off this planet, you should just stay here with her, okay?"

Ranma fists clenched tight with barely-checked wrath. The two fighter pilots could hear the knuckles crack and the tendons in his wrists and forearms creak with tension.

"I don't need a couple of dykes like you telling me how to live my life," he said to them, his voice trembling with fury. "You don't know me, and no matter what you might think, you don't know Akane either, so just STAY THE HELL OUT OF THIS!"

He pushed his way past them before he lost his temper and did something he would really regret.

Akane does not love me! he thought angrily. He took the stairs down to the Lower Deck three at a time. Half the time she doesn't even seem to _like_ me!

Ranma Saotome could feel Ryouga's eyes burning into him from across the 'Mech Bay when he stepped through the airtight door.

"Raaaannnnmaaaaaa," the fanged mechwarrior growled. Senior Technician Akari Unryuu stood nervously by his side. Members of the Tech Shed and the ship's crew looked on, anticipating a fight. "What have you done to Akane?!"

"Blow it out your ass, Ryouga," Ranma growled back. "Don't get involved in something you know nothing about."

Ryouga started towards him. "Maybe I'll just have to beat the truth out of you, then!"

"You want a piece of me?" Ranma shot back. He beckoned with his hands. "Come get some, Pork Boy!"

They charged straight at each other across the 'Mech Bay, meeting at the feet of Genma's Griffin to the sound of fists smashing into each other's faces. Neither bothered with defense in that first clash. Each wanted to knock the other's head off.

Ryouga slammed into the Griffin's ankle from the impact, which he shrugged off a little faster than Ranma managed to recover from his own injury. Only the separation they had between them kept Ryouga from exploiting this advantage.

"They tell me you were cheating on her with some other woman!" he snarled at Ranma as he approached.

"I told you not to get involved in something you don't know nothin' about," Ranma returned. He dropped into a low fighting stance, knowing that Ryouga would come to him with little provocation.

"Were you with another woman or weren't you?"

"She's not some 'other woman,' you dumbass," Ranma protested. "She's an old friend from when we were kids! Can't any of you idiots figure that out?"

"I've had about enough of your lip, Ranma!"

Ryouga lashed out with his foot, his strike aimed for Ranma's nose, and angled up in such as way as to drive the bone into the brain if it connected. The pig-tailed mechwarrior bobbed clear of the strike knowing that it had been a potentially fatal blow.

If Ryouga wanted to turn up the heat, that was fine with him...

A second kick cut his cheek as he dodged away. He kept up the momentum of his dodge, pivoting on his heel to whirl into a flying roundhouse that drove into Ryouga's chest. He could feel Ryouga's ribs straining against their connective tissues and somehow holding together. The blow sent Ryouga to the deck, but not long enough for him to follow up.

"Not bad," Ryouga grunted. "I'm glad that you won't make this too easy for me."

"It's gonna get a lot worse for you," Ranma returned, wiping away the blood on his cheek, and secretly fearful of the man's resilience. What was this guy made of? This was not the candyass he had spanked time and time again in 7th Grade!

Ryouga just seemed to be getting angrier as he stood there.

"I'll tear your head off, Saotome!"

He came at Ranma again, throwing punches that ripped through the air, blows so strong that Ranma's arms and hands ached from blocking them all. Straight punches became vicious combination attacks that Ranma could only defend against. Ryouga's ferocity and his seemingly limitless endurance gave him no openings to exploit.

They stood locked in mortal combat beneath the Griffin while techs and members of the crew looked on in awe. The sound of flesh striking flesh popped and snapped in the cavernous hangar, with neither combatant gaining the upper hand.

Finally, Ryouga got lucky, and Ranma's head rocked back with a blow. The pig-tailed mechwarrior flew backwards to smash against the Griffin's right foot. Ryouga followed through this time, landing a punch to the solar plexus that knocked the wind out of Ranma, and sent him to the deck wheezing for air to fill his nearly collapsed lungs.

"Now you'll pay!" he snarled at Ranma, kicking him soundly in the jaw and laying him out flat.

Ranma rolled over onto his back before Ryouga could stomp down on his neck and snap it. He lashed out desperately with his feet, tripping Ryouga up as he tried to recover from his would-be death blow, and sending him flailing clumsily to the deck, face first.

Ryouga stunned himself with the fall, giving Ranma the chance to get his wind back. He rose to his feet, body burning with pain, as Ryouga did the same.

"Had enough?" Ranma asked him, blood trickling down the corner of his mouth.

"You're still breathing," Ryouga spat wearily. "So the answer is no."

"Don't make me kill you, Ryouga," Ranma returned, huffing painfully. "I will if I have to."

"I'd rather die than let Akane's betrayal go unavenged!"

Ranma leaped into the air with a swiftness that took Ryouga by surprise. "I didn't betray her!" he shouted as his foot smashed into Ryouga's chin.

Ryouga reeled with the blow, staggering backwards near collapse. If Ranma hadn't been hurting so much, he could have ended it right there. Instead, Ryouga found his footing and shook away the cobwebs.

"I didn't betray her," Ranma repeated. He had only just stopped short of dealing his own deathblow with that kick, and Ryouga had taken it like they were merely sparring. He didn't have much juice left in him at this point, whereas Ryouga was just starting to feel it.

He needed to buy himself some time.

"You want the truth so bad? Here it is, Ryouga..."

Ryouga tensed, but did not return to the attack.

"The truth is that Ukyou and I knew each other on New Osaka when we were both nine years old," Ranma continued. "The truth is that until today, I didn't even know she was a girl..."

"You lie," Ryouga snorted. What kind of fool did Ranma take him for?

He started towards Ranma again, lunging with his foot, and drawing Ranma into a defensive posture that anticipated a low kick. Instead, he followed through with a left cross that grazed Ranma's jaw, then came back with a hard right uppercut and left hook combination. He had picked up a little boxing in his travels, and figured Ranma wouldn't expect it from him.

Ranma took both blows hard, and staggered backwards in a daze. Ryouga noted his adversary's watery knees, and knew that one more shot would put him away for good.

He didn't get the shot. Ranma must have been faking the extent of his weakness, he realized as a devastating punch combination smashed into his bruised body and face with incredible force. That rotten, sneaky bastard! He saw stars for a moment, and felt the throbbing of his lower lip as he closed up his guard against another blow. The taste of blood ran in his mouth from where he had inadvertantly bitten his tongue. Now he was in danger of being savaged by an enemy that had every reason to do him in.

His enemy did not follow through, either.

"Hear me out, goddammit!" Ranma cried, shaking with pain and with exhaustion. "You wanted the truth, and I'm giving it to you. If you can't handle the truth, then just say so and we can go back to killing each other."

Ryouga was about to reply that yes, killing him would be a good idea, when Akari shouted his name.

"Ryouga, dearest!" she called to him. "Let Ranma speak. I think we all need to understand what happened tonight before we rush to judgement."

Ryouga paused, making Ranma want to hug Akari right then and there. Of course, that would probably have set Ryouga off again... 'Ryouga, dearest'...? Just what was going on between those two anyway?

"I'm listening," Ryouga said tersely, interrupting his internal speculation.

"Like I said," Ranma went on. "I didn't even know she was a girl until today."

"Not just a girl," Ryouga pointed out, "but your fiancee!"

"That's my stupid Old Man's fault!" Ranma returned. "He made some deal with Ukyou's dad ten years ago, but all he was doing was swindling them out of her dowry. I had nothing to do with it! I didn't even know there was an engagement! I thought Ukyou was a BOY, remember?!"

Ryouga thought this over, his face a mask of skepticism.

"Keep talking, Ranma."

"All we were _doing_ tonight was talking, Ryouga. We hadn't seen each other in ten years!"

Ryouga pondered this as well. He didn't look convinced.

"If all you're saying is true," he said sternly. "Then explain what her lipstick was doing all over your mouth. I wasn't here to see it, but plenty of other people did."

Ranma blanched. It kept coming back to that stupid kiss!

"That ain't so easy to explain," he admitted, and Ryouga took a menacing step towards him. "The truth, and I mean this, Ryouga, is that SHE kissed me. I don't know why she did it. Maybe she was just being friendly, I don't really know." Actually, he was starting to believe that Ucchan had intended much more than a simple show of friendship with her kiss, but this was not the time, and Ryouga was not the person with whom to discuss the matter.

"Sounds awfully friendly to me," Ryouga noted darkly.

"Look, Ryouga, it ain't like that," Ranma countered. "I don't know what she was thinking tonight, but to me she is just a friend, and a friend who can help us find Ryuugenzawa."

Ryouga gave him a dubious look. "Now you're just talking nonsense," he rumbled. His fingers cracked as he made a fist. "How can this Ukyou person help us find Ryuugenzawa?"

"She's an officer in the Federated Shiratori Army," Ranma replied. He was eager to continue talking as long as it meant he could replenish his fighting strength. "She says she can get us access to Empress Azusa's fortress. That's where the sixth key is located."

Now it was Ryouga's turn to blanch. His ferocity had given way to a sudden abject terror. "Em-Empress Azusa has it?" he stammered fearfully. It now looked as if he was about to break down and cry.

"Ask my Pop," Ranma confirmed. "He'll tell you."

"We're doomed," Ryouga moaned. "...I'll never get my cure..."

Ranma's eyes lit up. At last he had his opening!

"I just told you that she can help us out, Ryouga," he said to him in a voice quiet enough to prevent eavesdropping by the fight's many spectators. "Once we find Ryuugenzawa, we'll _both_ get our cures, you just wait and see!"

"Shut your mouth, Saotome," Ryouga growled. "Don't try to sweet talk me out of kicking your sorry ass."

So much for an opening, Ranma thought. Time for another tack.

"Look, Ryouga, I don't see how the two of us trying to kill each other is going to get us any closer to Ryuugenzawa. We should be working together, not fighting."

Ryouga looked to Akari for a moment. She smiled back supportively. Then he turned to Ranma.

"I can't bring myself to forgive you for hurting Akane," he said through clenched teeth. "You've got a lot to answer for."

Ranma's attempt at remaining calm began to fail. Why couldn't everyone just leave them alone!?

"Anything between Akane and me is just that, Ryouga. Between her and me. Not you. Not my Old Man. Not anyone else. You have no right to butt in on this. Akane is MY fiancee, got it? Not yours, Ryouga. MINE."

Ryouga's eye began to twitch, making Ranma tense for immediate combat.

"Do you really mean that?" he growled at the pig-tailed mechwarrior. "Does she really mean anything at all to you?"

Ranma hesitated. He hadn't even understood why he had just made such a declaration. Akane _did not_ love him, no matter what Yuka or anyone else might say. Why did he even care if she was his fiancee?

As Ryouga stood fuming just out of striking range, he realized that he needed to come up with an answer.

"Let's put it this way, Ryouga," he said finally. "The only person who can say if we aren't engaged anymore is Akane. Until she says otherwise, you just stay the hell out of our business."

"Fine with me," Ryouga grunted. "The second she wakes up tomorrow, she's going to dump you, Ranma." He cracked his knuckles in anticipation. "And then your ass is grass."

"Akane means a great deal to you, doesn't she?"

Ryouga tensed at Akari's question. How could he reconcile his feelings for Akane while knowing that Akari was ready to fill his life with joy if he would just let her?

"She does," he replied uneasily.

"Are you in love with her?" He detected the faint tremor in her voice that spoke of just such a fear within her. His heart began to clench tight. He did not want to hurt her. He could not bear to hurt her.

He could not deny to himself his feelings for Akane.

"She was very kind to me," he told her finally. "Before I joined the the _Palomino_ on Capra, no one could have cared less about me. It was Akane who rescued me from the Furinkan Combine by making a place for me on the ship."

"I see," Akari replied. "That's why you were so quick to defend Akane's honor, then. Because you felt you owed her for her kindness to you on Capra."

Ryouga closed his eyes. _If that is how you want to see things, Akari, then for you it shall be so_...

"Yes," he replied. "Exactly."

She looked at him with her huge soft eyes. "Would you do the same for me?"

_Yes_, he thought to himself, _I would. But please don't ask me to choose between you and Akane, because I don't know that I could_.

"O-Of course I would," he replied.

Akari sighed contentedly. "It makes me feel so very special to know that you would." She snuggled sleepily against his shoulder as they went up to Berthing. "You mean the universe to me, Ryouga dearest."

Heat welled up within him at her declaration. He felt such an intense satisfaction and pride at being the object of Akari's affection, and at the same time he felt such intense shame for not being able to come to terms with his love for Akane, that he was leading Akari on. Was he any better than Ranma to feel this way about two women? Didn't that make him a two-timer, with the only difference between himself and Ranma being the fact that Ranma had actually kissed one of his loves?

"Well, Ryouga dearest," Akari said to him in the darkened passageway of Berthing. "I guess this is good night."

He could see her dewy eyes shining.

"I, uh, guess so," he replied.

She closed her eyes and tilted her face up to him.

"Would you like to kiss me good night?" she asked him.

Sweat began to pour in buckets down Ryouga's temples. His knees buckled. The compartment seemed to be swaying back and forth around him.

She waited patiently for his lips as he grappled with himself.

"I would like to kiss you good night," she added softly.

"No! Um, er, what I mean is. Th-That is to say that..." he stammered helplessly.

"What is it?" she asked coyly, her eyes still closed. Her lips returned to a slight pucker that would be receptive to him.

"I-It should be m-me who, ah, you know... uh, er, k-k-kisses you g-good night," he rambled. He didn't even hear half of what he was saying, he was wound up so tight.

"I agree completely, Ryouga dearest."

She continued to wait with seemingly infinite patience, which was a good thing considering the glacial pace at which Ryouga's reluctant lips descended towards her.

_I can do this!_ Ryouga thought to himself. _She wants me to kiss her! No girl has ever wanted me to kiss her before!_

He misjudged the distance in the darkness, for his lips met hers long before he thought they should have. Their first kiss! Akari was so soft and gentle. She felt so warm and alive as he put clumsy hands upon her shoulders. She smelled so nice, too!

He could feel the heat rushing to his face, the blood pounding in his ears, the growing stiffness in his...

He broke from the kiss with a start. What kind of pervert was he?! Self-loathing coursed through him. He was an animal, a slave to his baser instincts, by taking advantage of this girl!

He was no better than Ranma, for now he too had kissed a girl, one of two that he couldn't keep from his thoughts. His two-timing was complete.

He was no better than Ranma...

Akari smiled to herself as Ryouga stammered a 'good-night' and left Berthing for his cot in 'Mech Bay Four. Ever so slowly, she lowered herself off the balls of her feet to the deck. If she had waited for him to finally reach her, she had the feeling that she would have been left waiting until well past dawn. A sweetheart beyond compare, but oh, was he shy!

The last person Ranma expected to see near the very top of the DropShip _Palomino_ was Doctor Tofu Ono, but there he was, climbing through the dorsal hatch.

"I had a feeling that I might find you up here," the doctor remarked."Do you mind a little company?"

Ranma wasn't in the mood. "Actually -"

"Good, I didn't think you'd mind," Tofu said, interrupting him.

Ranma relented. He didn't need any more enemies than he already had. Better to let the Doc say his piece and leave.

"So who sent you?" he asked instead. "My Pop?"

"Akane, actually," Tofu replied. "First she told me to see if you were 'sulking in the Engine Room,' as she put it. When you weren't there, and no one had seen you leave the ship, I figured this was the only place left where you could go and still hope to be alone."

"Great," Ranma muttered. "So how is she?"

Tofu shrugged. "Physiologically, she'll pull through. After purging her stomach the hard way in the Head, plus the detox shot I gave her, she sobered up enough to talk."

"So now you know her side of the story," Ranma observed. "Are you here to kick my ass too?"

"Far from it, Ranma," Tofu replied. He adjusted his glasses. "I'm here to offer a little advice."

"No thanks. I've got enough advice for one night. Most of it centers around me dropping dead or leaving the ship for good."

Tofu chuckled to himself. "I've got to admit, Ranma, that you really got yourself into a mess this time."

"So you think this is all my fault too, huh?" Ranma snorted. "Great. Maybe I'd be doing myself and everyone else a favor by leaving."

"Spare me the misery, Ranma," Tofu said, his voice decidedly lacking in sympathy. "If all you're interested in doing is sitting up here the rest of the night feeling sorry for yourself, I'll leave. If you actually want some useful advice, I'd be happy to give it."

An uneasy moment of silence passed between them, as if Ranma really would leave the ship for good.

"Go ahead, Doc," Ranma said wearily. "I'll listen."

"Good," Tofu said with a nod. "The first thing you have to do is talk to Akane. Now I wouldn't recommend going to see her right now, she needs her rest after tonight, but I wouldn't let this fester between you any longer than absolutely necessary, either."

Ranma muttered agreement.

"As for what you need to say to her, an apology would probably be a good place to start."

"What do I need to apologize for?" Ranma demanded. "This is all her fault for overreacting!"

Tofu offered up his hands in a gesture of supplication. "Easy there, Ranma. I agree that Akane hasn't handled this business with your other fiancee as well as she could have, but you could have at least done or said something to reassure her about Ukyou."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

Tofu shook his head slowly. "I guess it's useless to go on unless I know how you feel about certain things..."

"Like?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Ranma," Tofu scolded him. "You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Ranma looked away.

"I don't know," he said slowly.

"You don't know what I'm talking about, or you don't know how you feel about Akane?"

"The second one."

Tofu chuckled again. There was little mirth in it. "Well, I guess I had to try. If you can't answer that question for yourself, you can't really tell her much."

"I'm not in love with Ukyou," Ranma grunted, although after their kiss he wasn't entirely sure that he was without feelings for her. "How's that?"

Tofu shrugged. "I suppose it's a start. Not much of one, it's true, but better than nothing."

"So what if I _was_ in love with Ukyou?" Ranma asked him, his voice taut with challenge. "What then?"

"I can't answer that question, Ranma. The best I could offer is that you should tell Akane about it instead of making her play guessing games." He gave him a penetrating look. "She was really hurt by this, you know."

"So everyone keeps telling me."

"Have you stopped to think about why she might feel this way?"

"Yeah, I have," Ranma returned. "Trouble is, it don't make much sense."

"Neither of you are any good at playing guessing games, I see," Tofu replied cryptically. "Talk to her, Ranma. Really _talk_ to her."

"I ain't no good at it," he said in a surly tone. "Besides, all she wants is an excuse to blow her stack with me. It's just better to let her alone for awhile."

"Not this time, Ranma."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Tofu gave him another hard look.

"What it means is that she is ready to go home. Back to Nerima. We aren't simply talking about ending the engagement between you and her. We're talking about her fighting to the death against the Combine rather than continue on this expedition - no matter how close we may or may not be to finding Ryuugenzawa.

"If you hadn't noticed by now, the crew is ready to follow her. Your father may be the official commander of this mission, but as the daughter of the Grand Duke, he won't count for much if she decides the other way. Now ask yourself, Ranma, do you care enough about her to want to find Ryuugenzawa for her? Not for you, Ranma, and not for your father, but just for her sake?"

Ranma remained silent in thought.

"Whether you love her or not is immaterial to my question, Ranma," Tofu continued. "I just want to know if you care enough to want her to live, because right now I don't think she wants to go on."

This troubled Ranma more than he cared to admit.

"Are you trying to say she's suicidal?"

"Not in so many words, but yes, right now she would rather die in battle to protect her homeworld than go on with this expedition one more day."

"All you're really saying is that she hates me," Ranma said finally. "You haven't told me anything I didn't already know."

"That's not it at all," Tofu protested.

"It seems that way to me."

The doctor shook his head sadly. "I'm not as good at this as I had thought," he remarked, mostly to himself. "Talk to her, Ranma. You might be surprised to know this, but you're the only person whose opinion matters to her right now."

"You're right. I would be surprised," Ranma replied. He looked away for a moment and nursed his cheek. Even after the beating he had suffered from Ryouga, it was Akane's slap whose pain still lingered under his skin. "I'll wait until the morning, Doc. Let her sleep it off first."

"And you, Ranma?" Tofu asked him. "You could probably use a little sleep yourself."

"I wish," the pig-tailed mechwarrior returned. There was too much on his mind for that, no matter how close to sunrise the night had come.

League of Five Nails JumpShip _Impaler_

Bernard's Star Zenith Jump Point

Bernard's Star, the Furinkan Combine

15 April 3025

It had been a narrow escape from Tatewaki Kuno in the Alpha Centauri System. The Furinkan Combine Prince had just Jumped his fleet into the star system as the League Navy was preparing to leave. It was only their considerable separation at the Jump Point that gave Hikaru and his ships time to form up and Jump to safety before Combine fighters could bear down on them.

Instead of fleeing back to the League, as Kuno no doubt expected them to do, they had jumped the relatively short distance to Bernard's Star, a deserted system with no commercial value, and no planets worth colonizing. Its dull red primary glowed balefully through the viewports, reminding Hikaru of Melkor, the star of his birth on planet Angbad.

It was a gamble coming here, as the weak red radiation of Bernard's Star would take longer to recharge their Jump Batteries than Kuno's fleet would need at Alpha Centauri to recharge theirs and start looking for him. He had to stay ahead of Kuno if he was going to survive, for after his attack on the Combine Fleet at Capra, he knew that his adversary would not hesitate to attack his JumpShips directly.

"What now, cousin?" Tetsuo Gosunkugi asked him.

Hikaru consulted the charts. Their horoscopes were vague at this point, offering little in the way of advice. Worse, he had run out of pigeons to sacrifice; their entrails had been particularly oracular for him of late.

"Well, cousin," he replied, his sunken eyes gleaming dully for a moment in the red light of the star. "We've succeeded in drawing Kuno away from Capella. I hear he's only left a token force there while he comes after us. That will help take the pressure off the Confederation for awhile."

"I realize that," Tetsuo agreed. "But what now? Can we really afford to keep this up? Not all of our forces on the worlds we occupied were able to escape. This is costing us."

"I know, cousin. I know. I want to pursue our strategy of an alliance with the Confederation." An idea came to him. "I think we should use our 'guest' to maximum advantage."

"The Shogun," Tetsuo hissed frightfully. "HIM?"

"He's perfect!" Hikaru said, rising from his bloodstained altar to take his leave of the chamber. Tetsuo followed after his cousin, eager to hear how they could use the deranged leader of the Furinkan Combine. At the moment he was nothing more than a hostage, and not a very good one at that.

They walked down the curved passageway of the _Impaler_'s Grav Deck to the Shogun's quarters. The sounds of drums, steel slide-guitar, and ukulele were audible in the passageway, as was the sound of laughter and cheers. The Marine guards who stood outside Shogun Kuno's stateroom snapped to attention, their discomfort with their assignment evident on their faces.

Hikaru punched in the code sequence that would open the door. It slid open, bombarding him with sound that poured out into the passageway.

o/" ...We throw our nets out into the sea,

And all the ama-ama come swimmin' to me!

Well, we're going... To the Huki-lau!

The Huki-Huki-Huki-Huki-lau! o/"

Hikaru Gosunkugi fought back the urge to scream in pain. Within the chamber was Shogun Kuno of the Furinkan Combine, along with most of his retinue from the atoll. They were continuing the luau, dancing around a pile of broken furniture that served as a faux-bonfire in a place where open combustion was severely frowned upon.

Kuno caught sight of his captor and leaped over the jagged pieces of mahogany and oak to greet him.

"Aloha, bruddah!" he said with gusto. "You come to da big party luau, no shit?"

"Not exactly," Hikaru replied, knowing that he had to get rid of his royal hostage, and quickly. For the sake of his sanity.

"We make planetfall soon, yah?" Kuno continued, ignoring the young man's reply. "No can surf in dis big metal can!"

"I'm afraid not, your Eminence," Hikaru said to him. "We'll be Jumping again shortly."

"Dat's heinous, brah!"

"I can see that you're enjoying my hospitality," Hikaru observed. One of the hula girls he vaguely recognized from his time on New Hawaii saw him and gave him a wink. He blushed. "I have good news though, you'll be going to a planet with big oceans very soon."

Shogun Kuno's tanned face beamed.

"Hey yah, bruddah! Where we be goin'?"

Hikaru cast his cousin a look. "The Capella System," he told Kuno. "The planet Nerima."

Kuno shrugged indifferently. "It got oceans, den it got surf."

"I'm glad you agree," Hikaru said to him. "Farewell, your Eminence." He stepped back through the door and mercifully sealed it against the noise of the luau.

"What are you talking about, cousin?" Tetsuo demanded.

"I want you to take the _Seisyun_ to the Capella System," Hikaru replied. "And I want you to bring the Shogun and his entourage with you."

Tetsuo was aghast.

"For what purpose?" he asked indignantly.

"To offer the Shogun to the Grand Duke as a bargaining chip with Tatewaki," Hikaru replied. "Kuno might like to see his father done away with, but the Combine's Daimyo won't stand for it. He'll have to back down from his invasion if he's to get his father back. Just be sure to let this magnanimous gesture on our part cement our alliance with the Confederation, and my betrothal to Akane."

Tetsuo stepped away from his cousin to think about his proposition.

"It's crazy, cousin, but it might actually work," he finally conceded.

"The tricky part will be in breaking the blockade," Hikaru noted. "But if I can continue to lead Kuno on while you make a break for Capella, it will keep the number of ships guarding the system low enough for you to have a good chance of pulling it off."

"It will be interesting to work with Nabiki again," Tetsuo agreed. "I'm sure, given the current situation, that she'll see the merits of working towards an alliance with the League."

"We can hope, cousin," Hikaru said, nodding. "We can hope. In the meantime, get that crazy idiot off my ship. I can't stand having him on board any longer."

Furinkan Combine JumpShip _Imperator_

Alpha Centauri Zenith Jump Point

Alpha Centauri System, the Furinkan Combine

15 April 3025

"Oh, Prince Kuno, you big stud, you..."

The honeyed voice of his Pig-Tailed Goddess called out to Tatewaki Kuno, and he turned to see her clad in a diaphanous gown of the purest white. Angelic she looked, yet her fiery red hair and her flashing blue-grey eyes spoke of her burning desire to be made a woman by him - pure in its devotion, luciferian in its intensity.

"Oh, Pig-Tailed Girl," he returned, his arms opening wide for her. "My Venus! Come, let me take you into my embrace!"

She leaped for him, her lips pursing in anticipation of his passionate kiss, and her ample bosom bouncing within the loose restraints of her gown.

"Wait!" a voice cried out. His head turned to see Akane Tendo standing forlornly by his side, her eyes downcast and filled with sorrow.

"Pray tell, what is it that troubles thee, my lovely Akane Tendo?" he asked her.

"You have chosen the Pig-Tailed Girl over me?" she asked him wretchedly.

Her query wounded him to the depths of his being, pangs of grief and dismay that shook him to his very foundation.

"Never!" he cried, shocked that such a thing was even conceivable. "Thou art my Tigress! My shining Valkyrie with blue-black hair! Never could I, Tatewaki Kuno, foresake thy love for another!"

"Oh, Tatewaki," the Pig-Tailed Girl cried out in grief. "Then you don't really love me?!"

Tatewaki reeled. How could he forsake his buxom red-haired Venus?

"I -" he started to say.

"You must choose," Akane told him sternly. "Which one of us do you love the most?"

He looked to the Pig-Tailed Girl, her fiery, almost masculine spirit and her vibrant sexuality beckoning to him. Then he looked to Akane, that fierce huntress who dared him to catch her up in his arms with every battle they had ever fought - if he was worthy of her.

"Woe!" he cried, tears streaming down his face. "Oh, woe! Why must I choose?! For I, Tatewaki Kuno, do love thee both!"

"You cannot love us both," Akane and the Pig-Tailed Girl chorused. "You must choose."

"Nay!" he wailed. "Why must thou render such cruel judgement upon me? I cannot give my heart to one and forsake the other. Is there not a place for the three of us at Aphrodite's table?"

"No," they intoned. "You must choose."

Overcome with grief, he leaped at them to take them both into his embrace. His two loves lashed out with simultaneous jumping kicks to his face.

He awoke to discover that two of his portraits had fallen off the bulkhead and landed on his head. One was of Akane Tendo, a portrait he had commissioned from stereographs taken at her nineteenth birthday, and smuggled out of the Confederation by his agents. The other was of the Pig-Tailed Girl. This image was based upon the few good shots of her that were available from the flight recorder of one of his bodyguards on Capra.

He regarded them both for a moment, tears still streaming down his cheeks.

"It is not right that I should abandon either of my loves," he said to himself. "I must find a way to make them both mine forever more."

A tone from the door sounded. He set the two portraits back upon the wall before acknowledging it.

"Enter," he commanded.

It was Kyle, his Operations Officer.

"Speak," he ordered the man.

"My lord Prince," Kyle began. "I apologize for disturbing your rest. I wanted to inform you that our forces have rooted out the last League invaders from the occupied systems."

"And what of these base curs?" Tatewaki inquired.

"Most of them escaped, Lord," Kyle said uneasily. "It seems that they were not as heavily reinforced as we had expected. They were ready to flee the systems on very short notice. We were only able to destroy a handful, and we captured even fewer of them."

"Pay them no mind for the moment," Tatewaki said, dismissing the matter with the wave of his hand. "It is the whereabouts of that blackguard Hikaru Gosunkugi that concerns me."

"Ah, yes," Kyle returned uncomfortably. "We are unable to determine the whereabouts of his fleet at this time, but as our ships finish charging their Jump batteries, we shall begin searching all the systems within a One-Jump radius of Alpha Centauri."

"It is not good that Gosunkugi should escape," Tatewaki seethed. "He has my father as his hostage." He clenched a fist. "Oh, how I have prayed for an end to his pusillanimous reign over the mighty Furinkan Combine, but not in this manner! He finds yet another way to debase the high rank of his office by allowing himself to be made the prisoner of a half-wit such as the scion of Gosunkugi!

"Now, I, Tatewaki Kuno, must spend my forces in the search to recover him, that we do not lose face with the Daimyo - for they will assume that I have abandoned my hated father to mine enemies, that I might rise to the Shogunate in his absence. Like Alexander the Great, I shall be forced to return to my demense to restore order amongst the bleating herd of the lords, and all momentum of conquest shall be lost!"

"I understand, my lord Prince. We shall redouble our efforts to find the League Navy."

"Nay!" Tatewaki thundered. He began to shake with rage. "Thy eyes see nothing, thy ears hear nothing, and thy mind understands nothing! The mass of our great endeavor grinds to a halt! Even now the cursed Commonwealth looks with sallow eye upon my vast empire. The Amazons know I am occupied with the Confederation - should they discover that we are laid bare by the hated League, and our sovereign lord taken hostage..."

He raised his fists over his head.

"It is intolerable!" he bellowed. "That such a great lord as myself be made to play the fool!" He fell to his knees and began to beat upon the carpeted deck. "Both of my loves are snatched from me by that fell villain, Ranma Saotome! My twisted sister escapes from my very flagship! And now, my own father is taken by the likes of Hikaru Gosunkugi, a cretin so callow and crass that he dares not face me as true man - upon the battlefield - but as a craven plotter, weaving instead his dark magicks upon me!"

Kyle could only stand in silence, and let his lord rage impotently against the cruelties of the gods.

Kyushu Plateau

The Moon of Oni, orbiting Shounetsu Jigoku

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

14 April 3025

Nerima Confederation Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Tran Minh Ky raised his blazer rifle over a dusty grey boulder, allowing his gun camera a look at the Combine defenses around the hastily constructed earthwork fortification that housed the 11th Sword of Thunder regiment. The small muzzle-mounted video camera projected a grainy green-scale image onto his helmet display of two Combine Marines in pressurized Battle Dress Armor guarding the airlock to the base interior.

A fence of monofilament wire was strung in a deadly cat's cradle around the approaches to the airlock, and he noted the tell-tale bulges of command-detonated mines buried in the sandy grey soil. The defenses were sloppy, reflecting the haste with which the 11th Sword of Thunder had set up camp, but they would make his job no easier to accomplish. The airlock was one of the few that Confederation fighters had been able to spot from high orbit before they were chased away, and that was his first objective.

Ky knew that his team of commandos could breach both airlock doors within seconds of each other, and depressurize a good chunk of the makeshift belowground base in one shot. Lady Kasumi knew that as well, and had specifically forbidden any such attack. She wanted live captives from the 11th Sword of Thunder and its auxiliary units, not a cavern full of corpses.

The plan involved a hard-hitting surprise attack with commandos, who would use gas grenades to incapacitate the Combine troops before they could get to their combat stations. Of course, that meant the commandos would have to cycle through the airlock a handful at a time while the Combine defenders rushed to repulse them. The Combine forces outside the base would be attacked by the fast-moving LAM Light Cavalry unit that Colonel Mukaida had put together, while the main force of battlemechs commanded by General Tendo moved in to mop up, and to deal with the Combine heavies. It was lauded by the officers as a brilliant plan. Gunny Ky had his own opinion on the matter.

Lady Kasumi's plan was all well and fine when you were sitting on top of a hundred tons of walking death machine, he mused, but when you were a squad leader with a scant twenty kilos of ceramic armor plating to cover your entire body, and whose job it was to penetrate the airlock and wage a close-quarters battle while heavily outnumbered, a certain pragmatism was in order. He was thirty-four, which was a ripe old age for a Confederation Marine, and he intended on living to make retirement.

That meant he wasn't going to screw this up, and he sure as hell wasn't going to let anyone else screw it up for him. He patted the sheath of the fighting knife on his hip, knowing that it would have more than enough work to do today. If you wanted a job done right, you just had to do it yourself...

The cold steel knife blade plunged soundlessly into the Combine Marine's throat, slipping inside his ceramic armor gorget and carving open his larynx before he could muster more than a grunt of surprise. Blood streamed into his lungs, making his dying cry little more than a muted gurgle over the commo net - which was lost in a crackle of static. His body, taut with shock and sudden terror, went limp as he expired, and he was eased to the dusty grey sand by Gunny Ky with a tenderness that was in stark contrast to the brutal method used to dispatch him.

Ky observed the second Combine Marine slumping over into the sand two meters away. The Marine's helmet visor was splashed with dark red blood that completely obscured the face within. His squadmate, Corporal Pennington, had slaughtered his man with equally silent efficiency.

Satisfied that his own victim was dead, he carefully withdrew his knife just enough to slowly bleed the air out of the pressurized suit. A plume of rapidly escaping air was like a camera flash in the darkness to a trained eye, as Ky well knew. He watched for a moment as tiny red crystals of flash-frozen blood misted his armored gauntlet before returning to his observation of the area around him.

The rest of the squad would be following him through the maze of monofilament wire, burning it down with spray cans of highly corrosive acid foam. The wire itself was easy to spot with UV lamps which, used sparingly, would allow them to pass without drawing attention to themselves. Ky himself had opted for a less direct route to the airlock, needing to take advantage of every bit of cover in the week-long semi-darkness of the Oni night to approach without being seen by the hostile eyes of the guards.

He checked the airlock seals and found that they weren't wired to anything. The airlock itself was a portable unit used in the mining industry, set into the glassy lava rock that lay beneath a thin layer of sandy soil. The temptation to simply plant a block of plastex on the door and then take cover came over him.

He checked himself. He was a Marine, and Marines followed orders, no matter how dangerous or stupid.

His squad came hopping boulder by boulder up to the airlock to avoid the mines. There was always the chance that at least one of them would have a pressure plate or a tripwire. Communication with them was by hand signals to avoid detection. There were twelve of them, counting himself, and every other man slung his blazer and readied a brace of gas grenades. Each grenadier counted on the knife work and quick trigger finger of his comrades to keep him alive.

He signalled for the first group of four to enter the airlock. Four was all that could fit inside at one time, due to the bulk of their own Battle Dress Armor. It would take sixty seconds to cycle the airlock, meaning two-and-a-half long minutes before the entire squad was inside. If they could help it, they would avoid combat until all twelve of them were inside the base.

Ky was in the first group. As the inner door slid open, he realized that for once the Intelligence estimations of the Combine base were correct. Given the fact that the Furinkan Combine engineers had little time with which to construct the base, it was little more than a massive cavern hollowed out of the glassy rock and pressurized. Row after row of cots filled the cavern, along with large circulation fans and hastily strung lights. Self-contained air scrubbers hummed away above the din of fans and men. Crates of supplies and ammunition were stacked haphazardly about, creating a labyrinthine nightmare for a dozen men to try to secure. The base's only conceit to safety in the event of a depressurization accident were a dozen rescue shelters - little more than pressurized tent domes that could hold perhaps twenty people apiece.

But the most urgent thing Ky noted about the place was that they were surrounded by over a hundred Combine troops, most of whom were armed in some fashion or another.

In that first moment of contact, the Confederation troops had the element of surprise going for them. Sizzling pulses of laser light from blazers cut down those most immediate to the airlock chamber, and the dull _pop_ of the gas grenades quickly obscured their surroundings in a sickly ochre haze. Shouts of surprise and warning gave way to screams of agony as the lasers did their terrible work, and then the effects of the gas began to be heard.

Those who were not immediately slain by the lasers or flashing knives of the Confederation Marines began to retch uncontrollably after breathing in clouds of vomit gas spewing from the grenades. Ky engaged his suit's ultrasonic sensor, and its high pitched chirps were joined by chirps from the rest of his men in a mad chorus.

Using the ultrasonics, he could see filmy images through the gas of his surroundings projected onto his helmet visor. He shot at anything that moved in front of him, his blazer's over-under twin beams crackling through the fouled air and scattering shards of intense light as they struck random molecules of gas. He ordered his three companions to take up defensive positions and hold back the Combine forces as the rest of the squad cycled through.

Gunny Ky knew that those troops on the other end of the cavern were just now getting the alarm, and would be grabbing weapons to counterattack them. He needed more gas to flood the cavern before that happened, and he needed to destroy a few of the air scrubbers before they cleaned the air of what little gas he had.

He and Pennington took cover behind a crate whose contents were hopefully not explosive. From there he began sniping at anyone foolish enough to present themselves, while the corporal threw the last of his gas grenades as far as he could down the cavern. The sizzle of laser fire sounded around them as more and more troops shrugged off the surprise of the attack and began to fight back. The sound of Combine soldiers puking miserably around them seemed absurd under the dire circumstances of the battle, and the veteran gunnery sergeant tried to keep a straight face as he fired.

Kasumi noted the positions of her troops on her tactical display as she advanced her Atlas across the airless plateau. The commando units were encountering heavy resistance at the three Combine bases, and it looked like the 'mech forces might have more than just a few patrols to engage. Her LAM units, formed up into two cavalry troops, had not been able to effect a link up with the Marines, as they were currently entangled with the Combine Combat Air Patrol that her regular fighter assets had somehow missed.

It was the fatigue, she knew, that was responsible for this debacle. They had been fighting for ten days now with little respite, and the exhaustion and having to cope with heavy casualties was putting a strain on everyone. She wanted to turn back, but knew that there could be no easy retreat from this battle. They had to press on.

"Enemy battlemechs in lance strength approaching from the southeast at ten kilometers," one of her Recon Lance commanders reported over the command channel.

"Three-Bravo Company moving to engage," one of her brevet-captains in the Third Battalion responded. He had been at mechwarrior rank before this campaign, but the loss of every officer in the company had sped up his advancement considerably.

"Don't let them draw you in, Three-Bravo," the major commanding Third Battalion advised his inexperienced company commander. "You don't know what's out there, so engage at no closer than medium range."

"Copy that, Big Three."

Kasumi let the exchange go at that. She had an intense desire to mother her troops sometimes, and she knew that she could not watch over every single one of them and still fight a regimental-level battle.

Her priority command channel came to life as she decided against adding to the major's warning. It was Colonel Mukaida. She could tell by his taciturn expression that he didn't have good news.

"Mother, this is Rockstar with FLASH priority traffic," he addressed her.

Kasumi nodded to herself. FLASH was the highest message priority.

"Go ahead, Rockstar."

"I'm getting reports from our 2nd Attack Squadron of enemy GunShips approaching your positions from high orbit," he said to her. "They are escorted by fighters."

It was definitely not good news. The Furinkan Combine was throwing in their GunShip assets to guarantee victory against her forces. A squadron of converted Leopards could do serious damage to her regiment while they were scattered out in the open.

"Can you do anything about it?" she asked him.

"I'm doing my best, but we only have so many fighters to send against them," he returned.

"I understand, Colonel."

She continued her forward march as the word was passed on the tac-net to watch for the GunShips. Her troops, all bloodied veterans by now, began to space themselves at the proper anti-aircraft defense intervals without needing any prompts from their officers. It was a risky to keep your radar on all the time in battle, but Kasumi did so, knowing that the sensors on her Atlas were second only to the Garret D2j units found on dedicated air defense 'mechs like the Rifleman and the Jagermech. She wanted to have plenty of warning when the Combine GunShips arrived.

She was occupied with the data from her radar when an autocannon shell slammed dead-center into her Atlas' torso. The 210mm depleted-uranium armor-piercer disintegrated against the thick slabs of Durallex Special Heavy armor, gouging a meter wide crater in the battlemech's chest plate. The blow rocked Kasumi in her ejector seat, her head almost pitching against the cockpit console.

As she fought for control of her battlemech, she could hear the hissing noise of slowly escaping atmosphere from her cockpit windows. The shock of the impact had wrenched them nearly from their seals, and now she was depressurizing. Another good hit could pop them out completely.

Warning shouts over the tac-net provided her with an idea of the location of her foe. A Furinkan Combine Cyclops had somehow avoided her advanced units and had lain low among the scattered rock formations on the plateau until it was well within the main body of her regiment. The 90-ton 'mech had apparently spotted the Ducal pennant flying from her Atlas and chosen her to be his suicide target.

It was suicide for the Combine mechwarrior because he was completely surrounded. Once he had broken concealment, he had sealed his own fate. But if he could slay the commander of the Confederation's forces before he himself fell, he would be a hero to his country.

The words of General George S. Patton came to Kasumi as she charged at the hideously ugly Combine battlemech. It was Patton who said that wars were not won by dying for your country, but by making the other poor dumb so-and-so (not Patton's words, of course) die for _his_ country. Kasumi thought Patton was a rude, crude, and otherwise socially irredeemable man, but he knew what he was talking about when it came to warfighting.

She returned fire with her main gun, giving the Combine Cyclops a taste of its own medicine. The shell careened off a shard of volcanic glass in front of the Cyclops before slamming into the 'mech's left arm. Kasumi watched as the arm's protective sheath of armor and hull shattered from the wrist to above the elbow, obliterating the left arm laser and exposing the bright pink myomer bundles of the actuators.

The Cyclops was obscured for a moment both from radar and visual identification as bits of machinery and armor plate scattered from the impact point, and gouts of liberated coolant gas fountained from the circulating system before automated shut-off valves isolated the damaged sections of limb. Kasumi watched as four Short Range Missiles volleyed crazily into the air in a wild return shot from the Cyclops.

She thundered on, ever mindful of the leaks in her viewport, yet wanting to keep the Cyclops occupied with her rather than with a 'mech in her regiment that could not weather a hit from the enemy's autocannon as well as her own. The Atlas was lumbering at a full tilt now, not very swift by battlemech standards, but with a hundred tons of mass behind her she could ram with devastating effect.

Lasers from her Support Lance lit up the rock around the Cyclops' position, giving her something to steer by as she closed the range. The ninety ton Combine 'mech appeared from the clouds of gas and debris even as her HUD weapon status turned green for her autocannon.

Both 'mechs fired at once, their armor-piercing shells leaping across the furious battlefield in airless silence. Hers scored on the left torso, slamming the Cyclops's mangled arm and shoulder back with sledgehammer force. His struck low, crashing through the armored knee guard of her right leg and striking the upper portion of the limb in a shower of molten uranium sparks. The armor held, though another couple of hits from the autocannon would likely tear the leg off.

Both battlemechs fought to remain upright from the tremendous impacts. Kasumi could see that the Cyclops' left torso was laid wide open, the launch tubes of the 10-rack LRM practically begging for her to put a shot into them. He was in medium laser range, and her slender fingers tensed on the triggers. The beams sprayed wide of the mark, cutting into the already damaged left arm actuators and grazing the retrofitted 'helmet' on the 'mech's head.

They were within a hundred meters now, the Cyclops running towards her to meet her charge head on. Both huge and ponderous war machines, each scarred with the weapon hits they had visited upon each other, resembled angry metalshod gladiators closing for a lethal pass of swords. Kasumi noted the streams of inert long range missiles being dumped from the back of the enemy 'mech as it closed the gap between them, and knew that she wouldn't get a lucky ammunition hit before they met.

They traded yet another autocannon salvo, his shell slamming into her right torso with tooth-jarring force and hers blasting apart most of the center torso armor above the SRM launcher. Each battlemech stumbled in its run across the uneven lava plain as bits of shattered aligned-crystal steel showered behind them. Kasumi felt her ears pop as the seals on her viewports flexed open for a moment, and the vacuum of space sucked at her precious cockpit atmosphere. The hissing was stronger now, almost beyond the capacity of the life-support system to make up.

The two were now less than forty meters apart, and she could make out the green and brown pineapple of the Furinkan Combine against the Cyclops' blackened torso. Kasumi gripped her controls tightly, praying for her feed system to load the main gun before her enemy could fire another round. The straining actuators of her Atlas as it stomped across the plateau screeched like distant banshees in the pit of her stomach. They were playing a game of chicken with nearly two hundred thousand kilograms of heavy metal between them.

Out of instinct, she squeezed the trigger on her main gun before the HUD indicated that it was ready. As the signal to fire the 210mm autocannon left the fire control computer and reached the electronic ignitor in the breech, the weapon finished its return to battery, and cleared its firing interlocks.

The distant slamming sound of the feed mechanism went unnoticed by her as the Cyclops took a second shell into the center torso. The left torso flew apart from exploding shrapnel bursting deep within the battlemech, and severed the mauled limb attached to it. Flames leaped from the SRM launcher below the double impact craters.

Still, the Cyclops staggered on at her.

"Long live General Prince Kuno and the Furinkan Combine!" she heard the fanatical mechwarrior shout over the Confederation tac-net.

The two battlemechs crashed headlong into each other, with Kasumi throwing her Atlas' arms out in a double palm-strike that flung the shattered Cyclops backwards and away. It exploded at a safe distance from her with a fatal reactor crash-out, washing the lava plain in waves of star-hot plasma. The Combine 'mech rained down in millions of glowing embers, each no larger than a fifty yen coin.

Their duel was ended.

It was only then that she turned to deal with her remaining problem. Taking a pressurized can of spray foam sealant, she liberally applied it to the joints around her viewports. The hissing stopped as she used up the last of the can, and she knew that at least for the moment, her troubles were over.

Her relief was very short-lived.

"Combine GunShip at five o'clock low!" someone cried over the tac-net. She turned her battlemech's head to see a Leopard Class GunShip race across the lava plain, its weapons blazing strafing fire at her lines. Two Confederation fighters nipped at its sides before being driven off by the Leopard's point defense guns.

They were in serious trouble without GunShip support of their own. Short of ramming one, her fighters would be hard pressed to shoot a GunShip down.

"Rockstar, this is Mother," she called over the command channel. As she opened the channel she was assaulted by the loud warbling of radio jamming. She wondered if they would receive her transmission. "An enemy GunShip is engaging our forces with heavy effect. I need Close Air, everything you have, including the LAMs."

Colonel Mukaida was barely audible over a blast of radio jamming from the Combine GunShip.

"We can't reach them over this jamming," he replied. At least that was what it sounded like he had said. "I'm afraid you're on your own."

"Keep trying, Colonel," she advised. There wasn't much hope for the attack now.

_I'm sorry, Father_...

Kasumi trained her weapons at the GunShip as it made a wide circle over the battlefield for another murderous strafing run. Only her LRM launcher and her arm-mounted lasers could hope to reach the Combine GunShip; her hip-mounted main gun could not elevate sufficiently to engage close aerial targets.

The Combine GunShip came back at her lines, its nose-mounted lasers and autocannon blazing away at the 1st Nerima Guards. Shards of glassy lava were blown into the starry black sky as shells exploded in her midst, and a haze of dust and rock splinters obscured her vision for a moment. The sound of her targeting system registering a weapon lock hummed in her ears as she squeezed the trigger on her LRM launcher.

The first five missiles had hardly cleared the tubes before the Gunship suddenly trembled with a massive impact and began to break apart. She watched in astonishment as the Furinkan Combine GunShip was ripped into tiny glowing shreds by a massive and utterly miraculous explosion. The brilliant plasma fireball of the converted Leopard Class GunShip cast an electric silver glow upon the rocky battlefield of the Kyushu Plateau before fading away to darkness. Whoops of triumph sounded over the Confederation commo channels as the fearsome Gunship disintegrated above them.

She looked elsewhere in the sky for Confederation fighters, but there were none close enough to have done such a thing.

"Did anybody see what just happened?" she asked over the tac-net.

"Torpedo impact!" Fire Control announced. "Echo Four-Eight destroyed!"

Captain Hauptmann confirmed the data on his repeater display. The Combine GunShip was a rain of metal splinters falling towards the surface of Oni.

"Conn, Sensory; new contact Echo Four-Nine bearing one-eight-three, plus seven-five! Echo Four-Nine is painting us with gun directing radar. Range to Echo Four-Nine: three-five thousand kilometers!"

"Bring us hard about," Hauptmann ordered the Officer of the Deck. It was time to destroy another Furinkan Combine GunShip. "Fire Control -"

The Sensory Supervisor interrupted him over the 27MC intercomm - fear was strident in his voice.

"Conn, Sensory; incoming torpedo bearing one-eight-three, plus seven-five! Echo Four-Nine classified as Dunkerque Class Torpedo Escort!"

Hauptmann's reaction was borne of long years of training.

"Fire a Snapshot from tube three at Echo Four-Nine!" he ordered Fire Control. "Helm; All-Ahead Flank, fifty degrees negative pitch! Chief of the Watch; sound Torpedo Evasion!"

"Fire Control, aye!"

"Helm, aye! Maneuvering answers All-Ahead Flank!"

_Tang_'s plasma drives came to immediate life, propelling the Balao Class corvette towards the surface of Oni. Hauptmann held tight against the sudden thrust, knowing that others throughout the ship were probably taken by surprise. The crash of dishes from the Galley below confirmed this as Sensory called out data on the incoming Barracuda.

The 1MC sounded over his head as he pored over the Sensory and Astrogation plots for a way out of their predicament. If the jamming and the countermeasures didn't work, their chances were grim.

"TORPEDO EVASION! SNAPSHOT: TUBE THREE!"

"Prepare to launch countermeasures!" he ordered. "Energize radar and laser jamming systems!" _Tang_ still had working models of these vital lostech devices, for which Hauptmann was grateful.

It had just been a matter of time, he knew, before the Furinkan Combine called in assets capable of countering the threat posed by the Terrible T's. The Nerima Confederation was by no means the only Successor State with Barracudas and the ships to launch them. The Combine Torpedo Escort must have been lying in ambush well above the battlefield, waiting for one of the 777th to pop a GunShip so that it could fire one of its own torpedoes at them in return.

"Bring us as close as you can to the surface," he ordered the Helm. "Within one thousand meters if possible." They were fighting the effects of a steady three-gee burn, and it was showing in the strained faces of his crew. They needed to approach the moon at as steep an angle as they could, and get as close as possible for the radar return of the moon's rocky surface to add to the confusion of their jamming, and, at the last moment, the confusion added by the volley of countermeasures he was about to order released.

"Yessir," the Helmsman replied tautly. She did not look back to the conn to address Captain Hauptmann. Even if she hadn't been under three gees of acceleration at the time, which made turning one's head a difficult proposition, her attention was fixed upon her instruments.

"Remember how you once told me you could outfly a Sparrowhawk with the _Tang_?" Hauptmann asked her. He had to shout to make his voice heard.

"Yessir."

"Outfly this torp, and you'll never have to prove another thing to me ever again."

"I'll hold you to that sir. Oni Closest Point of Approach is eight hundred meters, in three-zero seconds, mark."

The sound of the Barracuda in tube three being ejected from the ship was lost within the controlled cacophony of voices and instrumentality on the Bridge, as the _Tang_ strove to evade the incoming torpedo. Hauptmann noted the data from his outgoing torpedo streaming down his Fire Control repeater, and knew at that even if they lost this struggle with survival, they were going to take one more Combine ship with them.

Kasumi observed a sudden flare of light in the darkness, growing brighter and closer with each moment, and watched with fascination as the light resolved itself into a massive black shape that soared soundlessly overhead at low altitude. It was the sharklike form of a Balao Class corvette, and she could make out the subdued dark grey fishcake of the Nerima Confederation and three 7's crossed against a giant capital 'T' upon the patchwork black of its armored hull. This had been what her father had meant by sending her assistance, and she was grateful for the daring crew above.

There was something bearing down on the corvette from above, a hellish flare of brilliant blue-white light that could only have been a torpedo. A torpedo which was heading straight for them.

"Oh my, no..."

"Torpedo impact in ten seconds," Sensory called out.

"Launch countermeasures fore and aft! ...Helm, fifty degrees starboard yaw!" Hauptmann ordered.

Brilliant fingers of red light lanced out of _Tang_'s upper hull from the bow and stern in a spread that arced across the Oni sky to the left and to the right. Each was an anti-missile countermeasure.

The dozen devices seeded thumbnail sized prizms in their wake as beams of laser light crazed the void around _Tang_ to spoof the Barracuda's active laser guidance system. The buzzsaw roar of the radar jammers across the microwave bands canceled even the battlemech radars on the surface of the moon. Plasma blooms from the corvette's ventral reaction control thrusters suffused the warship and the surrounding void in a soft thermal glow. With the main engines shut down and the ship hurtling into a massively elliptical orbit around the airless moon, the torpedo could not rely on its sensors to home. It had only its tremendous speed and a logic system that could make an educated guess on where its path would intersect with the _Tang_.

It did remarkably well in spite of these handicaps.

The Barracuda exploded into the _Tang_ at a void space between the dorsal superstructure and the pressure hull forward of the drive section. The thousand-kilo high explosive warhead blew out most of the panels of stealthed superstructure on both sides of the void space before ripping apart the aft dorsal Naval Laser turret, and forcing a jet of superheated gases into the centerline compartment where the Jump Core had once been housed. The pressurized tanks of reserve reaction mass now housed there ruptured almost immediately, though their exceptionally cautious design and construction meant that most of the energy of the explosion vented itself through blow-away ducts amidships.

The _Tang_ was engulfed in flames along the entire aft third of the ship as it lost altitude and began a shallow dive for the moon. Kasumi watched in horror as it hurtled nearly out of control towards the Furinkan Combine bases.

Captain Hauptmann could do nothing but watch helplessly as his ship dove for the surface of Oni. Power was interrupted following the hit, knocking out the Main Computer, and there was no word from his Helmsman that she had any control over the thirty thousand ton warship's fall.

"Sound Collision!" he ordered. It was just about the only useful thing he _could_ do.

The Chief of the Watch swiped at the Collision Alarm before returning to his white knuckled grip on his acceleration couch. The strident _whoop_ of the alarm howled in the dim red emergency lighting of the Bridge.

"Port Centerline and Starboard Outboard Main Engines indicate All Back Emergency!" the Helmsman yelped over the wail of the alarms. Hauptmann could feel the rumble of the plasma drives as they fired full reverse thrust to slow their forward velocity. Would it be enough?

"Fires spreading to frame two-four-zero," the Assistant Engineer updated from aft of the conn. Hauptman paid the report no mind. If they were going to die by crashing into the moon, the fires hardly mattered.

"Reaction Control System marginal," Helm updated. Hauptmann could see over her shoulder the artificial horizon begin a slow advance towards level flight. She was flying on electro-hydraulic manual override: the photonic control system had crashed with the Main Computer. One motor-generator set and an intact run of pressurized hydraulic piping was all that was keeping them from cartwheeling into flaming wreckage across the surface of the moon.

"Can you pull us out?" he shouted at her.

"No, goddammit!" she replied angrily, as if his question was somehow an insult to her skill. "But maybe we won't hit as hard!"

"Get your asses back!" Gunny Ky called to Pennington and his surviving handful of commandos as they fought for the airlock. The Furinkan Combine base they had hit was supposed to have been the mechwarrior base. Instead, they had walked straight into a Combine Marine battalion. He was surprised to have lasted as long as he had.

They jammed into the airlock, six in a space that should have only fit four, but it couldn't be helped. Leaving two behind to cover the lock was asking those two to die. The airlock simply couldn't cycle through for them in time.

He only hoped that the hundred Combine Marines wearing Battle Dress inside the base would remember their less fortunate comrades, and not blow the airlock with their enemy still inside. Sure a bunch of his enemies would die as well when the cavern depressurized, but then he wouldn't be making his retirement, either.

They didn't blow the airlock. Ky decided to return the favor and leave it intact. He did, however, jam the outer door open to keep the Combine troops within the base from entering the airlock to give pursuit.

"Move it, you sorry apes!" he called to his men. They had to get the hell out of there and back to their own lines.

He looked out across the lava plain, and saw the flaming black mass of the Balao Class corvette _Tang_ hurtling straight towards them on a crash course with disaster. It was going to land right on the base, with them standing next to it.

"...Fuck me..." Ky moaned. Then, turning to his men, he thumped his corporal, Pennington, on the helmet. "What are you apes waiting for? MOVE IT, MARINES!"

They commenced to hauling ass.

"Three hundred meters," the Helmsman called out. The _Tang_'s bow was edging slightly above level flight, but with only two of the ship's four Main Engines answering the Helm, they didn't have enough maneuvering thrust available to check their steep rate of descent.

"Two-five-zero meters."

Captain Hauptmann lay in his acceleration couch, waiting for an impact that would probably kill them. This wasn't the end he had expected, to crash into a moon when space was so vast and empty.

"Two hundred meters."

He wondered how the rest of the squadron was doing. _Tautog_ would be the next senior ship, then the _Tarpin_. Hopefully they were having an easier time of things than he was.

"One-five-zero meters."

The ship trembled as another explosion aft was vented through the hull. The tech at Astrogation shrieked briefly, thinking it was their impact with the moon coming sooner than expected. A harsh look from the Chief of the Watch cowed him instantly, and shut him up.

"One hundred meters."

Hauptmann spared a few thoughts for his wife. Had she taken his advice and moved down to the planet from their quarters on the orbital fortress? How long would she have to wait to learn that her husband wasn't coming home?

He closed his eyes, finding a sudden peace in the realization that none of this would matter in a few more seconds.

"Five-zero meters... Reaction Control System in Normal! Helm in Normal!" the Helmsman cried out in surprise. "All Main Engines indicate All-Back Emergency!"

"Belay that!" Hauptmann shouted, wriggling out of his seat straps in his rush to countermand the ordered bell. "All-Ahead Flank!"

"Aye sir," she responded, understanding what he wanted her to try for. "Maneuvering answers All-Ahead Flank!"

Hauptmann buckled up once more, knowing that this was going to be too close to call.

_Tang_ crashed into the mound of lava and dirt that was the Furinkan Combine Marine base, armored belly first, as its main engines blowtorched a niagara of high-energy plasma. The ventral superstructure was ripped open to reveal the pressure hull, and long gouges ran through the lower compartments as sheets of sparks and flame from the burning interior storage sections rained down upon the makeshift installation. The battered corvette skipped across the hard and glassy lava rock, its engines roaring defiantly, as it clawed its way spaceborne once more.

Gunnery Sergeant Tran Minh Ky pulled his short bruised body out of a gully and brushed at his Battle Dress. With thirty thousand tons of flaming metal mere seconds from crushing him like a bug, his time for the fifty meter dash was the lowest it had been since the end of Boot Camp. The rest of his surviving squad mates popped up like prairie dogs around him, their eyes blinking in shock from their narrow escape.

In the distance he could see that the base was completely caved-in from the impact. If there were any survivors, they wouldn't last long. The rest of the compound was scorched from the Corvette's drives, rendering much of the enemy's support gear and supplies useless. It looked like the Furinkan Combine was going to have to withdraw from Oni for awhile.

"So much for prisoners," he grunted. "Everything here is blown up, burned down, or broken: our work is done... Now let's get the hell out of here before an officer shows up and starts pitching a bitch about the mess. You know how I hate watching you guys while you work."

Firebase LIBERTY

16 April 3025

"Captain Hauptmann, you and your crew have my deepest gratitude," Acting General Kasumi Tendo said to the weary corvette commander. "Between your direct efforts, and the actions of your squadron, we have secured this moon for continuing operations against the Furinkan Combine."

Hauptmann bowed graciously.

"Just doing what they pay me for, ma'am," he replied.

Kasumi could see how tired he was, and was prepared to let him return to his ship, but she had to ask him one more question.

"Is there anything I or my staff can do for you, Captain?"

Hauptmann ran his fingers through thinning hair.

"I don't think so, ma'am," he replied. "About all I can do is limp what's left of the _Tang_ back to Nerima for repairs, but I'm afraid her days of sneaking and peeking are over. All that superstructure damage we took makes us light up like a neon sign on radar sets now. Without the right manufacturing knowledge and capability, we can't replace the hull stealthing that we lost."

That worried Kasumi. They were taking a great risk returning to Nerima in their near-crippled condition, and to lose such heroes on the way home was unthinkable.

"Perhaps I can detach a GunShip to you for an escort," she offered.

"No need, ma'am, but thanks," Hauptmann returned. "The _Trepang_ is going to babysit us on the way home. Most of her torps are malfunctioning, and as soon as we make it back to the _Mare Island_ for repairs, they're going to relieve us of the weapons we have left, and then go back out."

Kasumi nodded. "Well then, Captain. Thank you for sparing a moment of your time to come down here to speak with me. I wish you the best of luck."

She offered her hand. He shook it warmly, then saluted her.

"I request to return to my vessel, General."

"Granted, Captain," she said with a weary but heartfelt smile.

When Hauptmann had left, she returned to her desk to work on the latest action report. They had driven the Furinkan Combine from Oni, though they had only taken a handful of prisoners in the process. The rest were either buried in the rock and sand or else had escaped into space on the 11th Sword of Thunder's DropShip fleet. The 777th Squadron, save the crippled _Tang_ and her escort _Trepang_, would be hunting them down all the way to the Jump Point.

Their victory could not have come at a better time. Her entire force was below minimum combat effectiveness. Most of the fighters and the battlemechs were in need of heavy repair, work that couldn't be done here, even if they had the parts and the expertise. Her troops were also absolutely exhausted.

She looked over the conclusion to her report. In it she requested her father to grant permission for the immediate relief of her forces at LIBERTY, with replacements from the Nerima garrison to take custody of the base until such time as the 1st Nerima Guards and the 3rd Tomobiki Hussars - plus regimental assets - could rest, repair, and reorganize. If permission to withdraw was not given, she concluded, she did not feel that her forces could repel a second invasion of Oni.

She added that as long as the main Furinkan Combine army was occupied elsewhere, her forces' chances of safely evacuating and quickly regaining their strength were as good as they were ever going to get.

Colonel Mukaida entered as she was putting the finishing touches on her report.

"Here we go," Kasumi said to him by way of greeting. "If my Father doesn't grant permission for us to withdraw, I don't know what we're going to do."

Mukaida nodded with a grunt of understanding.

"Stay here until we rot or get driven out," he concluded.

"He has to understand our position," Kasumi added. "I can't see how he wouldn't."

"We don't know what else is going on in the Inner Sphere," Mukaida pointed out.

Kasumi closed her eyes and sank into her chair. Her eyes and ears still ached from the pressure transients she had suffered in her leaky Atlas cockpit. Her body was weary beyond measure, and her spirit drained of nearly all her vitality. She simply didn't know how much else she could possibly give of herself to this war.

Brigade Headquarters

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

15 April 3025

"What exactly did you think you were doing, Brigadier Kuonji?"

Ukyou faced off against General Mikado Sanzenin in the confrontation she had known would take place from the time she had left the exercise field. She wasn't going to give up any ground to him.

"Sir?" she asked him in a mock-innocent tone.

Mikado narrowed his gorgeous eyes at her with the practiced ease of a man who spent a lot of time rehearsing his expressions in front of a mirror.

"Don't play dumb with me," he replied. "I want to know what made you think you could simply leave your post at the exercise field and take liberty."

Ukyou remained firm in the face of his accusation. Her green eyes flashed with challenge. "The exercises were complete. My brigade was one of the units granted liberty. Sir."

Mikado stiffened. He expected a little surliness from his subordinate, but Ukyou's seething hostility towards him was unexpected. "You call that an excuse?" he asked her, self-doubt creeping into his voice.

Ukyou continued to glare. In the silence that followed the general's question, the sound of dust motes settling against the window sills seemed deafening to her. She could feel the tension within her body as she replied. "It's no excuse, sir. It happens to be the truth."

Mikado, hoping that she would submit as she usually did, was now at a loss, and settled on what he hoped was an authoritative frown to regain his momentum.

"But what about the reports?" he demanded finally.

She could tell that he was astonished by the particularly virulent tone she had adopted with him, and that he wasn't quite sure how to proceed. "I have a staff to take care of them," she returned. "They're working on them now."

Top _that_ one, asshole...

"I don't care about your staff," Mikado replied gruffly. He had either found his spine or else he was bluffing, she decided. Probably bluffing. Mikado continued. "From now on, all reports come directly from you, not your precious staff. Now get back out to the Mobile Headquarters and finish your job, Kuonji, or I'll have you busted down to platoon leader in the brigade infantry so fast you won't have time to blink."

Damn... Ukyou cursed to herself. Maybe he _isn't_ bluffing...

Still, just to show him up, she blinked at him as deliberately as possible.

He let it pass, content with his victory over her.

"Move, it, Brigadier. Your time is MY time."

She couldn't take his smarmy attitude another moment, and sensed the uncomfortable shifting of Konatsu, who was probably preparing to stop her from killing the general.

"You're really starting to piss me off, Mikado," she told him sharply. The general's expression became one of amazement and just a little fear. She liked seeing genuine fear in him, having never witnessed it before, and pressed on. "Ever since I said that I wasn't interested in a cheap and tawdry affair with you, you've been going out of your way to make my life miserable."

She looked him over as if sizing him up for a body bag. The healthy golden tone of Mikado's skin began to pale, and tiny beads of perspiration congregated at his temples.

"I've put up with it so far," she continued. "But so help me, you slimy sack of shit, if you push me one step farther, I'm going to tear your goddamn head off." She took a menacing step towards him and brandished a fist. "_Comprendez vous_, bucko!?"

Mikado opened his mouth to speak. Ukyou didn't let him.

"Now I'm going back out to the exercise fields to do your busy work. THIS time," she said to him. "Consider yourself lucky that I'm in a good mood."

Mikado blinked at her a few times.

"B-Brigadier," he said, trying to sound tough and failing.

"Yes, sir?" she asked him with a mocking grin, her voice all sweetness and light.

He looked at her, then to Konatsu.

"It can wait," he said, then took his leave of them, utterly cowed.

When he was gone, Ukyou turned to her adjutant.

"Wow..." she gushed. "If I had known that he would crumble like that, I would have gotten tough with him a long time ago."

Konatsu wasn't as amused.

"Sir, I really think that was a bad idea."

"I don't know about that," she returned. "I really castrated him."

"No sir, I don't think you understand," the former kunoichi pleaded, wringing his immaculate white-gloved hands. "The General has the biggest ego in the entire universe. You just wounded that ego, and badly. As soon as he gets hold of himself, he is going to have his revenge on you."

Ukyou thought about this. Perhaps she _had_ laid it on a bit thick...

"I'm serious, sir," Konatsu continued. "You've threatened a superior officer. That's a grave offense."

"It's his word against yours and mine," Ukyou countered. Her eyes burned into Konatsu. "RIGHT, Konatsu, honey?"

"Of course, dearest Ukyou, sir," he demurred. "But that does not change the fact that he can do plenty of things to make your life even worse than it already is under him."

She had to agree with him there. Why had she told him off like that? There was no reason to pour gasoline on her already adversarial relationship with Mikado. Was it because of her wonderful night with Ranma that she didn't care about minding her P's and Q's around her despised superior?

"Well," she said softly. "I guess that makes up my mind about resigning. It seems I just burned my last bridge."

Konatsu nodded ruefully. His was the truly uncertain future, no matter what assurances she had given him that he would remain in her life.

"Pack my things, sugar," she told him at length. "We're leaving."

"Everything, sir?" Konatsu asked her hesitantly. "It's only going to be a few more days out at the exercise field."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"We aren't going to the exercise field, honey."

The former kunoichi didn't like where this was going.

"We aren't?"

"Nope. We're going to Genevieve. As soon as we're both packed, notify my personal DropShip of our imminent departure. Meanwhile, I'll get busy drafting some bogus travel orders. For once, the fact that I do all of Mikado's paperwork is finally paying off. I can sign his name to orders better than he can."

Konatsu nodded nervously.

"Are you sure we can leave the system before he finds out?"

"Trust me, sugar. There's a JumpShip scheduled to depart for the capitol in four days, which will give us just enough time to transit out to the Jump Point. Now that the exercises are over, that playboy will want to spend the next few days with his latest piece of ass." She shook her head at how quickly Mikado's previous flame had been quenched and the new one kindled, and was glad that she had never accepted his advances. "By the time he figures out that we aren't where we're supposed to be, it will be too late to stop us."

"Yes, sir," Konatsu replied, accepting his fate with grim stoicism.He left the room to begin packing.

Ukyou sighed wearily. She had not expected matters to come to a head so soon with Mikado, but looking back on that moment, she had no regrets. There could be no happiness or satisfaction serving in an army with a sleazeball like him in command.

Her only regret, in fact, was that she was going to have to leave Ranma for the moment. It was only temporary, she knew, for he had told her of their need to travel to Genevieve to get a decryption key from the Empress. She had offered to help him, after all, and so while she was there trying to get an audience with Azusa before Mikado could catch up with her, she would also lay the groundwork for their arrival.

She wanted to go see him one more time before she left, but realized that she might have too much to do in too little time, and so she might have to settle for a phone call or a note before she lifted off.

The DropShip _Palomino_

"How do you feel this morning?"

Akane looked up from her cup of herbal tea and gave Yuka a wan smile. Yuka and Sayuri had joined her in the Crew's Mess. Breakfast was over, and the only other people present were a few techs avoiding work by lingering near the bug juice dispenser. Petty Officer Howard - Tad - was busy washing dishes in the scullery as part of the disciplinary action against him for losing track of her in town.

"Terrible," she replied, thinking of how poor sweet Tad was getting the shaft for something that wasn't his fault. At least he wasn't going to lose a stripe over it. "My head is killing me."

"That's what happens when a man makes you drink too much," Sayuri scolded.

"No one made me drink too much," Akane returned softly, and wondered why Sayuri had come across so outright hostile over her relationship with Ranma. "I was the one who should have known better."

"Who can blame you after the crap Saotome pulled?" Yuka returned.

Akane sighed. She did not need any reminders about last night. All things considered, she would be very happy if the subject never came up again.

"Let's not talk about it, okay?" she asked them both.

"Akane, we've known each other since we were kids," Yuka said to her. "If our skills hadn't lent us towards flying fighters over battlemech piloting, we'd probably have been lancemates, too. We want to help you get through this."

"More like get over him," Sayuri broke in.

"I don't want to talk about Ranma," Akane replied, her voice full of anger and hurt. "I don't even want his name mentioned."

"Does that mean the engagement is off?" Yuka asked hopefully.

Akane looked away for a moment before answering.

"As far as I'm concerned, it was never on."

"What about this expedition?" Sayuri pressed. "Are you going to take over command from Saotome?"

Akane hadn't thought that far ahead. It showed in her troubled expression. "I don't know. I want to talk to Captain Ninomiya first, and see what she thinks about going home."

"You can order her to do it, you know," Sayuri said.

She gave her friend a troubled look. What was she getting at?

"I know that," she replied. "But it would be wrong for me to do something so presumptuous."

"Wrong?" Sayuri protested. "Presumptuous? You're the Grand Duke's Heir! Captain Ninomiya takes orders from the Tendo family. If you ordered her to set a course for Capella, she'd do it."

"I know that!" Akane shouted, and instantly regretting it as her temples throbbed. "What is it with you two?" she demanded. "I know things are bad at home, and that they could use our help, but this is turning into some kind of crusade with you."

Yuka and Sayuri looked sheepishly at each other for a moment.

"Akane, you're being used," Yuka said softly. "I hate to say this, but your father is too. The faster you get away from the Saotomes, the better. This crazy hunt for Ryuugenzawa is just a hoax. We're your friends, Akane, and we're tired of seeing you get hurt."

Akane closed her eyes.

"I know that," she said. "I know what they're doing to us."

_Do I?_ she asked herself bitterly. _Genma, certainly, was using us, but what about Ranma?_

_Forget him_, another part of her snarled. _Even if he wasn't consciously using us, he does whatever his father tells him to do_.

"Then why don't you stand up to them?" Yuka asked her.

Akane clenched her fists tightly. The pressure in her head rose to the point where she could feel her pulse throbbing through her ears.

"Why does it have to be me!?" she cried.

The two pilots were taken aback.

"Well," Sayuri said softly. "Who else can it be?"

Akane gulped down the rest of her tea. "We only need one more crypto key," she said, her voice barely audible. "We are so close."

"That's only if Commander Saotome was telling us the truth about Ryuugenzawa," Yuka pointed out. "After all this, do you really believe him?"

She didn't know. The fifth key had been where Genma Saotome had claimed it was. Why shouldn't the sixth? Why shouldn't Ryuugenzawa exist?

The terrible truth, she knew, was that Genma Saotome was a liar, a cheat, and a thief. He had raised his son to be a liar, a cheat, and a thief. How could she trust either of them?

The Confederation's odds of surviving the year were grim. She knew that. In spite of this, she was wanted to go back and die if necessary to protect it from Prince Kuno. Even if Ryuugenzawa existed, could it really offer up anything to them which could prevent that?

She remembered the day before yesterday, and the afternoon she had spent with Ranma at the park. She had made a stupid confession that she needed him - to help her find Ryuugenzawa, of course - so that even if the Confederation fell, she could raise an army strong enough to get it back.

Ranma... Hadn't said anything to that. Not yes. Not no. Did he know something about the expedition? Is that why he wouldn't answer her? Did he know that this whole mess was just some kind of cruel scam concocted by his father to gain access to Confederation assets before the end? Is that why he kept protesting his disbelief in Ryuugenzawa, as a kind of warning to her not to believe in them? If so, why hadn't he just come out and said it!?

She could feel her throat starting to sting. She wasn't going to cry. Not in front of her friends. They had seen her in enough pain already.

Could Ranma betray her like this? she asked herself. If the answer was yes, then why? After all that he had done for her, after every sacrifice for her sake, why would he do something so terrible to her?

More importantly, why did she let all of this hurt her so badly?

Deep within her heart and soul, she knew the answer, and knowing only made it worse for her.

She was in love with Ranma.

It was the only explanation, and even then it defied belief. How could she love a thoughtless jerk like him? The universe was a cruel, cruel, place when sick jokes like that were played on women.

The object of her affection and the cause of her heartache appeared on the Crew's Mess even as she questioned her feelings for him. He moved stiffly, confirming the rumors she had heard concerning his brawl with Ryouga after she was put to bed. His skittish eyes fell upon her for just a moment before noting that Yuka and Sayuri were with her, and flicked away in discomfort.

She expected him to make a hasty exit from the room, but he surprised her. Trying to look cool and failing, he approached her table. She didn't want to deal with him, and decided to lay into him and see how he reacted to it. He would probably leave, knowing him for the spineless emotional cripple that he was.

"What do you want, Ranma?"

Ranma cringed at her icy tone of voice. It pleased her to think she could make him so uncomfortable. It was payback for last night.

"I just wanted to see if you were feeling better," he muttered, his eyes darting to and fro as if searching for an easy escape route. The hateful looks he was getting from Yuka and Sayuri were probably not making him feel any more at ease.

She had to stifle a bitter laugh. Feeling better? She was miserable. Absolutely miserable. This idiot, whom against all good judgement she had somehow fallen in love with, was asking her if she was feeling better after having discovered that he was two-timing her!

"What does it look like?" she asked him sharply.

"It looks like 'no,'" he replied.

"Way to go, Saotome," Yuka added in an acid tone. "He can be taught."

Ranma favored her with an acid look in return. "Butt out," he barked at her.

Yuka shot back a look that shouted 'drop dead!', but was cut off from a verbal rebuke by Akane.

"You don't tell my friends to 'butt out!'" she snarled.

Ranma rolled his eyes at them. "Some friends," he grunted. "I came here to apologize and to explain what happened last night, but I guess as long as they're here to poison anything I say, there ain't no point."

"Spare us the theatrics, Saotome," Sayuri said to him. "She's not going to listen to your crap anymore."

Ranma looked to Akane to say something. She was troubled by Sayuri putting words into her mouth, but remained silent.

"I guess not," he replied at length.

"There's nothing to explain, Ranma," she said bitterly. She did not want to hear an apology from him. He wasn't getting off the hook with a simple 'I'm sorry.' "As far as I'm concerned, the engagement is off."

The shocked and even _hurt_ look in his eyes stabbed at her resolve, and she called up every reserve of anger with him to keep from breaking down.

Damn you, Ranma! That was only supposed to hurt you, not me as well!

"But, Akane...?" his mouth seemed to hang open.

She continued her fusilade with the ammunition at hand. There was no way he was going to walk away from this intact!

"Since you love Ukyou so much, Ranma, maybe you should marry HER!"

Ranma was flabbergasted by her declaration.

"Love Ukyou?!" he cried, coming back to his senses. "Akane, you got it all wrong. How many times do I gotta say this? Ucchan is my friend, okay? Nothing more."

Akane's lower lip began to tremble. She bit down on it, and fought back the stinging in her throat. How could this lying, cheating... _fraud_ say something like that to her face?

"I didn't know friends kissed each other like you and Ukyou did last night," she said, her voice dripping with accusation. She picked up Yuka's glass of ice water and threw it in Ranma's face. "You call yourself a man?!I hate you, and I want you out of my life!"

Ranma flinched at her words more than she did at the icy water that dripped down her face. She blinked away the discomfort as if shaking off a jab to the nose, and fired back with her own barb.

"I thought you and I were friends once," she replied, thinking back to the minutes before _Dragonfly_ Jumped to this damned star system. "And it didn't stop _you_ from kissing me."

The thought of it wounded her even as she said it, and she fled the Mess Decks before Akane could try to hit her back.

"Stupid macho chick," she growled while grabbing a pot of hot water from the top of the coffee mess on her way out. "I shoulda known better than to apologize. To hell with her!"

Akane watched Ranma go. She could sense the relief in her friends upon his departure, and wondered what might have happened if he hadn't run away as usual. Most of all she wondered if the things he had said about Ukyou were true. Had she been overreacting this whole time because of her feelings for him?

She felt more hurt and confused than ever, and longed to be back in a 'mech cockpit, directing the 1st Nerima Guards once again. This fool's errand, even if Ryuugenzawa were real, was no place for her. It was time to call Captain Ninomiya up in orbit and talk to her about going home.

Ranma, still female, stepped through the airtight door and into the 'Mech Bay, still growling curses under her breath when she ran into her father - almost literally. Some of the hot water from the pot sloshed onto the deck at their feet.

"Watch it, Pop!" she barked at her father.

"Look here, boy," Genma returned, checking Ranma's advance with a firm hand on his son's arm. "I'm in no mood for your lip."

Ranma looked her father up and down.

"Ask me why I should care?" she said with a sneer.

Genma's eyes narrowed for a moment, as if contemplating the idea of giving Ranma a knuckle sandwich for his surliness. He decided against it. There were times when even a sound thrashing wouldn't get through to his son, and this looked like one of those times.

"I'm going to let that go, boy," he said to Ranma. "Now did you apologize to Akane yet?"

Ranma looked away silently.

"Based on the fact that you're currently a girl: apparently not," Genma observed.

Ranma looked back at her father. "It ain't like I didn't try!" she snapped. She folded her arms across her buxom chest, a gesture she knew her father despised, because it called attention to her cursed female body. "It don't matter anyhow," she continued. "'Cause she broke off our lame-o engagement."

Genma's eyes bulged out of their sockets.

"SHE DID WHAT!?"

Ranma remained aloof. "You heard me, Pop. Akane broke off the engagement." She looked away once more. "Hell, I'm glad she did. Who could possibly marry a chick as crazy and violent as her?"

"You, that's who," Genma countered. "This isn't entirely unexpected after your foolish fling with that Ukyou girl, but that's not important right now. What's important is continuing the expedition."

"You gotta be kidding me!" Ranma said angrily. "Who gives a rat's ass about that goddamn myth!? And besides that, I didn't have a fling with Ukyou!" She threw up her hands in disgust. "Don't try to put the blame on me, Pop! In case you hadn't figured it out by now, this whole mess would never have happened if you hadn't made that phony engagement promise to Ucchan's folks!"

Genma gave his son a dark look, choosing to ignore any mention of a girl he had thought long forgotten. "I never joke about Ryuugenzawa, boy. You know that."

Ranma remained standing still, though her hands flexed into and out of fists as her father looked at her in silent contemplation.

"Perhaps you had best lay low around Akane for awhile," he said at length to his son. "She's a spirited girl, and she needs a little breathing room to calm down and come to her senses."

"You think so, Pop?" Ranma responded in spite of herself. She didn't think Akane had much sense to begin with, but then again, her Old Man was the more experienced one when it came to dealing with women. After all, he had somehow managed to marry Mom and have a son, right?

Genma was looking at her as if she had grown another head. "I know so, boy! Now get a hotel room in town - away from the one we're already using for the crew - and stay there until I call you. If I'm right, and I'm always right, she'll be begging to reconcile with you inside of a week."

"Maybe I don't wanna be reconciled with her," Ranma retorted. "It sounds too much like being engaged again."

"You're still engaged, boy," Genma countered. "Akane has no more choice in this than you do."

Ranma dumped the pot of hot water on her head and raised an eyebrow at him. "We'll see about that, Old Man."

Pansuto Tarou opened his yellow eyes to face his guard, and weighed once again his chances of escaping. Doctor Ono had misjudged the dosage of sedatives used to keep him under control in his monstrous Jusenkyo body, leaving him sluggish, but not incapacitated. Tofu had erred on the side of caution, not wanting to kill him with an overdose, and consequently he had been underdosing him for over two weeks.

For the moment he had been playing a waiting game, carefully adjusting to the effects of the sedatives so that he could act without hindrance when the time came to make his break. In that time he had been a fly on the wall for numerous conversations in the 'Mech Bay, and weighed the implications of each according to its merits. They were talking about selling his battlemech for one thing, though with the Consulate refusing to take custody of him, that was not an immediate concern.

Ryouga had certainly turned on him quickly enough. Now that he had that sweet little dish of a technician to follow around like a lovesick puppy, to hell with Tarou, right?! He had watched as his one-time comrade assisted Akari Unryuu in the preparation of his battlemech for the auction block. Some friend!

He had learned of Happousai's survival as well. That alone was nearly enough to send him on a murderous rampage, but his will and the soporific effect of the drugs had stilled that urge in time. As his ill-fated attempt to kill him had proved, he would have to be both careful and ruthless around Happousai if he was to have his revenge.

On a less important note to him was the blowout he had witnessed between the younger Saotome and his fiancee. Tarou had little regard for the girl named Akane, and even less for the pig-tailed mechwarrior, but found it amusing to watch them tear each other apart over some bimbo named Ucchan. It had been even more fun to watch Ryouga pummel Saotome over it shortly after the blowup.

During that confrontation, however, he had heard something which he now wished he had not, something which dredged up memories he had tried for far too long to bury. The very idea of facing HER again was enough to drive him into the narcotic stupor Doctor Ono's drugs had failed to achieve.

Ranma Saotome passed by him on his way off the ship. He watched the pig-tailed mechwarrior walk down the ramp and grunted his disdain for him. Ranma didn't seem to notice him.

As Ranma left the ship, and idea came to Tarou. Perhaps there was a way to get himself out of this predicament with a little less risk. It would mean going with them to Genevieve, and maybe even... facing HER... But if he could learn the location of Ryuugenzawa, he would have one hell of a bargaining chip with the Furinkan Combine when he went to join them.

The only question remaining was whether or not the damn fool Saotomes were going to be able to continue with the expedition.

"Hiya, Ranchan!"


	4. Chapter 4

Ukyou was standing outside her staff car, dressed in her brigadier's uniform. Several of the _Palomino_ crew looked on from the staging around Tarou's Hunchback, hoping for a repeat of last night's craziness.

"Hiya, Ucchan," he replied. He was glad to see her, but it didn't show in his voice.

She registered his less than enthusiastic tone and frowned.

"What's the matter, honey? Aren't you glad to see me? And while I'm asking all these questions, why are you all wet?"

"Sure I am," Ranma replied, brightening a bit. It's just that everyone else can see us, too... "The wet part's a long story." A _really_ long story. "Don't worry about it."

Ukyou cut to the heart of the matter.

"Things must have gotten pretty ugly after I left," she observed.

Ranma rubbed at his sore jaw from the fight with Ryouga. "You don't know the half of it. Look, can we talk somewhere else?"

Ukyou shook her head sadly. "I'm afraid not, sugar. I'm leaving the planet for Genevieve, remember?"

Ranma nodded. "Oh yeah. So you're gonna help us out when we get there?"

She gave him a sly smile. "I'm sure we can work something out between us. You're not gonna keep me waiting too long, are you?"

"That depends," he replied uneasily. When she looked at him like that, he felt all mushy and nervous inside. It bothered him to think that someone - especially a girl - could do that to him. Even Akane could do it to him, when she wasn't being a crabby battleaxe. "We can't go anywhere until we get our JumpShip fixed. We're waiting on parts."

Ukyou turned up the heat on her smile.

"Too bad. Just think of the next time you'll get some of this."

She gestured to the car. A rather cute and demure girl of major rank stepped out, gingerly holding a flat square-shaped box in her white-gloved hands. The girl shyly presented the box to him before returning to the car.

"Open it," Ukyou told him.

Ranma could already tell by the heat and the smell that it was food. He flipped open the box to reveal a piping hot okonomiyaki resting upon a sheet of rice paper. There were characters written in sauce on the pancake-like food - something mushy, he was sure - but Ranma wolfed the thing down before he could read all of them.

Ukyou judged by the speed at which he had devoured the okonomiyaki that he had missed her cute love note, but upon seeing him happily eating some of her lovingly prepared handiwork, she was content to let it go at that.

"It's good," he mumbled, his mouth still full with the last bite. "Thank you."

"You're quite welcome, Ranchan," she replied, leaning forward to kiss his cheek.

His face burned at her show of affection.

"Remember, sugar," she continued. "The faster you get to Genevieve, the sooner you can eat all the okonomiyaki you want."

"I'd flap my arms and fly there if it meant I could get some more of this!" he gushed.

Ukyou beamed. She wished that she didn't have to go, but the sooner she boarded her DropShip, the better. Mikado could discover her plans at any time, and if Konatsu was correct in his assessment of the general, his vengeance would be terrible.

"I have to go now, Ranchan," she told him. "Of course, you could always come with me!"

Ranma blanched. "I can't," he replied. "Pop would kill me. We'll be there soon, I promise."

Her eyes fell. At least he hadn't mentioned anything about Akane...

"Oh. Well, I guess it can't be helped." She gave him a wave, then stepped back into the car.

Ranma waved good bye as it drove down the service road towards the military side of the starport. A Union Class DropShip waited at the end of the road, probably Ucchan's. It was weird thinking of her as a high ranking mechwarrior in the Federated Shiratori Army, and only the sight of her in her uniform had made it real for him.

He needed to blow off some steam first, before taking Pop's advice and moving into town for a week or so. How long did girls usually stay mad at someone, anyway? Akane seemed to have a lot of stamina when it came to being pissed off.

He looked up at the weathered hull of the _Palomino_ and got an idea. Perhaps it was time to take Duke Tendo's loaner out for a spin.

"What is it, Konatsu?" Ukyou asked her adjutant. Though he had not said a word, his silence spoke volumes.

"Sir?" he asked innocently.

"I've waited a long time for Ranma to come back into my life," Ukyou told him. "It's only natural for me to show a little affection towards him."

"As you say, sir," Konatsu replied uncomfortably.

Ukyou decided to let it go at that. The poor guy was going to have to get used to the fact that Ranma was an important part of her life.

Captain Hinako Ninomiya trudged sluggishly up the jetway from the shuttle to the passenger terminal, mindful under the oppressive pull of Tiber's gravity that she had been spending too much time in the free-fall of the drydock while overseeing the repairs to the _Dragonfly_. There were only a handful of passengers with her, most of them yardbirds on furlough, and all were similarly impaired. The acrid smell of welding fumes clung to her tight-fitting clothes, and she longed to step out into air that had not endured endless recycling. It had been months since the last time she had set foot on a planet.

Akane Tendo waited for her at the top of the jetway. Hinako noted the grave look on her face and wondered what exactly the girl had on her mind to call her from orbit. She had other business on Tiber, so the trip was necessary no matter what the daughter of the Grand Duke's was upset about, but she was nonetheless concerned.

"Thank you for coming, Captain Ninomiya," Akane said by way of greeting.

Hinako bowed slightly for the Confederation Heir. There was no need for anything more formal between them in a place like this.

"I _did_ have other business dirtside," she replied in her husky voice. She gave Akane a penetrating look that made the Tendo girl wish Hinako had arrived in her child-body. "You were less than clear on the reasons why you needed to speak with me in person. Perhaps we can discuss the matter over lunch?"

Akane nodded in agreement. "That's fine with me," she said calmly.

Hinako took a sip of her iced tea before responding to Akane's request. "You are asking me, in effect, to mutiny against Commander Saotome," she said to Akane.

"Mutiny?" Akane chirped worriedly. The word 'mutiny' occupied a place in the military lexicon similar to the one occupied by 'cowardice,' except that 'mutiny' was a far graver offense. Fear was a fact of war, and sometimes the struggle against one's fear was lost, but mutiny was a crime against the very fabric of martial society. An army or fleet could not function if it were permissable to usurp the command of higher authority.

Hinako explained her response from her own unique perspective.

"Lady Akane, as an officer of the Confederation Navy, I swore an oath of fealty to the Tendos, and to the Grand Duke specifically. Your father has placed Genma Saotome in command of this expedition, and granted him, by a letter of marque, a rank commensurate with his position. I cannot simply ignore that fact because you wish to exercise the authority granted to you by your birthright."

"I only wanted your opinion on the matter," Akane said, her voice surprisingly meek.

"And now you have it," Hinako replied sharply. "Now would you mind telling me what made you even consider such a thing?"

Akane wasn't sure if she should proceed. Captain Ninomiya had made it clear that to return home against Genma Saotome's wishes would be the equivalent of mutiny against her own father. She could not do that, even if her father was dead wrong about the Saotomes.

Worse, her true motivation for wanting to return home was due to the shattered engagement with Ranma. How do you rationalize something like that to an outsider like Captain Ninomiya, she wondered, much less explain it?

Hinako took her silence as a cue to speak.

"Is this about the Combine's siege of Capella?" she asked Akane. "Even if we returned, one ship and a handful of battlemechs would not make any more difference in the outcome," she continued. "Furthermore, you would only be placing yourself in Prince Kuno's hands. Is that what you really want?"

Akane looked away. Had she really been that stupid? Her anger with Ranma was making her brain rot.

"No," she replied. "Of course not."

"Then why would you even consider such a thing?"

Akane remained silent.

"There's something more to this, isn't there," Hinako observed.

Akane's head bobbed slightly in agreement. It was hard to imagine a women who spent half her time trapped in the body of an eight-year-old actually possessing that kind of perception. How old was Captain Ninomiya, anyway? Sitting across from her at the table, with her enviable body shoehorned into an outfit so short and tight that it made mens' heads turn and tongues wag, she looked about thirty.

"It's complicated," she replied.

"I'm sure it is," Hinako returned. She steepled her fingers together.

"If you don't want to talk about it, that's your business."

Akane decided that she did not want to talk about it. The more she thought about the situation, the more foolish her chosen course of action made her look. It was bad enough that she was defying her father by breaking off the engagement with Ranma. Did she really want to add mutiny to the list? All because of her idiotic, two-timing, ex-fiance?

The DropShip _Palomino_

"I'm not sure this is such a great idea."

Yuka looked her friend over. She had expected Sayuri to get cold feet a little sooner than this.

"Do you want to go home or don't you?"

"Of course I want to go home," Sayuri replied. "But not in chains."

"We aren't going to kill him," Yuka assured her friend. "We're just going to scare him a little. Put him in his place, as it were."

"But a duel?" Sayuri protested. "Just because we're not out to kill him doesn't mean he'll feel the same way. This could get out of hand before we know it."

Yuka gestured to their CSR-V8 Corsair fighters. Akari's Tech Shed had just craned them out of their launch bays in the DropShip's bow section, and set them on the tarmac for takeoff. "Come on," she returned. "What can a LAM do to one of these things? We have twice the armor and firepower, and we're faster than him too."

"I'm still not convinced that this is the best way to go about getting rid of the Saotomes," Sayuri said to her. "If we kill him, we're in big trouble. We know that Akane's angry with Ranma, but what if she still loves him?"

Yuka pursed her lips in thought. It was not her intention to kill the worthless piece of crap, but it was possible that it could happen. Akane might not take it well at first, but she would get over the loser in time. As for any legal problems they might have, she had an angle for that.

"If we kill him, then so be it. We have the right as aerospace pilots to challenge others to duels the same way mechwarriors can."

Sayuri wasn't so sure. While the Succession Wars had conferred upon mechwarriors and aerospace pilots a status approaching that of the Chivalry in the feudal periods of pre-Jump Earth, dueling wasn't exactly condoned by the Nerima Confederation the way it was in the Furinkan Combine or the Jusenkyo Commonwealth. They simply couldn't afford to waste their fighting resources the way the larger, richer Successor States could. She didn't like Ranma any more than Yuka did, but was this really the only way?

"Are you with me or aren't you?" Yuka pressed.

Sayuri closed her eyes in dread of the next few hours. Yuka would go whether she did or not, and by herself, she could get killed. Neither of them had ever fought a LAM before, and in the hands of a skilled pilot, LAMs were known to be as unpredictable as enemies came. Ranma was a total asshole for the way he treated Akane, and he also had every reason to hate both Yuka and herself. She couldn't, in good conscience, let Yuka fight someone like that alone.

"I'm in."

"Good. Let's get cracking then."

Phoenix Hawk LAM T-507

5000 meters MSL above the Sea of Aquila

Ranma opened the throttle wide on his fusion-heated turbojets, letting the Phoenix Hawk settle into the comfortable velocity of Mach Two. The silence to be had in traveling faster than the sound of your passing was a welcome relief to him. He had way too much to think about without a lot of outside distractions getting in his way.

Flying out over the ocean helped clear his mind as well. Out here there was nothing but open sky and endless sea. Blue against blue, with only the clouds to tell them apart. Out here thoughts of Akane could be put in their proper perspective.

He wished.

It would have helped his cause if he knew exactly why she was so pissed at him. He knew that Ukyou was a big part of it, but there seemed to be much more involved. He just didn't have any clue as to what it might have been...

Yuka and Sayuri weren't helping matters. Maybe he had gone a bit overboard by calling them dykes, but who made it their business to go butting in?

A tingling in the back of his mind brought him to rapt attention. There were two sets of airborne search radar dead aft of him, at the limits of his detection gear's sensitivity. There wasn't supposed to be anyone out here, which was why he had chosen this stretch of water to fly over.

He decided to play it cool for the moment. His transponder was on, and as a non-allied mercenary in F-S territory, he had filed a verbal flight plan with the authorities for this jaunt. If Tiber COAC wanted to say something about it, they would. If not, well, he'd play his cards as they were dealt.

The two sets of radar resolved themselves on his main display as they closed with him to a distance of one hundred kilometers. The Warbook established them as Ranker TA800 air-search and acquisition gear. Rankers were found on only one class of fighter, the Corsair. That meant that his pursuers were probably part of the F-S Garrison, since they used most of the Corsairs to be found in the Inner Sphere.

Unless...

On a whim, he set his commo set to the _Palomino_'s preferred channels. He had set his radio to ignore any broadcasts on those frequencies when he left, so his father couldn't try to order him home before he was ready. He had his answer almost immediately.

"- down, Saotome," Yuka's voice said over the commo. "Do you hear me?"

He shook his head in disgust. They were hounding him even out here.

"What if I hear you and just don't care?" he asked her.

Her face appeared unbidden on his display. She looked severe in her pressure suit and neurohelmet, and her eyes had the glint of anger in them.

"What's your problem, Saotome?" Sayuri chimed in.

"I dunno," he shot back. "What's _your_ problem?"

The two V8-model Corsairs accelerated to catch up with him. Ranma casually eased back his throttle and dropped below supersonic velocity. Within minutes the two fighters had taken up positions on either wing.

"Hey, what do you know?" he chirped. "You two really _can_ fly in formation? I guess Pop wins the bet..."

Yuka took his barb as expected. "Asshole."

She hit her overthrust and rocketed ahead of him, snap-rolling precariously close to his radome and making him eat her slipstream. The effects were almost immediate, throwing Ranma into a sharp dive as the airflow over his fighter was disrupted and he lost lift.

He squeeze the burn studs on his throttle, dumping raw plasma from the reactor into the engines' HEPLAR coils for the thrust he would need to regain control over his stall. Yuka's laughter over the radio was infuriating.

"What the hell was that for, you crazy bitch!?" he demanded.

Sayuri accelerated away to join up with Yuka.

"We're here to challenge you to a duel."

"Both of you at once?" he barked, hastily snapping master safety switches to arm his weapons. They seriously wanted to kill him? "That's real sporting."

"You can always back down," Yuka offered contemptuously. "Only keep in mind that the condition for forfeiting the duel is that you and your father renounce the expedition, and then stay on Tiber while we return to the Confederation."

"Think of it this way, Saotome," Sayuri added. Yuka's show of bravado had her courage up. "At least on Tiber you'll have your little cupcake to keep you company."

Ranma grit his teeth. They were trying to get rid of him all right, one way or another. He was outgunned, outnumbered, and flew a fighter that was slower and far less armored than their Corsairs. He would have been smart to fly away, whether he intended to do as they said or not.

But that just wouldn't have been Ranma Saotome.

"I sure hope you chicks know how to swim," he growled. _'Cause it's a long way back to shore_... he added mentally. His undercarriage heavy laser was energized. Unless he retracted the aerodynamic housing for his twin medium lasers in the starboard engine pod, it was all he had to fight with in Fighter Mode. He intended to keep this fight at subsonic velocities if at all possible, where he actually had a chance of winning. He was mindful of the fact that most of the Corsair's kills came while low and slow, but then, so did a Phoenix Hawk LAM's.

Yuka and Sayuri goosed their boosters and pulled banking turns in opposite directions. They were trying to get him to make a choice between which one to go after, knowing that the other one would come up behind him.

He decided instead to let them come to him.

"What's the matter, Saotome?" Yuka chided him as she made a wide turn back towards his direction.

Ranma let her eat static. He focused his attention instead on the data streaming into his head from the neurohelmet, and on their capabilities. They had two heavy lasers to his one, the same number of medium lasers, plus twin light lasers just forward of the cockpit for close-in work, and a set facing aft to keep chasers off their backs. The only thing going for him in this equation was that they didn't have the heat sinks to fire their heavy guns at the same time as their others.

That meant that they'd save their heavy lasers for times where they were outside light laser range, like when they were closing for an attack, and once they got close, they'd probably hit him with both lights and mediums, plus maybe a parting shot with their aft guns as they passed him.

He could offer a heavy laser blast in return while in Fighter Mode, which was a decent amount of firepower because of its range and punch, but considering their thick armor belts, it was a losing proposition to simply trade fire shot-for-shot with the two of them. If he jumped on their tails, he'd have the aft guns to contend with - a nuisance, but distracting when beams are flying at you - and with their powerful GM 200ATF engines, they could easily accelerate away from him in level flight.

Simply put, there was no way he could beat both of them at once in Fighter Mode. Unfortunately for him, that was the mode he was currently using. He needed to find out how serious they were about shooting him down, and the best way to do that was to give them a seemingly perfect opportunity.

Sayuri felt the gee forces pushing her into her ejector seat as she made a banking turn onto her attack vector. Ranma was staying in level flight, and subsonic. He was practically a sitting duck for them.

She could see Yuka well beyond and slightly above him, her own turn to attack completed. Was Yuka really going to open up on him?

Yuka's radar held the Phoenix Hawk LAM firmly in track as she energized her lasers. He was flying level and slow, which didn't make much sense from a combat standpoint. Why wasn't he doing something, like chasing one of them, or making a run for it?

"Last chance to back out," she informed him, hoping that he would, and prepared to act if he didn't.

His reply was brief and to the point.

"Bite me."

You had your chance, Saotome, she thought angrily. This is for Akane!

She squeezed her trigger.

Yuka's heavy lasers burned through the air in bright orange streaks. The beams crazed the upper hull of the Phoenix Hawk LAM, and cut through the leading edge of the port engine pod nacelle in a flash of smoke and sparks. Ranma shoved the throttles to the stops and pushed over into a death dive as the lasers struck, his wings adjusting for high-speed flight. With an eye on his airspeed indicator, he juked and banked as he dove, trying to draw them down with him while spoiling their aim. The damage to his fighter was minimal at this point, and was ignored. It was a calculated risk, knowing that his armor was more than good for what little contact she could achieve at extreme range.

It also went against basic aerial combat tactics to give up your altitude as fast as he was shedding his, but then, as a LAM pilot, his playbook and maneuver capabilities were a little different from the average fighter pilot's. He was counting on Yuka and Sayuri to follow their lessons from aerial combat school if he was going to beat them.

Sayuri watched as heavy laser beams grazed the LAM, and realized that Yuka wasn't playing around. She fired her own weapons half-heartedly, wanting to keep up the show more than to kill the stupid jerk. Yuka was going too far with this.

Sayuri was the weak link, Ranma realized. She's the one who wasn't serious about this duel. That was a relief, knowing that he had only one dedicated opponent, and so was the fact that Yuka was taking the bait. More laser beams sizzled around him from her Corsair as she followed him down at high speed. He could almost feel her sighting him in for her close-in spread of lasers as he pushed his LAM through the sound barrier. The sonic boom he generated would change the air density behind him just enough to spoof Yuka's targeting system for a moment.

"Is that the best shooting you can do?" he mocked. "I've seen repple-depple scrubs who could shoot straighter than you!"

She didn't rise to his taunt, preferring instead to blaze away with her heavy lasers. Her Corsair had to be getting toasty with all of the heat that was building up.

He continued his dive, pushing for more speed until he reached the point - where he knew from his test runs on Nerima - that the Phoenix Hawk could take no more without breaking up. His fusion-heated turbojets shrieked in the base of his spine through his ejector seat as the altimeter swam dizzyingly towards sea level.

Yuka followed him down, her Corsair's long swept wings knifing through the air and trailing streams of condensed moisture behind them. Her nose-mounted heavy lasers shot lines of radiant death at him that criss-crossed around his LAM in a glowing web of ionized air. Sayuri trailed well behind her compatriot, content to keep watch over the battle.

"Hey, Sayuri," Ranma heard Yuka grunting with the strain of her dive over the tac-net. "A little help here!"

A smile crossed his lips at that. _You ain't seen nothing yet!_

They were running out of sky at over two-thousand kilometers per hour as they continued their dives. Ranma watched the altimeter, knowing that his reaction would make or break him at the bottom of the dive. He wasn't going to lose to Yuka and Sayuri.

"Pull up," Sayuri found herself saying to Ranma, whose fighter was in a twisting power dive so steep that there seemed to be no way he could recover from it.

What's he up to? Yuka wondered, her guns still trying to draw a bead on the slippery LAM. _That's it!_ she cried in her mind. _He's gonna transform!_

_Gotcha!_

At two-hundred meters above sea level, Ranma tugged at his Phoenix Hawk's transformation lever. The LAM spiralled into its bird of prey Airmech Mode as the legs dropped out of the undercarriage and fired braking thrust. For a moment he was a sitting duck for Yuka's guns, and beams of laser light burned into his upper fuselage armor.

The LAM sprang clear with an unexpected lateral thrust burn from the legs that pitched it violently to the right. The Phoenix Hawk's engines screamed above the wavetops as Ranma scooted clear by using the surface effect of the water to convert the energy of his dive into forward motion that kept him moving at high speed. Once clear, he fired his plasma drives, catapulting him straight up in Airmech Mode on a column of starflame and clouds of steam from the boiling ocean beneath him, and taking his Phoenix Hawk out of Yuka's effective plane of attack.

Yuka had to pull out of her own dive now, and in that moment she must have realized how he had used her Corsair's design characteristics against her.

The fighter could turn and roll in the atmosphere beautifully, but its narrow, straked wings and its too-far-forward center of gravity gave it a less than sterling pitch rate. The best she could hope for was to try and roll as she pulled out of her dive to stay with him. He could almost hear her frustrated scream at him as he escaped her fusillade and rose on a leg thruster-generated thermal to attack the dawdling Sayuri.

She was the weak link, the easiest target. Yuka was already out for blood against him no matter what he did, so he considered it better to take out Sayuri before she got herself motivated against him as well.

She wasn't prepared for his rapidly climbing attack, and tried a snap roll while diving to evade him. His Airmech Mode could roll better any day of the week than most fighters - including the Corsair, and he stayed with her. He continued his vertical ascent, the Phoenix Hawk's metalshod fingers splaying out like angry talons, and the aerodynamic housing over the starboard engine pod retracting to reveal the twin medium lasers.

He hosed fire from the medium lasers at her as he climbed on a near collision course. There was too little separation, and too much speed between them for her to get away. Ranma dropped into the receptive state necessary for the most minute control over his Phoenix Hawk LAM, feeling the microwaves from his radar bouncing back from Sayuri's Corsair as they tickled the phased array receivers. He knew the distance that separated them down to the centimeter, their closure rate to the tenth of a second, and how close they would come before passing within half a meter. He projected that data onto the ballistics set for his forearm-mounted SRM launcher.

At a precise launch distance his missiles would be exactly one point eight meters apart in a horizontal salvo when they reached the target. That was all he needed to know. He then trained his LAM's left arm on the diving Corsair, and spat a pair of SRMs that slammed into the engine intake ducts on either side of the cockpit.

He passed underneath her a moment later, his LAM's fingers gouging deep rents into her wingroots. He cut his thrust a moment later, rising on his stored momentum and unslinging the heavy laser to continue the attack if his calculations failed. As the Phoenix Hawk stalled at the top of its climb, he pushed over, rolling and adding thrust as he dove once more.

He saw that his SRMs had destroyed Sayuri's jet turbines and probably raised a little hell with her plasma drive. Black streams of smoke and bright flecks of burning metal gushed from her thrusters. She needed her turbines at low velocity and altitude to stay airborne - only when boosting for space at hypersonic velocity and at high altitude did the fighter shift over to the scramjets, otherwise they were almost useless for thrust. She was effectively crippled, but in a pinch she could use the plasma drive directly to get her home.

"Sayuri!" Yuka cried over the tac-net.

"You've got two choices, Sayuri," Ranma tersely informed her. "Crank up your HEPLAR drive right now and pray you've got enough reaction mass to reach the mainland, or else punch out right now."

The Corsair pulled out of its dive, but he could see that she hadn't fired the plasma drive. She was going to stall if she lost any more speed.

"Fire your drive or punch out!" he shouted at her. How hard could it be?

"Sayuri!" Yuka cried once more. Ranma kept an eye on her from twenty klicks out as she raced back into the fight. "Do something!"

"My drive's malfunctioning!" Sayuri protested abruptly.

"Punch out!" Ranma ordered her.

"I can't just abandon my ship!" she shouted, anger and panic seeping into her voice. "You're the one who did this to me!"

"Screw the fighter!" Ranma shot back. "Do you want to die? Punch out!"

"Do it!" Yuka ordered. Then, her voice meek, she added, "Sayuri, I'm sorry..."

Sayuri ejected as the crippled Corsair stalled, then tumbled into a death dive for the sea. Ranma watched her until she separated from her ejector seat, her olive drab parachute opening and filling with air. Once he was satisfied that she was going to make it, he marked her location on the map, and clicked the 'talk' button on his HOTAS to address Yuka.

"What's it gonna be, Yuka?" he asked her. Her Corsair was within ten kilometers now, the radar threat indicator warning him that he was being painted. His Phoenix Hawk was scarred by laser fire - a few more heavy laser hits from her were going to do him in. "Do you wanna join Sayuri in the drink?"

"I'll do worse than put you in the water, Saotome," she snapped in return. "I'll put you in your grave!"

He watched as her Corsair accelerated on full burn to close the distance between them, and his hands clenched the controls a little tighter than before in anticipation of her attack. If this was how she wanted to do things, then that was her decision.

"Have it your way," he replied. His Phoenix Hawk LAM transformed from Airmech to Battlemech Mode, and hovered in the sky on twin plumes of superheated air.

Above the Aquila Sea

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

16 April 3025

By hovering in Battlemech Mode, Ranma was making himself an easy target for Yuka's lasers. At least, that was what he hoped she would believe. The best he could hope for in a fighter to fighter dogfight would be to wear her out in the chase, and so he chose against going back to Fighter Mode just yet. He wanted a quick resolution to this duel, to draw it out played in her favor.

He watched her climb several thousand meters above him, and guessed that she planned to make a diving attack, firing at medium range and then making a break turn to get clear before he could muster a counterattack. She probably feared a repeat of his SRM attack on Sayuri more than anything else, and with good reason. Two well-placed Short Range Missiles had shot down an otherwise intact fighter.

The trick to defeating her would be to draw her closer to him than she preferred. He hoped she would take the bait he was offering, and go for a low angle pass at high speed.

She didn't disappoint. Her lasers began streaming through the air at him as he juked and dodged, his LAM's thrusters flaring in every direction, and making the fifty ton transformable battlemech a fiery midair dervish. What few beams creased his hull threw up brilliant bursts of sparks and flame, but even she had to know how poor the hits were.

Frustrated with him, she circled back, trying to bracket the LAM decisively in her sights before she made her break turn to escape.

Again he dodged her shots, the LAM pulling stunts of free-fall prowess she would have thought impossible. Most damning of all was his refusal to shoot back, as if daring her to cut her passes closer.

Biting down on her lip, she made a third attack on him, her guns erupting from all stations and sending blooms of waste heat into the turbojets for additional thrust. The beams criss-crossed around the red and black Phoenix Hawk, stitching lines of white hot fire in the sky, but never reaching their intended marks.

Ranma executed a beautiful midair veronica as she passed, his mech's left arm swirling with heartbreaking grace over the fighter as if holding a giant red cape, and goading her to still closer passes.

"Ole!" Ranma cackled over the tac net.

"Arrogant ass!" she shot back.

The Corsair screamed back at him, its lasers spitting trails of ionized atmosphere around him. The LAM seemed to melt around the paths of the beams as she approached, and she grit her teeth in even greater frustration. She would ram him if she had to!

That moment's desperate oath cost her, for with a whirling pinwheel motion, the LAM spun clear of her final attack using the daring _pase de pecho_, allowing her Corsair to pass as close to the Phoenix Hawk's torso as possible without contact, to hook its arms out at her fighter as he stalled.

Ranma just managed to catch Yuka's Corsair as he fell, the Phoenix Hawk's arms grappling with the fighter, its metalshod fingers digging into the armor plate for purchase. The effects of the maneuver were felt almost immediately, as the tremendous drag of the LAM forced Yuka into a stall as well. For a moment he felt as if her fighter's wings would snap, or that the myomer bundles in his arms would part, but the stout Corsair held with a tortured groan of metal and composite, and the LAM's arms stood fast with a high pitched squeal of protest.

"What are you doing?!" she screamed at him.

Ranma didn't answer her, as he was locked in conflict with his LAM's controls to gain a better hold over her as they began to plummet out of the sky. He slid the left hand over her cockpit canopy at last, and knew his work was almost done.

"I'm not giving you the same choice Sayuri got," he growled finally as the two fighters fell into a sickening dive. "You punch out now, and you'll be squashed like a bug against my battlemech's hand!"

"You'll kill us both!" she cried, aghast. Every instinct she had was screaming for her to eject, but with the Phoenix Hawk's armored hand covering the canopy, it would be certain death.

"No, only you," Ranma replied. "My LAM can always jet away, and I'll hold on to you to the bitter end to make sure you won't be able to pull out of this dive."

They began to tumble now, a twisted mass of metal that trailed streams of condensation as they fell. Ranma watched as his altimeter spiralled madly towards zero, satisfied that Yuka was doing the same. He fought against the sickening sensation of the acceleration forces acting upon him as he tried to maintain his sense of equilibrium. If she didn't crack, and soon, he doubted that he would be able to make his escape.

Fortunately for him, she did.

"What do you want?!" she screamed at him over the commo.

"I want you to call off the dogs!" Ranma shot back.

"What?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," he snarled. "I'm sick of your shit, Yuka. You don't say another unkind fucking word to me ever again, got it? And no more talking trash to Akane about me or my Dad! The same goes for Sayuri!"

They continued their fall towards the sea, acceleration forces plucking at his LAM's grasp on the Corsair. He had to hold on with all his battlemech's might, knowing that this was the most crucial moment.

"I'm waiting!" he yelled at her. "If you don't do exactly as I say - and right fucking now - I will see you die at the end of this fall! If you ever go back on your word, then I swear, Yuka, that I will kill you with my bare hands!"

Yuka made a strangled cry of exasperation.

"What was that?!" Ranma demanded.

"Let me go first!" she returned. "We'll never recover from this if you don't release me now!"

"I'm willing to take that chance," Ranma replied, his voice cold and unyielding, and his hatred for the girl flowing through every syllable. "Now swear it!"

"All right!" she screamed. "I swear!"

Ranma held on to her for a bit longer, twenty seconds from the end.

"That didn't sound sincere enough," he told her.

"Goddammit, _please_!" Yuka begged. "I swear!"

He reached out with his mind, seizing the myomer bundles of his Phoenix Hawk with his will, and forcing them to do his bidding. The LAM arched its back, presenting its thrusters at the desired angle, and fired. The sudden

blast of thrust threw him into his seat straps as it stabilized their fall. He released the Corsair a moment later, falling free before he rolled over into Airmech Mode and soared clear in a rush of plasma.

He watched Yuka's desperate recovery maneuver with mixed feelings, wanting to see her pull out of her dive, and yet not minding if the girl crashed. Hatred did not come easily to him, but Yuka had crossed a line that he hadn't even realized he had drawn between them until this afternoon.

It was with some regret that she managed to pull out with at least twenty meters to spare.

Perhaps her brush with death would convince her of his sincerity, he thought as he climbed back into the sky. She could always come back for him now that she was in control of her fighter again. He watched, hoping that she would do the right thing. If she didn't, then he would have no choice but to kill her.

She climbed to five thousand meters, and began to head back for the mainland.

"I'll pick up Sayuri," he said to her she made tracks for the _Palomino_. He was exhausted from his maneuvers, but he kept his voice fresh for her. She didn't need to know how close she had come to succeeding.

"You bastard," she grunted at him. "Don't think you can get away with this, Saotome."

Ranma felt a flash of anger well up within him. "Get away with what, you dumb broad?" he demanded. "Once I turn over my flight recorder for examination, we'll see who started this, and which one of us was out to kill the other..."

He knew he had her beat with that one. She would have to come back at him for the kill to prevent his flight recorder, with its voice channels, from exposing her as the one who had started the battle. He knew he had unnerved her with the ease at which he evaded her attacks, and didn't expect another direct confrontation.

She continued on.

"I meant what I said, Yuka," he sent after her. "Go back on your word, and I'll kill you."

She did not reply.

He found Sayuri close to where she had ejected. She was floating in an inflatable survival raft barely large enough to hold her in a supine position. A cloud of yellow-green from her dye-marker drifted in the water with the current in a long plume of color, mingling with the tangle of her released parachute and its shroud lines. Only a few bits of her Corsair floated on the surface with the waves; the rest of the starfighter had sunk to the bottom of the sea.

He brought his fighter down for a low pass. She did not wave to him, though he saw her head turn to track him warily. Did she really think he was planning on wasting her in the water?

The Phoenix Hawk transformed to Airmech Mode and flew back to the raft. He hovered nearby, the airmech's hands extended, before slowly powering down his engines. As the LAM touched the water, he quickly shut down the turbojets and closed the jet intakes. The airmech settled into the sea up to the wingroots with a splash.

Once he was certain the LAM was stable and sufficiently buoyant, Ranma popped his canopy and unstrapped himself. Sayuri watched him from twenty meters away as he pulled himself up onto the hull of his 'mech.

"Are you hurt?" he called to her.

She didn't answer him.

"Hey, look, you're a thousand klicks from land, and in the middle of nowhere," he yelled. "Assuming this planet has any kind of wet navy on hand for a rescue, it'll be at least three days before a ship could reach you. I doubt they'll have any rescue choppers with that kind of range."

Sayuri remained silent.

"I'm offering you a ride home!" he continued. "Take it or leave it - and just hope there aren't any storms coming as you enjoy a few days of starvation and exposure."

She looked down at herself for a moment, as if cursing, and then began to clumsily paddle her life raft towards the LAM.

Ranma pulled her up onto the hull of his 'mech. She was still dripping wet from her splashdown in the sea, and from the look of her, that water was cold. One good wave over the hull would have turned him into a girl on the spot. Sayuri kept her eyes away from him, and her face blazed with both shame and scorn.

"Are you okay?" he asked her again.

She whirled on him. "What do you care!?"

Ranma stepped back a pace. "Excuse the hell out of me, lady!" he retorted. "In case the shock of ejecting made you forget, you and your psychotic girlfriend were the ones who decided to come out hunting for ME. You're lucky I wasn't out to kill you, lady, or you'd be fish food right now! Hell, the way you chicks came after me, I probably should have killed you!"

Sayuri, cold and trembling inside and out, looked away.

"I know that," she muttered. "You made your point. Let's just go."

Ranma agreed with that sentiment. Now came the hard part.

"There's only one seat in the cockpit, so you'll have to sit on my lap. You gotta problem with that?"

He could see that she did, but she kept it to herself. Without another word, he jumped into the cockpit and held out his hand for her. She took it silently, and he steadied her over from the hull. Once he was securely strapped into place, he gestured for her to get comfortable.

She settled into his lap without comment. Her weight was a surprisingly pleasant sensation for him in spite of their mutual animosity towards each other, though he decided that it was best to ignore her as best he could. The outer fabric of her pressure suit was still wet, and dripped into the ejector seat padding. His cockpit was going to smell like the ocean for awhile.

He lowered the canopy and checked the engine status. Everything looked good. "Hold on," he advised her, and placed an arm around her waist to steady her.

"Is that really necessary?" she growled.

"Fine," he spat, taking his hand off of her. "Hit your head against the freakin' canopy or something. See if I care."

She dragged his hand back into place. "Just get me home."

He pulsed the HEPLAR drive, blasting the LAM free of the sea in a cloud of steam and spray. Once he was clear, he opened the jet intakes and spooled up his turbines. As the LAM picked up speed and gained altitude, he eased off the plasma drive and shifted over to the jets.

Sayuri remained silent on his lap as they transformed to Fighter Mode and punched through the sound barrier for home. Ranma knew that it was going to be a long trip.

The Phoenix Hawk LAM settled on the tarmac with a shriek of turbojets. The techs were waiting for him, as were Doctor Tofu, Akane, Ryouga, Akari, and Genma. The looks on their faces betrayed their feelings of shock and confusion over what had just taken place. Yuka was last of all to be seen, standing close to the DropShip, her face drawn and sorrowful, yet masking the turmoil she must have been feeling with her defeat.

Ranma powered down his battered LAM before raising the starred canopy to face the music. He was certain that no matter who was really to blame, he would be the one everyone turned on. The real question would be how Yuka and Sayuri would act once they were safe from his wrath. He doubted they would be anything less than his bitter enemies.

Sayuri squirmed uncomfortably in his lap as the canopy locked into the 'up' position. She turned to face him, her eyes bitter and despondent.

"Let me out," she told him. He let go of her waist and threw the yellow and black lever that extended the retractable boarding ladder.

"I'm sorry about this," he repeated to her. "But you didn't give me much choice."

She closed her eyes for a moment, then stood up in the cockpit to throw her leg over the side. "The truth, Ranma, is that you've got no reason to be sorry for what happened."

Her show of humility surprised him. "Huh?"

"I hate to say this, but you were right. If Yuka and I hadn't come after you, this wouldn't have happened," she said to him. "I can't stand you as a person, Ranma Saotome, but I can't blame you for shooting me down, either."

She clambered down the boarding ladder, ignoring the queries from Doctor Tofu about her condition. Ranma watched her walk stoop-shouldered past Akane, her shame and humiliation looming over her like a storm cloud. Yuka could offer nothing for her, knowing that she was the one who had put her friend up to this.

Ranma unstrapped himself and stood in the cockpit. His neurohelmet came off, then the 'snoopy cap' liner that contained his commo headset. These he placed carefully on the ejector seat before slipping over the side to land on the tarmac.

He faced Doctor Tofu first.

"Are you hurt?" the doctor asked him. Ranma was surprised to find that Tofu wasn't making any snap judgments about blame.

"A little beat up," he replied. "I'm okay."

Tofu grunted acknowledgement and turned to find Sayuri again. The process of ejecting from a fighter was rarely without some form of injury, and she had spent at least a little time in the water before being rescued.

Genma was next. He approached Ranma with a measured stride, his face stern and tightly drawn.

"What happened up there, boy?" he asked in a gruff voice.

Ranma faced his father. "Why don't you ask Yuka?" he challenged.

"I did," he replied.

"And...?" Ranma pressed.

"Now I want your version," Genma told him. "This is a very serious matter. An expensive piece of equipment is destroyed because of you, boy, and a pilot has been Dispossessed. You know better than most how that feels. On top of that, the morale of the crew is in the gutter, and you go off and shoot down one of your own pilots - and come near to killing the other one!"

Ranma cursed. So much for Yuka telling them the truth... He wondered how long it would take her to break her other promise.

"It seems like you've already made up your mind as to what happened," he said to his father. "What's the point of asking me at all?"

"You do what you're told, boy, and nothing less!"

"Go to hell!" Ranma shot back. He was nearly trembling as he continued. "I'm sick of listening to you, Old Man! I'm sick of getting caught up in your half-assed schemes and your bullshit philosophy on what it means to be a 'true mechwarrior'! I'm sick of being a pawn that you can manipulate to get the things you want, and I'm sick of having to live up to standards that you could never live up to yourself!"

His eyes fell upon Akane, who watched their exchange in pained silence, before returning his hateful glare to his father.

"If it was just me you were fucking over with your moronic quest to find Ryuugenzawa, that would be one thing, but no, you have to go hurting other people too. Akane should never have come with us, Pop, and you know that!" He gestured with his hand towards the DropShip. "None of these people should ever have come with us! They had lives, friends, careers, a country they actually cared enough about to fight for! Instead of leaving them alone to live those lives, you sucked them into this nightmare! You fucked them over, too!"

He took a step towards his father, his hands clenching and unclenching in nervous tension. "You know what?" he went on, looking at the crowd of _Palomino_ crew that observed them. "I've come to a decision. One that I'm sure everyone here but you will agree with. I'm outta here. I'm leaving." He called to Yuka and Sayuri, who stood silently by the DropShip. "I give up! You win!" he shouted to them. "I've got nothing here, no reason to stay, so why the hell should I even bother?"

He threw up his hands and started walking for the distant starport terminal. Genma's meaty paw caught him on the shoulder and spun him around before he could take two steps, hostile eyes narrowing at him.

"Ranma, if you weren't my flesh and blood, I'd kill you right here and now for saying those things..."

Ranma drew back in a rage from his father and dropped into a fighting stance. "Not if I kill you first, Pop!"

He lashed out at Genma with his foot, catching the heavyset man in the stomach. It should have been a crippling blow to the solar plexus, but amazingly it didn't elicit more than a grunt from the elder Saotome. Even Ranma looked surprised at how ineffectual his strike had been.

Genma wordlessly returned with a brutal flurry of punches and chops that connected more often than not against Ranma's hastily erected defenses, and slammed the pig-tailed mechwarrior backwards to the hot tarmac - bleeding, bruised, and stunned.

"I didn't want to have to do that," Genma told his son scornfully. "I may be fat and old, but I'm more than a match for you, boy. Now get on your feet and stop feeling sorry for yourself. I raised you better than that."

Ranma pulled himself to his feet, ignoring his father's offered hand.

"This ain't over yet," he grunted. He assumed his fighting stance once again.

"Ranma, think very carefully about what you're doing," Genma advised him.

"There ain't nothing to think about," Ranma returned. "You've done all my thinking for me. Just like my duel with Yuka and Sayuri, you just assumed you knew what was best for everybody, and went ahead and did it. Well I got news for ya, Pop: it didn't work for them, and it ain't gonna work for you!"

It was Genma who made the next move, a feint with his leg followed by a straight punch to the sternum. Ranma's circular block deflected his father's blow, and he counter-punched to no effect. The two pulled back into guarded stances, each measuring the other and looking for an opening to exploit. They had been fighting each other for years, and they knew the other's strengths, weaknesses, and habits.

All things being equal, it promised to be a long battle.

"I've said it once, and I'll say it again," Genma told him as they circled warily. "You're just like your mother. All heart and no brains. Can't you see that this kind of open defiance of me will only make things worse with the crew?"

"You're blind, Old Man," Ranma countered. "Can't you see that it's already too late?" His eyes flicked to Akane, who watched them gravely from a safe distance. "Hell, I'm surprised that Akane hasn't booted you out of command already and taken over. We know who the crew would listen to if they had a choice."

Ranma's words stunned Genma like no blow could have done. In the opening he had been given, Ranma struck with vicious force, a high kick at the very limits of his extension that slammed the elder Saotome's head back and sent him spinning in a daze to the tarmac.

"Good bye, Old Man," he told his father. He stripped out of his pressure suit and left it on the tarmac as he walked away from the DropShip _Palomino_. He had no money, and now that Ukyou was gone, he was fresh out of friends on this planet. None of these concerns mattered to him, though, for he was finally free of his father's influence.

"Go after him, Akane," Sayuri told her, an urgent hand on her shoulder.

Akane turned in disbelief to her friend. "What are you saying?"

The Dispossessed pilot looked down at her feet. "If you feel anything at all for him, you need to go after him," she said. She looked up, her eyes brimming with tears. "I was wrong, you know," she continued. "Wrong to go taking matters into my hands that were none of my business."

"I-I thought you hated Ranma," Akane pointed out to her.

"Hate?" Sayuri asked herself. "Maybe I do. I don't know, actually, _what_ I feel for him... Pity, anger, even a sense of gratitude to him for having the chance to kill me and choosing not to take it." Her eyes followed the retreating Ranma across the grassy field. "All I know is that I was wrong to try and take him from you, and for that I've paid dearly. I lost my fighter, Akane, and much worse; I lost my right to be your friend."

Akane blinked in surprise. "Sayuri?"

"It's true," the girl went on. "It's true, and I'm so sorry, Akane. I should never have presumed what was right for you and what was wrong. That was your decision to make. I don't know what Yuka has told you yet, but the truth is that we went out after him. Ranma only acted in what he thought was self-defense."

She took this revelation in silence. Yuka's refusal to discuss the matter in detail now made sense.

"If you love Ranma," Sayuri added while Akane pondered the implications of what she had learned. "Then I won't stand in your way. Just do something about this mess before you lose the jerk for good."

Akane turned to follow Sayuri's mournful gaze. Ranma continued walking, head held high, seemingly without a care in the world.

He had said good bye to his father, the man he had just lambasted as the most vile and hated influence in his life, but he had nothing for her. Perhaps that was because he felt she had already told him what she thought about him in the Crew's Mess that morning, and so there was nothing else to be said.

Perhaps it was better to let him go, no matter how much it might hurt.

"I-I don't know," she said haltingly to Sayuri. "I don't know what I feel for him right now..."

Ryouga watched Ranma leave. In his heart he felt conflicting emotions wrestling for control over him. On the one hand, he was rid of his old enemy from 7th Grade. On the other hand, he felt like he was losing the closest thing he had ever had to a friend.

There were other issues, but with Akari standing worriedly by his side, it was difficult to face them. He had strong feelings for the lovely young technician - the girl who wanted to marry him, no less - and yet he could not deny his attraction to Akane - a girl who was no longer engaged to Ranma, and therefore unattached.

As he pondered the miserable state of affairs that was his heart, he realized that the expedition to Ryuugenzawa might be called off, and with it, his hopes of finding a cure for his condition. The only other option was to return to the Commonwealth, and to an uncertain fate indeed. He had to have a cure. He could not ask either of his loves to marry him as anything less than a whole man.

Free Trader _Don Maestro Domingo Diaz de la Vega y Martin_

_de Valencia y Avila el Conquistador y Gruzado la Montana_,

Bangalore System Nadir Jump Point

Bangalore System, the Federated Shiratori

16 April 3025

Shampoo did not like her cat body, but it did have its uses. It had delivered her from prison on Tau Ceti, for one thing, and she could also skulk about the ship without drawing any attention to herself. Apparently the crew of the _Domingo_ had not been informed of her Jusenkyo-altered form.

The crew were an unsavory lot, and none of them were of Chinese ancestry. She supposed that helped conceal their identities as agents of the Jusenkyo Commonwealth, but she would have preferred it if they spoke a language amongst themselves that she had a better grasp on. Spanish was not her forte.

She confirmed that the _Domingo_ was in the Bangalore System, and that it had been tasked with making a delivery to the Palatine System some important starship components for the damaged merchanter the Saotomes were believed to be using. She wondered if their tasking for the job was the work of Providence, or had it been deliberately arranged? In any event, it would be another ten hours before the DropShip carrying the goods returned to the Jump Point. Preparations for Jump were already commencing.

Mousse had not said as much, but she supposed they would infiltrate the starship while it was in Drydock. It would be easy to get aboard then, as the crew would be used to seeing strangers and paying them little mind.Mousse had not said much of anything of late.

She was still unsure of whether or not they were in the good hands of her great-grandmother. Mousse had made a good argument from the jail cell, but now that she was free, she had been able to puzzle out the affair with a little more clarity. She needed to get him to talk.

It was possible that he had seen through her shameless attempt to seduce him in the communal shower, but was it possible that he could have that kind of willpower to resist?

With a tired _meow_, she decided to retire to the ship's Grav Deck. Free-fall could be disorienting enough as a human, but as a cat with a finely-honed sense of balance, it could be positively bewildering at times. As she sprang into the elevator that would take her to 'C' Deck, she was spied by one of the crew, who gave her a look bordering on puzzlement and suspicion.

The elevator doors slid closed behind her, and she waited with dread for them to open once more and admit the suspicious crewman for a closer examination of her. After some moments it became clear that the man had written off the experience as a fluke. Cats simply did not do things like press elevator 'call' buttons...

The elevator brought her down into simulated one-half gravity. Through her keen feline senses, she found that she could distinguish between the real pull of gravity upon her body over the tug of centrifugal force created by the spinning Grav Deck. Although she could not easily put the differences between the two into words, she could now understand why birds had never been able to adapt to living in space.

Mousse was waiting for her in the small stateroom they shared. His head turned to face the door as it opened, his eyes squinting at first for a sign of her before he realized that she must have been in her cat body. He looked down at the pink and purple smudge of color that meowed at him from the doorway.

"Where have you been, Shampoo?" he asked her.

She stepped inside the room silently, pausing once to groom herself before meowing a curt reply.

The nearsighted mechwarrior produced a pot of hot water for tea that he had kept going on a small electric hotplate. Shampoo tensed, wondering how hot it would be. The fact that she would return naked to her human form in front of him no longer concerned her after the shower episode. Mousse could use another eyeful of her lovely body. He simply had to break down eventually!

He poured some of the water upon her, and in a cloud of steam, Shampoo appeared on the carpet. Her long purple tresses serendipitously covered her in places demanded by modesty, and a raised thigh crossed over her other leg took care of the rest - but only just.

"That was very hot, you know," she protested lightly.

Mousse set the pot back on the hotplate.

"I'm sorry for that," he replied.

Shampoo stretched out her arms over her head, the muscles in her chest drawing tight and lifting her breasts in a way she hoped Mousse would find inspirational. As the locks of wet purple hair fell away from her bosom, she saw that even in his half-blind state, he could still appreciate her.

"You should be," she returned. "But I forgive you anyway."

She rose then, continuing to stretch out. The experience of returning to her human form always left her feeling somehow freed from restraint. Mousse looked away uncomfortably.

"This ship can't get us to Palatine soon enough," she remarked as she dried herself with a towel lying on the lowermost bed of the double bunk. She then slipped into a white silk robe embroidered with tigers, butterflies, and pastoral mountain landscapes in rich shades of green and grey thread. The cool silk against her warm bare skin gave her an electric thrill that she found inappropriate to the situation. A seduction intended to break down a man's reticence did not work when the would-be seducer was too horny for her own good. She had started this with no intention of ever actually giving in to his desire for her.

"I'm told that we'll be Jumping there within the day," Mousse said to her, his voice projecting a forced calm.

"I heard the same thing up on the Bridge," she agreed. She lay back on the bed with her legs up, her arms crossed behind her neck, and a sultry, languid expression on her face.

"So you were out spying," he remarked. There was disapproval in his voice now.

"Of course I was spying," she said with a laugh. "What else is my cat body good for?"

Mousse didn't have an answer for her. It was up to her to carry on the conversation, she decided.

"Have you given any thought to what we'll be doing when we reach the Palatine System?" she asked him.

Mousse adjusted the pair of glasses perched on his brow. "We'll infiltrate their JumpShip prior to undocking and locate the Saotomes' quarters. Then we'll steal everything relevant to Ryuugenzawa and kill them on the way out."

"Very pat," Shampoo scoffed. It was the best she had been able to come up with herself, however. "How do you plan to get anywhere near the ship, much less get aboard without being noticed?"

"I suppose you have a better idea?" he asked her, obviously upset over the ease with which she had attacked his plan.

Shampoo gave him a heavy-lidded look.

"I presume you have some form of alternate identification for us?"

Mousse nodded.

"I think I'd be better off playing the part of Ship's Cat," she told him. It wasn't a pleasant thought, but the Saotomes were bound to recognize her as is, and even if her appearance were disguised, there was no getting around her distinctive way of speaking when conversing in the hated Standard language.

Mousse nodded again. "What about me?"

Shampoo regarded him for a moment. It was possible that he could bluff his way aboard as one of the shipyard workers, but their best chance of finding what they needed and getting it would probably occur after the ship left drydock for the Jump Point. Circumstance would not permit him keep up the charade that long.

"They saw you for just a few minutes on Capra, and without any other Joketsuzoku around you, they'll probably never make the connection if they saw you again on Tiber," she told him. "Then there is the fact that your Standard is much better than mine. You could easily pass for a local if you put your mind to it.

"I'd say that your best option is to stow away and lay low until I can find what we need," she continued. "I'll have a much better chance of spying out the ship and the two Saotomes than you will. When we're ready to act, I'll come get you, we'll steal the data and kill the Saotomes, and then we'll make our escape together in a life boat."

"Life boat?"

"You don't think we can do this all while we're still in drydock, do you?"

Mousse shook his head slowly. He wasn't much of a schemer, no matter what Herb might have thought of him. Shampoo's plan was sketchy, but better than anything he had been able to come up with. The truth of this insane mission be known, he was happy just to be alone with Shampoo. The more distance they put between themselves and the Commonwealth, the more he dreamed of simply running off with her and never returning.

There wasn't much chance of that, he knew, but it was nice to be able to dream again. Shampoo was convinced that this was a ploy of Cologne's, one last chance to redeem herself, and she was going to succeed or die trying. He knew the truth about their mission's origins, having been recruited by General Herb for this assignment in exchange for sparing Shampoo from the cruelty of life as one of the evil hybrid's personal slaves.

"No, I suppose not," he said finally. Do I secretly want us to fail? he asked himself. If we fail and somehow escape with our lives, we can never return to the Commonwealth. Shampoo and I will be lost, adrift without a home, and maybe, just maybe, she'll want to stay with me in exile.

_Am I sabotaging our efforts on some subconscious level because that is what I'm really hoping will happen?_

"What is it, Mousse?" she asked him.

"P-Pardon?" he replied.

She looked him over from the bed, her long bare legs exposed past mid-thigh by the opening in the white silk robe she wore. "You seemed to drift off for a moment."

"I was thinking," he remarked idly.

"Oh?" she chirped. "About what?"

He looked her over again. She was absolutely beautiful lying there, naked except for the robe, and they were alone - not to be disturbed until the starship reached the Palatine System. He wanted her desperately, but her seeming forwardness since the day she had joined him in the communal shower bay had made him wary.

He had known Shampoo for most of her life, and he knew when she wanted something. Right now she wanted something, and he wasn't so sure that it was him. Before his torture at Herb's hands he would have jumped at the chance to give her what she wanted, even knowing that she was manipulating him. Now he knew better. The pain he had endured had not diminished his love for her, but it had opened his eyes to the greater truth about her. That in itself had led to pain more intense than any of Herb's tortures, but it was a pain that he was willing to face if it meant ultimate happiness with Shampoo.

"Nothing important," he replied. "Just letting my mind wander."

She gave him a coy look. "I'm not distracting you, am I?" she asked him.

"Of course not," he returned.

"Are you sure?" she pressed. She gestured to her robe, which seemed to be getting smaller and smaller on her as he looked, and continued, "I can always wear something more conservative..."

He marshalled his will. "It doesn't bother me," he insisted. "Wear whatever you want."

She rolled over onto her side, the neckline of her robe falling open to reveal an abundance of cleavage. "I never thought I was bothering you," she said to him. "I simply wondered whether I was _distracting_ you."

"A little," he said, swallowing hard at the sight of her.

A feral gleam lit in her eyes, and he cringed inwardly upon beholding it.

"Poor Mousse," she said, clucking with mock sympathy. "It must be terrible for you to be cooped up with me for weeks on end."

"I'm fine," he tried to assure her. His quavering voice did little to sound convincing.

Shampoo looked at him for a long moment before speaking.

"Do you still love me?" she asked him.

Her question, so directly offered, shocked him more than anything else he might have felt in that moment, and he was compelled to give her the unvarnished truth. A truth that he was only just coming to terms with on his own.

"Yes," he replied. "But I'm also afraid of you."

Shampoo wasn't prepared for the powerful sincerity of his answer. Of course he still loved her, but he feared her as well?

"Afraid?"

Mousse looked away from her. "I know that loving you has only ever brought me pain," he said flatly, as if even in recognizing the truth of his feelings, actually vocalizing them was something he was still reluctant to do. "I know that you're trying to seduce me for some reason, that your sudden interest in me isn't really genuine, and I'm afraid that I'll do what I've always done - give into you, and then suffer for it..." He rose from his chair and started towards the far end of the room near the door. "I fear you for what you can do to me, Shampoo, and how easily you can do it."

She watched him bow his head toward her, and then start to step through the door.

"Mousse, don't go," she said to him. She wasn't going to lose to him like this.

He paused to look back at her.

"I have to," he replied.

She rose, surprising herself with how swiftly she did so, and caught him around the chest before he could escape. She drew close to him, and as her breasts pushed into his back, he shivered with delight. She could feel him paralyzed with anticipation, which was just the way she wanted him.

"I never wanted you to fear me, Mousse," she whispered to him, her lips brushing against his ear.

"Sha-Shampoo, I..."

"Hush," she admonished him. "This isn't a time for words."

She drew him back into the room, the airtight door closing as one of the ship's crew walked past. He followed her back into the room stiffly, seemingly frozen between the fear of being used by her, and the fear that her intentions were actually genuine.

They weren't, of course, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to enjoy making love to him. For all of his faults, Mousse was a handsome man, and she was no stranger to the joys of sex. Her coy seduction had failed to move him, indeed had nearly driven him away, and now it was time to show him what he had been ready to give up.

With her arms still wrapped around him, and her teeth nibbling gently on his ear, she began to loosen his white robes. He gasped at the touch of her teeth, and she felt his hands rest upon her own as they did their work.

"Yes, Mousse," she whispered to him. "I do want you. It has to be now. There won't be any time for this after we Jump, and the future holds no guarantees."

Once his robes were loosened, she ran her hands under the folds of cloth to caress his smooth, muscled chest. She drew closer to him for an embrace, kissing her way down his neck to the junction with his shoulder before withdrawing just enough to let the robes fall from his body.

She found herself growing excited by the heat of his skin and the smell of the faint musk that had formed since his recent return from the showers. It pleased her to know that she had driven him to such nervous tension that she could smell his sweat so soon after bathing.

One hand returned to his chest, stroking at the nipples as the other began to tug at the sash of her own robe. As the cord fell out of its loosely tied knot, she pressed up against him again, and the feel of his body heat through the silk of her robe to her breasts brought a flush of color to her face and throat.

Yes, she was going to enjoy this, she realized. That it also suited her personal goals was lost to the moment.

She kissed his shoulder now, moving up to his throat, and then drawing tight to him to place her lips against the hard line of his jaw. Mousse gasped with each tender kiss, his body trembling as he stood rigid in her embrace.

"Relax," she whispered to him. Thoughts of taking her robe off were put aside as she reveled in the feel of him moving against her through the soft cool silk.

Slowly, gently, she turned him around. He was not like the pleasure men the Joketsuzoku maintained for their female troops, the men with whom Shampoo had experienced most of her lovemaking. They were professionals, common born but handsome, and each with a certified vasectomy to preserve the integrity of the Breeding Program. Mousse was neither common born nor sterile, and he was far from experienced.

"Have you ever done this before?" she asked him as her lips sought out the depression above the point on his chest where the sternum met his collarbones.

"N-No..." he replied haltingly, his face fixed straight ahead to the far bulkhead.

"I thought so," she replied. The men of the Joketsuzoku had their own pleasure girls under similar circumstances as the women. It surprised her to think that he could have resisted the temptation to try them. "You were probably saving yourself for me, weren't you?"

"...Yes..." he replied between gasps.

"Touch me," she returned. "I want to feel those strong hands of yours on my body." She laved her tongue over his chest, lashing out at his nipples with a tender ferocity that sent shivers down his spine.

He cupped her breasts through the robe with both hands as she nibbled at his collarbone, sending a shiver of her own through her, and eliciting a murmur of pleasure that encouraged him further. The dual sensations of massage and body heat made her lose even more control over herself.

After some moments of this, she could stand it no longer, and dove without warning for his dark trousers, seeking him out behind the tightly woven cotton, and lingering for some time there while offering him the kind of stimulation her peers would have found scandalous for one of the Joketsuzoku women to employ. Mousse threw back his head in rapture, his hands stroking her long purple hair as her head bobbed and turned enthusiastically at his waist.

It took an exercise of will to stop what she was doing before the inevitable, for despite the stigma of the act imposed on her by her peers, she had always enjoyed going down on a man. She relished it for the tactile sensations such contact afforded her as much as the pleasure she derived from its effect on her partner. Looking up at him with her fiery violet eyes, she drew him down with her to the carpeted deck. Her hand clutched him tightly as he kicked his trousers off the rest of the way, and his eyes were wild with anticipation of what was to follow.

"Lay down," she whispered to him, still holding him tightly as she pushed him gently the rest of the way to the floor. He lay back as ordered, his chest rising and falling with panting breaths of anticipation. She straddled him, letting herself rub against him as she leaned over to kiss at his throat and chest. She could feel his hips moving beneath her in a desperate attempt to continue with the affair, and she placed a finger to his lips in reproach.

"Not yet," she said with a teasing smile. "Patience, Mousse. You've waited so long for this moment already. You can wait just a little longer."

She continued her cycling motions forward and backward, alternately kissing his throat and his belly as she moved over him. He could feel the intense heat and wetness of her contact with each shifting of her weight, and he gasped desperately for her to take him inside of her.

"Do you really want this?" she asked him in a husky voice. After rubbing up and down the length of him for so long, she was almost as desperate to continue as he was, though she wanted to remain firmly in command of him.

His plaintive cry in the affirmative was all that she needed.

She took his arms and placed them behind his head, holding them down at the wrists with one hand as she guided him into her with the other. She eased herself back, still pinning his arms as she did so, gasping with delight at a sensation she had not enjoyed for some time, and Mousse, never before.

She lingered for a moment, savoring the feeling of him inside her, and looking at him with hungry eyes. Then she started moving, slowly and methodically, over the top of him.

Mousse began to thrust clumsily at her with his hips, but again she protested his unwelcome interference with a touch of her finger to his lips, insisting that he lay there beneath her and let her do all the work. He relented silently, and she began to move again, easing him out of her gently before driving herself against him with growing force.

She could tell by his groans that he was close, and in truth she wasn't far behind. It had been far too long since the last time she had a man, and she had to admit that Mousse made for an excellent fuck; he was strong, handsome, and compliant. As she rode him towards climax she regretted not having the nerve to do this sooner.

His arms began to flex beneath her at the end, and with all her strength she could not hold him down any longer. He reached for her silken-robed hips, clenching them fiercely as he cried out in a hoarse, incoherent voice with her one last drive against him. She could feel an intense warmth flooding into her, compelling her to an orgasm equally satisfying.

She fell against him then, spent with exertion as he continued to spasm weakly inside her. Her brow was wet with perspiration, her hair falling over his face in purple waves. She could feel him stroking the back of her head tenderly as she tried to catch her breath.

They remained silent for awhile, each lost in their own worlds of thought and fantasy before Shampoo drew herself upright, still straddling him. They had hours before the Jump alarm sounded, and she looked forward to seeing how much stamina Mousse had. From the dreamy look in his eyes, she knew that there was already no way he could hold anything back from her now.

Nerima Confederation DropShip _Palomino_

Landing Pad #6, Aquila Starport

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

23 April 3025

Akane Tendo, youngest daughter of Grand Duke Soun Tendo and the Heir to the Nerima Confederation, found herself facing the lowest point in her nineteen years of life. Her country was all but overrun, the expedition that was the Confederation's last hope had fallen completely apart around her, and the guy she was in love with had left her for good.

She pondered this sad state of affairs over tea in the Crew's Mess, having no idea where Ranma was. It had been a week since the duel with Yuka and Sayuri, and he had not returned. He hadn't taken anything with him, not clothes, or money, or what meager possessions he had. Not even his Phoenix Hawk LAM, which had remained on the tarmac after Akari and her techs repaired the damage sustained in the duel. Akane had felt certain at first that he'd come back for that.

Since then, she realized why he hadn't come for the LAM. It had never been his to begin with. He had refused to accept it as a gift from her father, instead taking custody of the machine as a loaner to be returned when they found Ryuugenzawa.

_It's only been seven days_, she thought to herself. _And I miss the jerk already_...

She had other things to worry about besides Ranma, but the egotistical fool always remained foremost in her thoughts. There was the morale of the crew for one thing, which was also at an all-time low. Though the repair parts for the _Dragonfly_'s Jump Drive had finally arrived, and the process of installing them begun, it seemed as if the expedition was already done for. With the siege of Capella, there wasn't even a home to return to.

Genma wasn't helping matters. Once the elder Saotome stopped looking for his son in the city and accepted the fact that Ranma wasn't coming back, he had self-destructed. He was currently passed-out drunk in his rack, a fact that wasn't doing the crew's shattered morale any favors.

She folded her hands together on the table and sighed. What could you do when you had run out of hope?

The crackle of the quarterdeck watch's voice over the 1MC echoed in her ears as she pondered this.

"_Dragonfly_, arriving!"

She looked up at this announcement, shocked to think that Captain Ninomiya had come on board. Didn't she have enough to do with the primary repairs to the JumpShip underway?

She had her answer a few minutes later when the Captain, in her child body, flitted up to her table in the Crew's Mess.

"May I sit down, my Lady?" she asked Akane.

Akane blinked. She wasn't used to Captain Ninomiya addressing her so formally.

"Of course!" she replied.

Hinako did so, fishing a chocolate bar out of her purse as she sat, and wolfing it down with an intensity that frightened Akane. When she was finished, her face was smeared with gooey brown streaks that Akane had to resist wiping away.

"Great news!" the starship captain said to her.

"What is it?"

"The siege is broken!" Hinako shouted triumphantly. "I just received that message from the Consulate office."

Akane's eyes widened in astonishment. "Are you certain?"

"Yup!" Hinako chirped. "Prince Kuno took most of his forces out of the system to stop a League invasion of the Combine, and I guess we were able to

break up what he had left behind."

"That's... That's..." Akane stammered.

"Amazing?!" Hinako finished for her. "Sure it is, but who cares? It means there's still hope!"

"Hope..." she said quietly. "It's been a long time since I've felt that."

"Seize that moment!" Hinako told her, her arms flapping excitedly. "It's the reason why I came down to the planet again."

"I don't understand."

The starship captain jumped up onto the table in the beginning throes of a chocolate rush. "I know how bad morale is down here - trust me, if my crew weren't busy busting their asses to get my ship operational again, they'd be the same way - and I know one of the reasons for it was because of the siege. Now that the Combine is on the defensive, we have a chance to succeed again!"

Akane looked at the eight-year-old dancing a spastic jig on the table and shrugged. "I still don't understand, Captain. Why are you telling this to me? I'm not in charge."

Hinako stopped dancing and stomped her foot in frustration. "Remember what I said about you taking command of the mission?"

"Yes," Akane replied. "You said it was a bad idea. Mutiny, even."

"I changed my mind!" the little captain cried. "You're the only one left who can pull it together."

Akane cocked her head at Hinako. "What about Commander Saotome?"

"I hear he's drunk most of the time since his walking disciplinary problem of a son skipped out on us," Hinako replied. "That makes him derelict in his duties, and necessitates his immediate relief." She tapped Akane roughly on the nose with a chocolate-smudged finger. "Tag! You're it!"

Akane blinked twice in silence as Hinako's finger rested upon the tip of her nose.

"Me?" she squeaked.

"Who else?" Hinako returned, her arms sweeping out to her sides. "Do you think _I'm_ qualified to lead this kind of mission? I'm just the bus driver!"

Akane leaned back in her seat. Captain Ninomiya was right, who else could take charge? The question now was, what could she actually accomplish? Despair hung over her a moment as she realized the enormous gravity of her situation. Leading the 1st Nerima Guards was nothing compared to this! With the Guards she had a staff - plus the grizzled veteran, Colonel Mukaida - to look after her and help with the decision-making process. Here she would be on her own.

But who else could take charge?

"I'll do it," she said solemnly. As she spoke the words, she was filled with a new resolve. The melancholy which had afflicted her was gone, replaced by a surge of hope. "We're going to complete the mission. We're going to find Ryuugenzawa. I just have to do a few things first before we can get started."

"Such as?" Hinako asked her, proud that she had put her faith in the Tendo Heir.

Akane stood from the table, her eyes resolute. She knew what she needed to do.

"The first thing I have to do is explain to Commander Saotome that I'm in charge now," she replied. "That won't be easy, but I think I have a way to convince him."

"What else?" Hinako pressed.

"That's the really hard part," Akane admitted. "I don't know where he is at this time, but I'm going to find Ranma and drag his sorry butt back to the ship." She closed her eyes for a moment. That was definitely going to be the hard part... "I need him, Captain Ninomiya, for a lot of reasons, and I'm not going to let him run off and leave us in the lurch."

Hinako nodded happily in agreement. "You'll make a fine Grand Duchess some day," she observed.

"Get up."

Genma Saotome growled at the insistant prodding in his back. He did not register in his drunken fog, that the voice who addressed him belonged to Akane.

"Piss off," he muttered angrily.

"Don't you tell me to 'piss off,'" Akane warned him. She stabbed at his shoulder again. "Get your sorry carcass out of bed. I have some important news for you."

Genma rolled over in his rack. It was Akane, all right.

"Has the boy returned?" he asked her.

"No," she replied curtly. "I want you to get cleaned up and meet me on the Flight Deck in twenty minutes, Mister Saotome. If you don't, I'll have the In-Port Watch come down here with a fire extinguisher and blast you out of bed."

Genma blinked in a stupor at her. He was too confused by the situation to take offense at her presumptions, and too drunk to really care.

"Whatever," he mumbled, and went back to bed.

"I'm not kidding, Mister Saotome," she said to him.

Genma awoke with a start as a gout of frozen carbon dioxide gas ripped through his sheets and nearly smothered him. He coughed and spluttered, cursing furiously as he rolled out of his rack and landed hard on the deck below.

"Hit him again for good measure, Tad," he heard Akane tell someone.

A second blast from the fire extinguisher sent him howling to his feet. He faced off against Petty Officer Howard, CO2 extinguisher in hand, and a smug looking Akane Tendo. Doctor Tofu stood behind them, a loaded syringe in his hand.

"Are you awake yet?" she asked him.

"What's the meaning of this?" Genma demanded.

"It's time to dry out, Mister Saotome," Doctor Tofu added before Akane could reply. He held up the syringe.

"I asked you a question," Genma pressed. "What the hell do you people think you're doing?"

Akane crossed her arms over her chest. "As of noon today, I have officially relieved you of command. I thought you might want to sleep a bit more before I broke the news to you."

Genma's eyes crossed in bewilderment.

"W-What?"

"You're relieved," Akane told him. "In your drunken state you've been incapable of command. Doctor Tofu has attested to this in the Ship's Log, and Captain Grant of the _Palomino_ and Captain Ninomiya of the _Dragonfly_ stand by my decision to assume command of the expedition. They're waiting up on the Flight Deck for your acknowledgement."

"You're nuts!" Genma replied. "Does your father know about this?"

Akane wasn't going to let him squeak past with that angle.

"We've been unable to establish a direct line of communication," she lied. It was a half-truth actually, as she had not bothered to try. Genma was about as upset as she had guessed he would be, and now it was time to soften the blow. "In any event, as the ranking member of the Tendo family present, I have assumed command until such time as the man designated by my father to lead the expedition is able to return to his duties. Doctor Tofu Ono, as the Chief Medical Officer, will make that determination based on your ability to remain sober."

"This is twice in three weeks that you've been too drunk to function as the commander, Mister Saotome," Tofu cautioned him. "You've spent the last three days completely intoxicated."

"And until that determination?" Genma asked bitterly. First his son betrays him, and now the rest of the crew!

"Until then, I will remain in command," Akane told him. "You'll act in the capacity of my advisor, of course, but I'll be the one calling the shots."

"Ha!" Genma snorted. "See how well you find Ryuugenzawa without my help," he challenged her.

Akane gave him a tired sigh. "I'm not trying to make an enemy out of you, Mister Saotome," she assured him. "I'm trying to do what's best for the Confederation. If that means taking command until you can sober up and stay sober, then I'll do it."

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just walk off the ship and leave you here without a single decryption key," he said to her, knowing that it was his ace in the hole.

Akane stepped up to him, her dark brown eyes uncharacteristically hard as she looked at him. "I'll tell you why you'll stay," she began. "Because I'm the only one who can get Ranma to return, and you know it!"

Genma took a nervous step backwards. Akane was putting out a level of intensity that he had never experienced firsthand.

"I don't see how," he muttered. "The boy's probably already off the planet by now, working as a mercenary or something."

Akane had to concede that possibility, though she considered it unlikely. "Perhaps," she allowed him. "But I'm the best chance you've got of getting your son back. After that, we'll get the last key, and from there we'll find Ryuugenzawa. That's all I'm interested in, Mister Saotome. If you can stay dry for the next couple weeks, then I'll gladly give you back your command. As for the rest, you'll get your title and your share of the wealth when we find Ryuugenzawa - just like my Dad promised you."

She looked him over. "Well, Mister Saotome?"

Genma grunted in thought.

"Bring back Ranma," he said to her. "And you'll get no complaints from me."

"Hey, thanks a lot," Ranma said to his newfound friends.

"We could use a good scout," the dark haired one, Daisuke, replied. "You fit the bill perfectly."

"Besides, with moves like yours," the light haired one, Hiroshi, added. "You could probably earn a double share as the Colonel's bodyguard while in camp."

Ranma nodded with a grin. The two recruiting officers for Ryuu's Rangers were offering him exactly what he needed: a job with decent pay and a good bonus schedule, a new passport so he could get off the planet without any hassles, and most importantly, their first assignment was garrison duty on the planet Dray, although a battalion-sized detachment would be sent out of the system on a raid against a rival noble house within the F-S. The regiment would be leaving Tiber late that night.

"I must admit," Daisuke told him. "That I was surprised to hear your name. What with that other Ranma Saotome getting engaged to Grand Duke Tendo's daughter, Akane, and all."

"God, she is SO hot," Hiroshi chimed in. "That other guy is one lucky bastard." He looked at Ranma. "Almost makes you wish you were him, huh?"

Ranma blanched. "Uh yeah," he replied. "He's a lucky guy all right." He decided to change the subject. "So where do I report?" he asked the two.

"Landing Pad #25," Hiroshi told him. "You need to be there with your stuff and ready to move out no later than twenty o'clock local time. Scout Major Beauregard will be your immediate superior, but you'll be attached to the Headquarters unit. Once you check in with him, you'll get a week's advance on your pay, your uniforms, and your basic gear issue."

"I'll be there," Ranma replied. It was a newly formed regiment of mixed units that he was joining, which was always a risky proposition for a mercenary, but also promised him the greatest chance of earning a captured battlemech.

He had happened upon the two by chance, overhearing that a merc regiment was signing up recruits near the starport. Most of the guys in line to be interviewed were scrubs; farmboys looking for glory and a way off the planet who couldn't appreciate how lucky they were to live on such a lush green world as Tiber. They'd end up as grunt infantry most likely - and probably get themselves killed while being thrown up against a battlemech lance - though Ranma overheard a few who had come through the local tech school and who could get in as apprentices.

As for himself, he'd shown off a few of his flashier martial arts forms, dropped a few names of people and units he and Pop had worked for in the Federated Shiratori, and even mentioned Ukyou once or twice as an old friend. Mentioning Beauregard had been the real stroke of luck. The guy was a hard man to work for, as he and his Pop had discovered, but the guy remembered good scouts when it came time to pass out the bonuses, and he had always been friendly with the two of them. It also gave Hiroshi and his partner a solid reference on him that they could tap on-world. He knew he'd get in as something other than the poor bloody infantry.

"I don't think this will be a problem," Daisuke added, "But I'm required to tell you that the standard withdrawal clause in your contract is good until twenty o'clock tonight. After that, you're in for the full two years."

Ranma waved him off. "Don't worry about me, man," he told them. "There ain't nothing keeping me here." I'm not even going back for my stuff...

Hiroshi stood from the table at the small restaurant where Ranma had just enlisted, and saluted him. "Welcome aboard, Scout Lieutenant Saotome!"

Ranma returned his salute. He was surprised when they had offered him a commission on the spot, but he wasn't about to refuse. Ryuu's Rangers must have been short a few hands, but he supposed that was to be expected in a new unit. Again, it meant more opportunity for him to gain rank, and with his mechwarrior and aerospace piloting skills, to eventually get promoted into a battlemech or fighter slot.

He was striking out on his own, and it felt good. No more Pop to boss him around, no more Ryuugenzawa to give him nightmares, no more crazy training techniques to threaten his life, and no more stupid engagements that he wanted nothing to do with.

No more Akane, either...

He winced at the thought. As much as he couldn't stand her most of the time, he actually found himself missing her. A little.

It was better that he left, he told himself. Who do you think you're kidding, anyway? She hates your guts. All she cares about is that stupid fairy tale called Ryuugenzawa.

"Who needs her!" he said tersely.

"Excuse me?" Hiroshi asked him nervously.

He forgot that they were still at the table.

"It's nothing," he said to them. "Don't sweat it. I'll be there tonight, I just need to get my things together." It wasn't quite true, as he didn't currently own more than the clothes on his back. He just needed to take one last walk around the place to get Akane out of his head for good.

Daisuke looked to his comrade and shrugged. "Great! See you there."

He found himself in Aquila Park, watching the last of the paddleboats meander through the lake towards the rental docks as the star Palatine dipped low in the sky. It was not due to any conscious decision on his part, it was simply one of the few places on Tiber he was familiar with, and his feet had taken him there on autopilot. He still had a few hours before he needed to get back to the starport.

Two years, he thought to himself. That was how long his term of service in Ryuu's Rangers would be good for. Two years to distinguish himself and earn a battlemech. It was possible, but he'd have to work for it, and a lucky break or two couldn't hurt him.

Things in the Confederation would be resolved by then, he figured, and it might be feasible to return to Sian and see his mother for the first time in nearly twenty years. It was galling to think that she would be living in a Combine vassal state by then, but it couldn't be helped. Pricks like Tatewaki Kuno popped up throughout history. They shook things up, conquered a bunch of territory, then bit the big one. Sooner or later the dynasties they had forged would collapse under their incompetent successors, and the cycle would begin again. He didn't figure that Kuno's empire would last very long even if he managed to conquer the entire Inner Sphere.

He might even run into Akane while he was on Sian, he mused. She'd probably be trying to get some futile insurgency movement going, and getting a lot of folks killed for nothing instead. That was assuming that she wasn't busy having Kuno's babies...

He stifled a laugh at that one, trying to imagine how stubborn, arrogant, and violent the children of any union between Akane Tendo and Tatewaki Kuno would be. What a riot! The only kids who'd be worse were Akane and Ryouga's!

That wasn't nearly as funny, he realized suddenly. He brushed it aside with a grunt. Good luck, Pig-Boy, he thought to himself. She's all yours.

He still had time to kill, he realized, looking at the distant clock on a banking tower. If he had a few imperials to rub together, he'd go get something to eat. As it stood, the meal Hiroshi and Daisuke had bought for him at the restaurant had been his first good one since he left the _Palomino_. He had lived off what he could get on the streets for the last week, and that wasn't much. If he had been a local, he would have been eligible for a little welfare, a prospect that galled him until his stomach really started to get the better of him. Fortunately, Ryuu's Rangers had started signing people up before he became desperate enough to try his luck with the planet's bureaucracy.

_I might as well report in a little early_, he thought idly. _At least then I'll be eligible for some chow_.

Ryuu's Rangers Headquarters DropShip _Lionheart_

Landing Pad #25, Aquila Starport

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

23 April 3025

Landing Pad #25 was where the Union Class DropShip _Lionheart_ stood. It was the regimental command ship, and home of the lead company in the lone 'mech battalion. The other two battalions were armored vehicles and infantry, respectively.

_Lionheart_ was pretty beat up, he noted, but it looked functional. He couldn't think of too many mercenary units whose equipment wasn't a little shabby looking, and he had worked for units who looked much worse. Depending on the assignments he drew, and a lot of luck, the regiment this Colonel Ryuu guy had put together could stand a good chance of becoming successful. Ranma was willing to take that chance.

The guard at the base of the DropShip challenged him as he approached. He identified himself, and waited while the man consulted with the DropShip proper to see if he was on the access list. After a moment's pause the guard waved him through with the admonition that he was to meet with someone as soon as he came on board.

Ranma agreed, figuring it was Major Beauregard wanting to welcome him aboard and talk to him about old times.

He climbed up the ladder into the 'Mech Bay, pausing to look at the company's battlemechs in their storage cocoons. They looked good, not the patchwork of armor and bad paint jobs he had seen in other units. The bay itself was clean and orderly, another good indication that this was going to be a first class outfit to fight with.

Hiroshi met him as he walked towards the elevator bank that would take him up to the main decks.

"Hey, Lieutenant!" he called to Ranma. "I didn't expect you so soon. Most folks like to do a little last-minute partying before they start a new hitch."

Ranma shrugged. "I didn't have anything better to do, so I thought I'd come down early and get squared away."

"Fine with me," Hiroshi agreed. "Let's hook you up with the Major first, and then the Quartermaster will issue uniforms and gear. The ship's Master at Arms hasn't posted the berthing list yet, so I don't know where you'll be

sleeping, but you can check the M.A.A. Shack if you want."

Ranma called up a mental picture of the Union Class. "That's on Deck Two, all the way outboard to port, right?"

Hiroshi nodded. "You've been around, all right. The Colonel's holding Officer Call in the Wardroom at 19:00, and since you're here, you should attend. He'll probably want to see you for a few minutes afterwards. You're the only new commission to come out of Tiber."

"Is the Colonel a cool guy or a jerk?"

Hiroshi shrugged. "He's kind of moody. Your best bet is to speak when spoken to, and say as little as possible."

Ranma gave him a 'thumbs up.' "No problem. Hey, uh, Hiroshi, I was told by the guard that I was supposed to see someone when I came on board. Would that be you, or would that be Major Beauregard?"

Hiroshi turned away for a moment. "Uh, yes and no. Yes, you're supposed to see me. Yes, you're supposed to see the Major. And no, that isn't who they were talking about down on the landing pad."

Ranma became uneasy. "What's up?"

Hiroshi gave him a nervous look. "It seems a representative of your former employer is here... Is there something you didn't tell me during the interview?"

Ranma began to bristle. Not here and not now, dammit! "Describe this so-called 'representative.'"

"Well, she has short dark hair and..."

"That's enough," Ranma spat. "Dammit, Akane!"

"Akane? Yeah, I think that was her name," Hiroshi noted, his face clouded with an unnamed concern. "So... you know her?"

"Yeah," Ranma grunted. "Though most of the time I wish I didn't."

"Is there some kind of problem?" Hiroshi asked. He was paid a hefty bonus for recruiting officers, and he didn't want to lose the one he would get for hiring Ranma.

"The only problem is in her head," Ranma replied. What the hell did she think she was doing here? "Where is she?"

"Crew's Mess," Hiroshi replied. "Please tell me there isn't any problem with you joining up with us." He looked a little harder at him, knowing that there was something terribly wrong with the situation. "Oh shit," he breathed. "You really _are_ Akane Tendo's fiance... aren't you. What are you doing here?"

Ranma knew that he couldn't give anything less than the truth at this point, as there was nothing he could say to convince Hiroshi otherwise. He also understood Hiroshi's situation, and knew that the man stood to gain some money by hiring him. "I _was_ her fiance," he replied. "I'm not anymore. Look, don't sweat it, man. I'll meet you at the M.A.A. Shack in a few minutes, okay?"

Hiroshi nodded hesitantly. "So that's really HER sitting in the Crew's Mess?"

"Yeah," Ranma replied. "Tell anyone about it before we leave the system, and I'll break your neck..."

Hiroshi nodded again, his face pale because he understood how serious Ranma was. "Not a word," he replied. "No one would believe me anyway." He continued on his way towards the ladder to the outside. Ranma stepped into the elevator and punched for Deck Three.

The Crew's Mess on a Union Class DropShip was only a little larger than the one on the _Palomino_, despite the _Lionheart_'s much larger complement. He could see Akane sitting at a table, a cup of tea before her, and an escort from the ship standing behind her at a discreet distance. Her eyes met his the moment he stepped into the room, flashing for a moment under the fluorescent lighting.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her, wanting to get straight to the point so he could send her on her way as quickly as possible. "And how the hell did you know I was here?"

"I should ask what you're doing here, as well," she returned. "Finding you was fairly easy, actually. There was only one mercenary unit hiring in the city, so when I asked if you had signed up with them, they thought I was your old employer. At first they weren't going to tell me anything, but I managed to persuade them."

"I work here now," he replied, stabbing a thumb at his chest. "Stop wasting your time and go."

He could see her holding her breath for a moment, and could almost hear

her mentally counting to ten before she finally answered him.

"Your employment hasn't been terminated with the Confederation yet," she said to him.

"Employment?" Ranma barked. "I was never employed by the Confederation. It was more like I was shanghai'd by my Old Man. Besides, I quit, remember?"

"You aren't working for your father anymore," she replied evenly. "You're working for me. I haven't let you go yet."

"Says who?"

Akane bit her lip nervously. "Ranma, I took command of the expedition from your father today. I'm running the show, and I want you to come back to the ship with me."

"You're in charge?" he cackled. "Gimme a break. Did Yuka and Sayuri put you up to that?"

"No, they did not," she said tersely. "Ranma, I'm asking you to return to the ship and continue the expedition with me." She looked around the room for a moment. "I realize that I can't make you, so don't worry about me trying." Her voice cracked slightly as she continued. "It seems as if you have a good job lined up here. I won't take you from that if you don't want me to."

"They made me a lieutenant," he replied, his voice not nearly as forceful as he would have liked it to be. "I've never had a commission of my own before." He made a sweeping gesture of the room. "I got this job on my own, Akane. No help from Pop. I'm doing this for me, for the first time in my life I'm doing something just for me, and it feels good." He offered up his hands in a plea. "Try to understand that."

Akane looked down at her tea.

"Okay..." she whispered. "I said I wasn't going to force you to come back with me, and I'm not." She looked up at him again. "Can I ask you a question before I go?"

Ranma felt his chest tighten up. "Sure."

Akane stood from the table and looked into his eyes.

"Ranma, am I the reason you left?"

He looked for a moment as if he had been struck.

"Wh-What are you t-talking about?" he stammered.

She steeled herself and repeated the question, knowing that everything she had planned to say to him in order to bring him home with her was going out the window, and knowing that she was powerless to stop it.

"I just want to know if I was the one who drove you away."

He clenched the back of his neck, sweat beginning to bead on his brow.

"There were lots of reasons why I left," he replied.

"But was I one of them?" It was almost a plea.

He looked away. "Yeah."

Her face drew tight for a moment, tiny lines forming at the corners of her eyes, her chin trembling ever so slightly.

"Good bye, Ranma," she said to him softly. "Good luck in your new unit."

She brushed past him on her way out of the Crew's Mess, the delicate smell of her hair lingering in her wake.

"Good bye, Akane," he returned, not daring to look back at her.

She kept up a brave front until she was out on the tarmac and walking towards the ship's truck from the _Palomino_. Then the tears started to fall, and she had to stop for a moment to compose herself before her driver, Tad, saw her. She was the leader of the expedition now, and a leader had to be strong for her people, no matter what she felt inside.

She had botched her last chance with Ranma by getting mired in a confrontation with him. She had meant to be concilliatory, but the moment she had seen him so happy in his new unit, a feeling of jealousy and resentment had come over her that she could not contain. She could only blame herself for losing him, and the anguish that realization caused her sent hot teardrops spilling towards the pavement.

The pain of loss and guilt stabbed at her as she wiped away the tears, and took the last few steps to the truck. She would move on without him. She had to go on. If Tad noticed her distress, he gave no sign of it. Managing a fresh voice, she instructed him to take her back to ship. He had the sense not to ask where Ranma was.

The Wardroom, DropShip _Lionheart_

The Wardroom was crowded by the time Ranma found it. The ship's officers, along with the regimental headquarters staff, the three battalion commanders and their company and lance/platoon level commanders, and their aerospace and scout detachments, were present. Ranma was surprised to see several officers from units he and Pop had been members of in the past. To his delight, he remembered them as good commanders, not necessarily bright or gifted tacticians, but dedicated men and women who looked after their people and took pride in getting the job done right.

Major Beauregard caught him before he could get too far into the room. He was a heavyset man edging past middle age now, though his jowly face and pugnacious nose were instantly recognized by Ranma.

"Saotome!" he called to him. "Come stand over here, son, where I can get a good look at you!"

Ranma made his way past the other officers to reach his new superior.

"Scout Lieutenant Ranma Saotome, reporting as ordered, sir." He wanted to make a good impression.

"Get a load of the kid," Beauregard cracked to a captain-ranked mechwarrior as he tossed back a jaunty answering salute. "Son, you sure as hell didn't learn those kind of manners from your father," he added to Ranma. "Speaking of the lying, thieving cheat, where is he?"

"I'm on my own, now," Ranma replied.

Beauregard clapped him on the back. "Glad to hear it, son. Probably the best decision you'll ever make in life." He turned back to the captain. "I remember when Saotome here was thirteen. He and his dad signed on with Ford's Regiment for the River Campaigns on New Rhodes..."

"Is this going to be another one of your 'no shit, there I was' stories?" the captain asked, only half-joking.

"Do I have any other kind of story?" Beauregard riposted. "Anyways, no shit, there I was, ass-deep in mud on the banks of the Palanquin River, just north of the city. Ford's main line of attack had stalled, and he was looking for a way around the network of defenses the Count of New Rhodes had set up to stop him from getting over the river.

"So naturally, he called for his scouts to go out and take another look. Now it was just me, the kid here, and his no-account father, and we were testing the depths of the river and how soft its banks were to see if 'mechs could get across without getting mired. Now as I said, I was ass-deep in mud at the time, and with the strong current of the river, it didn't look good. The Count must have opened up the flood control dams upstream to give us a hard time of it.

"We had already surveyed about ten klicks upstream from Ford's positions, and there didn't seem to be much chance of making a crossing. The Count's people held the bridges, and it looked like he was going to have to take them the hard way, knowing his enemy would blow them if it looked like he might be successful."

Beauregard clapped Ranma on the back again. Ranma, who was lost in the recollections of that day, nearly bowled over.

"And that's when the boy here spots something we missed," the major remarked. "There was this big, rusty flat-bottomed barge coming down the river, and sure as shit, it goes right to this little finger pier on the other side of the river which Ranma had spotted." He gestured to Ranma. "Now the way you see him here, he's got a little meat on his bones, but back then he was this stringy little fuck who looked like the wind might blow him away if he wasn't tied down to something. Strong as hell, but damn, you could play the xylophone on his ribs every time he inhaled."

Beauregard nudged him in the side as he said this, making Ranma blush uncontrollably. He certainly didn't remember himself looking like that!

"So Ranma here says to us, 'I'll swim across the river, and steal the barge. We can float downstream a bit to meet up with the regiment, and they can use it as a ferry for the 'mechs to get across the river and take the bridges from both sides at once.'

"Now Genma and I laughed, 'cause we both thought there was no way he could even swim the fuckin' river, what with the distance to the far bank being a little farther than a Wasp could jump, plus the strong current, much less overpower the barge operators and steal the damn thing. But just to show us up, he strips down to his underwear and jumps in the water.

"He's more than halfway across the river, strugglin', but hackin' it, when an infantry patrol about squad size spots him from a low hill on the opposite bank. I don't know what made them think he was an enemy, maybe they were just bored and needed to shoot something, but they started openin' up on the kid with rifles and light machine guns when he's still got about fifty meters left to reach the opposite bank."

By this time Ranma had noticed that the other conversations in the crowded Wardroom had ceased, and that everyone, including Colonel Ryuu, was listening to Beauregard's story. The major, knowing that he was playing to a much larger audience, raised his voice slightly to be heard.

"Now if'n it had been me out in the river, I woulda hightailed it outta there and swam back the way I came. But not Ranma. The little sumbitch just swims harder, bullets kickin' up big plumes of water around him where they're skippin' across the river at him. Genma gets pissed that they're shootin' at his kid, breaks out with his Twenty, and starts shootin' back. A couple APEX rounds from his 20mm catch the squad's attention, and they start tradin' fire across the water with us from about two hundred meters. A few of 'em keep taking potshots at Ranma here, but the heat's off, and he keeps going.

"So he gets to the far bank, runs down the pier, kicks the crap outta the barge operators, and drags the skipper back to the boat to make him drive the thing. Before the grunts on the hill even know what's going on, he's got that pig moving out into the river and headed downstream to Ford's lines. We kept up a little fire to keep the squad busy, then we got the hell outta there ourselves."

Major Beauregard looked at Ranma with a stern nod of approval. "The kid's stupid, stubborn, and brave. A bad combination, but I'm glad he's here. Maybe without his dad around I can teach him some sense."

"Did it all work out?" the question came from Colonel Kumon Ryuu, a man only a little older than Ranma, with a dark brooding expression on his face that spoke of a great tragedy in his past.

"Well sir," Beauregard said to his commanding officer. "Saotome here got the barge down to Colonel Ford's lines, and they were able to put a fast-attack 'mech company on the other side of the river before the Count knew what was up. We took the bridges, but in the end it didn't matter. One of the Count's men knifed him in the back while we was takin' the bridges, and our employer called us off the attack - seeing as how he was next in line for the Count's seat, he had just been elevated, and the planet was now rightfully his. It took a week or so, but the diplomats and the lawyers worked out the transfer of power, while we cooled our heels."

Colonel Ryuu nodded silently. He knew all about the power politics in the Federated Shiratori since the Cult of Azusa came into existence, and the old order of things had been turned upside down. He knew painfully well how the nobility had been split into two factions; those who opposed the Cult's malign influence and were stripped of their holdings in battles like the River Campaigns, and those who supported Empress Azusa and her rabid followers, and reaped the rewards of their loyalty.

"I'm glad to have a man like you in my service," he said to Ranma. He looked about his officers, taking them each in turn under his gaze. "You're all good men and women," he said to them. "I wouldn't have hired you if you weren't."

The officers accepted his compliment with proper silence.

"Our first assignment is two-fold:" he continued. "Our infantry and armored units are still getting up to speed, so when we reach the planet Dray, I want them to concentrate on training. We have a lot of raw recruits to work with, and I expect all of you to get them proficient.

"I know there has been talk of sending our 'mech assets out on a raid. Let me confirm this now. You'll get the full brief after we leave the system, but for now understand that this is a punitive raid, fast and hard. I'm not

looking for salvage, but if you can get it without endangering the mission, do what you can."

He gave his 'mech commanders hard looks. "We're getting paid for this, but this is also very _personal_. Scorched earth, gentleman. I expect nothing less."

Ranma nodded with the rest of the officers. He wanted to be with the raiding party, not training a bunch of scrubs, and figured that Beauregard would want him there too. As the Officer's Call went on, he was thankful for Beauregard's war story. It had recalled a time when he had done something important on his own, and he saw how it had placed him in good standing with the rest of the Wardroom. They knew they could trust him under fire, that he would get the job done.

His initial anxiety at finding acceptance within the regiment passed. He was in. With Beauregard's help, he was one of them, and he was determined to earn that acceptance himself at the first opportunity.

He watched the clock as it ticked towards 20:00. He would be commited to Ryuu's Rangers in just a short while.

A pang of regret bit into him at the thought, and he fought it down. He was doing the right thing by leaving the expedition. All he had ever done was cause them discord. Akane was in charge now, which gave him mixed feelings, but he decided that it was better that way too. At least she wouldn't let Pop try to cheat and steal from them anymore. _My place is here_, he told himself.

Now if he could only make himself believe that...

Akane Tendo watched as the DropShips of Ryuu's Rangers soared aloft on brilliant columns of plasma fire into the midnight sky. The rumble of their drives filled the air, and a hot wind blew through her hair. Ranma was gone.

Mister Saotome had been livid when he learned of Ranma's refusal to return, forcing her to have him restrained before he did something stupid like march over to the _Lionheart_ to have it out with him. She was starting to understand that her relationship with him was going to be a rocky one, and that she might never be able to return command of the expedition to him.

The DropShips faded high above her into a constellation of bright blue-white stars. She watched them slowly dim in the sky, feeling an emptiness inside her that time itself could not seem to fill. In spite of her sorrow and regret at his departure, she wished him well, and hoped that one day she might see him again.

"He's gone, isn't he?" a voice, Doctor Tofu's, said to her.

She turned to find that he had joined her on the tarmac near the Phoenix Hawk LAM, his eyes cast up to the sky and the departing DropShips.

"I'm afraid so," she replied softly.

"I don't know what I can say to make this any easier for you," the Doctor said to her. "I know how you felt about him."

She blushed, thankful for the night to conceal it from him.

"That's not something I can afford to think about right now," she replied. "I have to put him behind me for the sake of the mission. The Confederation is depending on us."

Tofu placed a warm, reassuring hand on her shoulder. "That's all very true," he agreed. "But I know that it's hurting you. If you need someone to talk to, a shoulder to cry on, I'm always there."

Akane touched the hand upon her for a moment before turning and giving him a hug.

"I'll do that," she said quietly. "Thank you, Doctor, for all you've done for me."

Tofu nodded in her embrace. "You should get back aboard the ship," he said to her. "It's late, and we have a lot to do tomorrow."

She released him and took a step back. "I will," she returned. "But first I want to say good bye to him one more time."

Tofu bowed his head for her.

"Good night, Akane."

"Good night, Doctor Tofu."

She watched the doctor return to the DropShip. It had been through her time with Ranma that she had been able to let go of her crush on Doctor Tofu. She had lost the handsome physician as a potential lover, and gained him instead as a friend and a source of invaluable counsel. As she stood on Tiber, with the Confederation still in danger, she was glad to have him the way he was.

It wasn't easy for her to approach the Phoenix Hawk LAM as it squatted in Airmech Mode upon the tarmac. She felt that Ranma's will, which had coursed through the battlemech's circuitry over a week ago, continued to linger like a revenant. With an unsteady hand she touched the armor plate of the fuselage, the aligned crystal steel cool and unyielding, the smell of the paint still fresh in the air from the repairs, and was convinced that his fiery spirit actually was infused in the LAM, refusing to leave.

_You should have taken this_, Ranma, she thought to herself. _I know the reasons why you left it behind, but you could do far more good with it than it will ever do sitting here without you_. The last man other than Ranma to fly this Phoenix Hawk LAM had been her grandfather, Grand Duke Kentaro Tendo, a man she barely remembered from her childhood, but who had been revered throughout the Confederation as a daring mechwarrior. For all of his faults, Ranma would have been a worthy successor to her grandfather.

She climbed up the boarding ladder to the cockpit where he had sat in that fateful duel with Yuka and Sayuri. The salty smell of the sea surprised her as she settled into the ejector seat, as did the faint smell of sweat that could only have been Ranma's. Her hands closed over the throttle and stick as his would have done, the surfaces gently worn with age to the point where she could feel exactly where his fingers would have rested, and she pictured the smile he would have had on his face as he tore a path straight into the sky.

She had known of his love of flying since that first morning on Capra, when he had taken her along for a trip in the Boomerang. It was true that his father had ordered him to take her along, just as it was true that by the end of their flight he'd had no regrets about doing it. He had taught her the rudiments of piloting, and then trusted her to take the controls and show him what she had learned. She cherished those brief moments that he had given her.

It seemed that all they had together were brief moments. Most of the time they were busy with other things, and always there was the engagement that hung over them, forcing them together when they hardly knew the other.Was it any surprise that their relationship had ended the way it had? She knew the answer, and yet always in her mind she replayed their disastrous encounter aboard the _Lionheart_, looking for a way that she could have salvaged the moment.

Could she have stopped him from going with the Rangers if she had told him that she was in love with him?

She honestly did not know the answer to that question. Knowing him, it could have frightened him away from her that much faster. If such a confession had brought him back, would it have only been out of guilt? She didn't want him coming back out of guilt. She wanted him to choose her.

_That's what it came down to_, she realized. _I wanted Ranma to choose me, because that would have eliminated all the doubts I have about my feelings for him. I needed him to validate my love, and he didn't. He left me_.

The urge to put her fist through the cockpit display seized her, and she had to fight it back with all her will. Getting angry hadn't solved anything with Ranma, it had just made things worse. She couldn't afford to make any more mistakes like that.

She understood all the reasons for him leaving her, and they made sense. She couldn't deny that he had made valid points for his reasons, but in the end, when she had asked him if she had been the one who had driven him away, he had said yes. She couldn't escape the fact that she had pushed him away, out of anger, jealousy, and... fear.

Fear was such a powerful component of her feelings for him. She had been afraid that he would take the 1st Nerima Guards from her. She was afraid that he and his father were frauds, bilking the Confederation for all they could get. She feared that he loved Ukyou, and felt nothing for her. All of these fears had seemed so real, and yet now that he was gone, she awoke to the fact that none of them were justified. Even the fear that he felt nothing for her wasn't true, she had seen it in his eyes and heard it in his voice when she called off the engagement.

_If only she had one more chance with him_, she lamented. _I wouldn't waste it_.

"Hey, Tomboy," Ranma'a voice growled up at her from the tarmac. "You're gonna need a few more flying lessons before you're ready for that thing."

Akane turned and looked down at him, not believing her eyes.

"RANMA!"

She threw herself out of the cockpit, landing in his stunned embrace, and hugging the stuffing out of him.

"You're supposed to be gone!" she cried. When he didn't immediately respond, she realized that it was because he wasn't able to breathe. She released him reluctantly, afraid that he might vanish before her eyes if she did.

"Yeah well, I changed my mind," he replied as soon as he was able. She could feel the heat blazing from his face after their embrace. "A guy can do that, you know."

She looked away shyly, almost ashamed with her outburst of joy at his return, and yet thrilled with the way Ranma had been nearly overcome by it.

"What about your commission with Ryuu's Rangers?"

He made a dismissive gesture, but she could see how much it had cost him to let it go. "No big deal," he replied. "I told 'em what was up with you and me. Nothing about Ryuugenzawa of course, but hell, one of their recruiters had already figured us out by then. Colonel Ryuu didn't want to do it, but Beauregard persuaded him to agree. They said I'm welcome back anytime I want."

Akane didn't know who this Beauregard fellow was, but she blessed him anyway. "I don't want to know how it is that you've come back, Ranma," she said to him. "I'm just glad that you are."

Ranma hunched his shoulders in a half-shrug. "Yeah well, I gave up a lot to do it. I had a pretty good feeling about those guys. With a little luck, they're gonna be big."

"I know what that commission meant to you, Ranma," she told him. "I really do. I know how proud you were to get it."

He gave her a guarded look. "Look, let's get one thing straight: I'm back, but things are gonna be different between us from now on. I'm not doing this for Duke and Country anymore. I want to be paid for my services."

She frowned at him, her temper rising in spite of the joy she felt at his return. It took a moment for her to collect herself, and to look at the situation from his point of view. She sensed that there was more to it than what he had said. It seemed like he was looking for a way to save face for himself.

"I'd be happy to pay you," she replied with a sly smile, "but I'm not interested in hiring any more mercenaries. They're too unreliable."

Ranma blinked twice. "So what are you getting at?"

"I'm offering you a commission in the Confederation Army," she said. "Are you interested?"

He was not prepared for her offer, but he replied warily. "What kind of commission are we talking about?"

"Regular Army," she returned. If she was going to have him, she was really going to have him. No reserve commissions! "How does Mechwarrior Captain sound?"

"R-Really?" he squeaked, and then the wariness returned. "You aren't just giving me captain's rank to make me feel better about giving up being a lieutenant are you?"

"Ranma," she returned, feeling her self-confidence rise. "I'm offering you captain's rank because I think you're worth it, and for no other reason."

He relaxed slightly, then grinned. "Hell, as long as you're offering me what I'm worth, you might as well make me a colonel!"

She returned his look with one of gentle reproach. "I think 'captain' sounds about right."

"Okay," he agreed good-naturedly. He seemed to enjoy the verbal sparring between them as they hashed out the particulars of his return to the expedition. "So far so good, but what are my terms of service? These things usually carry a minimum commitment before you can resign."

"I'll make it easy on you," she replied, her eyes sparkling. She knew that she had him on the hook now, and that all she had to do was land him. "Your minimum commitment of service will be until we find Ryuugenzawa. After that, any requests to resign will be handled by the Army in the usual fashion."

"Until we find Ryuugenzawa?" he asked haltingly. "That sounds awfully open-ended to me."

"Take it or leave it," she told him with a faintly mocking grin.

He stepped back, and then circled slowly around her, his eyes cast upwards as if in contemplation. "Gee, I don't know," he said in an blustery voice as he circled her. "It sounds like I don't have much of a choice..."

"Says the man who walked out on us a week ago without a 'mech or a penny in his pocket," she returned, knowing that his protestations were mostly a sham concocted for her benefit. "You left once... If you don't like my offer, you can always look somewhere else again."

He hesitated, unsure if he should push his luck with her with another smart remark.

"I'll sweeten the deal for you," she said at length. "You'll not only hold captain's rank, but you'll also be my Lance Commander for the expedition." She gave him another sly look. "That means you'll command the Air Lance as well as the regular 'mech forces."

She could see that he approved. Her gesture had tacitly established her feelings about Yuka and Sayuri's interference, and in his favor.

"Deal," he said finally. "Except there's just one more thing we need to talk about."

"Name it," she replied, secretly pleased at how well she was handling him.

He levelled his gaze at her.

"What about the engagement."

She didn't how to respond at first. "What exactly do you mean?"

"I'd just as soon not think about it," he said to her. "It makes things too complicated between us."

Akane had to agree with that sentiment. Nothing drove a wedge between them faster than their parents' stupid promise to unite the two families. She loved the idiot, but she wasn't ready to marry him just yet. At least not until she was certain of his feelings on the matter.

"Let's agree to set it aside for the moment," she said to him. "It could be argued that we are still _technically_ engaged, correct?"

He nodded.

"Then for now, let's just leave it that, a technicality to be resolved when we return from Ryuugenzawa, and not before, okay?"

He nodded again, apparently pleased with her line of thought.

"Deal."

She stepped up close to him again, her eyes shining. "We can do the official paperwork in the morning," she said to him quietly. "But I want you to take the oath from me right now. There's no backing out of this after you swear, Ranma."

He raised his right hand.

"I ain't gonna back outta something like this. Not to you. Now lay it on me."

Right then and there, under the stars of the Tiber sky, she swore him in as an officer of the Confederation Army, the first Saotome ever to receive a commission from the country of his birth. It did not matter that there were no other witnesses to this act, for as Ranma held his eyes with hers while he repeated the oath, Akane knew that it was not actually to the Confederation, but to her and her alone that he swore his fealty. It was an oath that would always be just between the two of them.

League of Five Nails JumpShip _Seisyun_

Capella System Zenith Jump Point

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

24 April 3025

Tetsuo Gosunkugi thanked his lucky stars as the _Seisyun_ materialized without incident at the Capella System Zenith Point. There were no guarantees that Kuno's forces would honor his safe-conduct pass from Comstar, even at the risk of a communications blackout by the enigmatic organization that maintained the Inner Sphere's HPG network.

The pass itself had been difficult to wrangle, forcing him to make a stop in the Sol System to speak with a member of the First Circuit. Comstar had remained silent on the issue of the Combine's invasion of the Nerima Confederation, and its seige of Capella. They were a neutral entity, and to openly show favoritism to one nation over another was risky. It was only after a promise by him to increase their service contract fees that Comstar agreed to issue the pass.

The side-trip proved unnecessary, he learned, as the Confederation had broken the siege - with a little help from Hikaru Gosunkugi and the League of Five Nails, Tetsuo noted proudly. They controlled the Jump Points for the moment, at least until such time as Prince Kuno stopped chasing Hikaru and decided to return. It was up to Tetsuo now to secure the alliance between the Confederation and the League - and shut out the Furinkan Combine for good.

His prize hostage was the key to success. Shogun Kuno, though he was completely insane, provided the leverage necessary to get his son Tatewaki to end hostilities against both countries. The daimyo were getting restless about his conduct of the war, and angry that he had left himself open for such a daring invasion by the League. Kuno could ill-afford to let the Shogun remain in League hands if he wanted to remain in command of the Combine's armies.

As for Tetsuo, the sooner he turned over the Shogun to Grand Duke Tendo, the better. Let the Duke negotiate the exchange with the Combine! He was sick of the Shogun's neverending luau.

"Your Excellency, we have been granted permission to depart for Nerima under armed escort."

Tetsuo looked away from the viewport to Captain Mariko Konjou, a petite blonde completely dedicated to her duty, but as his spies reported, she had a questionable affection for Combine Prince Tatewaki Kuno. If it was love, Tetsuo knew, it was an unrequited love. Mariko was otherwise a sterling example of League Navy competence - even if she had a tendency to sometimes spell out her orders in cheerleader fashion.

"Thank you, Captain," he replied. "When will the escort ship arrive on station?"

Mariko inclined her head towards the viewport.

"They're right off our starboard beam at a distance of five thousand kilometers."

Tetsuo looked out the viewport again. There was nothing out there but stars.

"Where?" he finally asked her.

She floated over to his position and pointed out the viewport for him. He followed the graceful sweep of her arm, down the tip of her extended index finger, to a spot where the stars winked out of existence for a moment before sparkling back to life.

"A WarShip?" he asked her. He knew the Confederation had a few left, all of low displacement of course, but he had never seen one of them up close. For good reason, all of the Successor States guarded their handful of remaining WarShips jealously.

"The NCWS _Tautog_," she confirmed. "Balao Class corvette."

He shrugged, knowing little of ship classes, but appreciative of the Confederation ship's menace.

"Make preparations for my DropShip's separation," he ordered calmly. "Have Shogun Kuno and his party moved to their quarters aboard." Let Nabiki deal with _them_ for awhile, and see how quickly her smug look went away!

"Already done, your Excellency," Mariko replied.

Tetsuo smiled nervously. In a few days he would face the greatest diplomatic challenge of his career. He could not fail, the future of the entire Inner Sphere hung in the balance!

Furinkan Combine WarShip _Imperator_

Gamma Draconis System Nadir Jump Point

Gamma Draconis System, the Furinkan Combine

24 April 3025

General Prince Tatewaki Kuno found little solace in the round of morning exercises taken aboard his flagship, for he was a man suffering many indignities of the flesh and spirit.

His fleet had failed day after day to destroy the upstart Gosunkugi and his forces - who plagued the Combine border march near the Commonwealth with criminal tenacity. No sooner would he receive word of a raid on one of his systems and send his fleet hither, than the curs would flee from him, and deny him satisfaction. The conflict so close to the border had aroused the Amazons, as he had feared, and now he faced the threat of pre-emptive strikes by them to blunt an anticipated invasion by the Combine.

The shrill witches knew better, of course, but they were not going to allow this opportunity to snap at his heels pass them by. It was to their advantage to keep his army from their rightful conquest of the Confederation. He expected them to employ such base measures to check his ambitions.

"Curse you, Hikaru Gosunkugi, for the thorn thou hast been in mine own side," he muttered to himself. He knelt before his portraits of Akane and the Pig-Tailed Girl in contemplation of their beauty and charm, but his thoughts turned ever towards the destruction of his foe. The hated name of the foul sorceror, Ranma Saotome, had scarcely crossed his lips these days, as he directed his wrath towards the scion of House Gosunkugi.

His failure to succeed was all the more infuriating to him because he knew that his was the superior force, in numbers and in skill. Only through treachery had he been defeated; the treachery of Gosunkugi, of his sister Kodachi, by her ninja manservant Sasuke, he even suspected Nabiki of having some hand in this!

Tatewaki took a calming breath and continued his reflection upon the virtues of his two loves. Even as he compared the buxom delight of the Pig-Tailed Girl to the savage beauty of Akane Tendo, dark thoughts of his failures haunted him, denying him what little joy he could derive from the contemplation of the Inner Sphere's two most beautiful women.

He slammed a fist down upon the tatami matting of his personal chambers.

Damn the Gosunkugis and their hated League! A pox on them all!

Since the cur Gosunkugi would not stand and fight, he had to find some other way to drive him from the Combine. The Confederation, seizing upon his distraction, had already liberated the Capella System from his forces, and he faced another wearisome battle to occupy it. Gosunkugi could not be allowed to strike at him from the dark while he was joined in battle for Capella.

They had to be stretching their supply lines thin, he reasoned at length. To continue these incessant raids meant the expenditure of fuel, ammunition, food, and other materiel. Perhaps the solution to his problem was not to face them on every front, but to starve them until they were forced into retreat.

He visualized a chart of the local space. It would mean delaying his return to Capella, but he had the ships and the troops to heavily garrison every system within one Jump of the border with the League. If he called up reserves from within the interior, he would have enough left over to give him a mobile strike force to keep them busy.

Yes, he thought with barely-restrained glee, drive them on, yet deny them the things they need to continue. Sooner or later, Gosunkugi must withdraw his forces to the League for resupply. I shall await him in a system over the border that he thinks is safely his, and then I, Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine, shall have him!

League of Five Nails JumpShip _Impaler_

Shiro System Nadir Point

Shiro System, the Furinkan Combine

24 April 3025

Hikaru Gosunkugi looked over the reports his Army Group Headquarters staff had piled up on his desk. Auguries he had cast on the subject agreed. The conclusions reached were the same no matter how many times he factored in the variables. At the present rate of materiel expenditure, his forces would become non-effective within two weeks.

The problem was his logistical support. His forces were constantly on the move, striking the Combine in lightning raids that burned reaction mass for his fighters and DropShips, expended ammunition for combat, and consumed food and medical supplies at a prodigious rate. The maintenance needs of his ships and battlemechs also used up his stores of vital spare parts, causing his troops in the field to spend precious escape time scavenging as much as they could before fleeing the battlefields.

He had requested additional stores to be sent to the border between the League and the Combine, but it would take time to assemble them, and he didn't want such a valuable stockpile of supplies sitting in one place for an ambitious general in his army to steal, or a Combine or Confederation force to raid and destroy. He would have to see to it personally that the supplies reached his fleet intact, a task he did not look forward to.

At first he had enjoyed the cat-and-mouse games he played against Tatewaki Kuno. It was a thrill to have the most powerful general in the Inner Sphere running around chasing his tail. Even his parents approved of his current campaign, and had rescinded their order for him to return to Angbad. But without his cousin and confidant, Tetsuo, around, the adventure seemed to wane for him.

It was good that Tetsuo had departed as he did, for his was the most important assignment he had ever been given. An alliance between the League of Five Nails and the Nerima Confederation would do more than guarantee the security of both nations, it would set in motion a combined series of alliances that would pit the entire Inner Sphere against the Combine. The Federated Shiratori was a strong trading partner of the Confederation as well as a foe of the Combine, and the League was the Commonwealth's ally. All four states together could check the ambitions of Tatewaki Kuno and bring a measure of stability the Inner Sphere had not known since the exhausted general truce following the Second Succession War.

Better still in Hikaru's mind, a wedding between himself and Akane Tendo would create a state nearly as large as the Furinkan Combine, and provide a measure of leverage within the combined alliance that would assure the primacy of the newly constituted Confederated-League. This was the task the stars had given him, he was certain. This was the way he would take Akane for his bride, as the oracles had foretold.

The Imperial Palace

Kawaii City, Planet Genevieve

Martina System, the Federated Shiratori

26 April 3025

Brigadier Ukyou Kuonji primped and preened herself in one of the many full length mirrors found outside the audience chambers of the Empress. It was vital to remember that there was but one law within the bounds of Azusa's demense, and that law was Beauty. Those who were beautiful enjoyed rare privilege, including, perhaps, the personal favor of the Empress. Those who were not found only derision and scorn.

Upon receiving a summons from the Empress, she could not afford to be anything less than stunning. She had meant to delay this encounter until Ranchan and his party arrived from Tiber, but Azusa had learned of her arrival on the planet, and was reputedly dying to speak to her cutest general.

"How do I look?" she asked her adjutant. She didn't like the idea of being Azusa's 'cutest,' but supposed she had better look the part.

Konatsu beamed at her.

"Fabulous, sir," the former kunoichi replied happily.

Ukyou had to agree. Konatsu's skill with cosmetics was considerable. With a deft touch of his brush, her skin glowed with the inner radiance and soft luster of fine porcelain. She had learned tricks with blush and eyeliner from him that she had never before considered possible.

"I couldn't have done it without you, sugar."

"Well sir," he replied softly. "To be honest, I did have a lot to work with."

She grinned at him, knowing that her skin was one of her best features, and still regarding his accomplishments as nothing short of miraculous.

"Flatterer."

She was decked out in her full dress uniform, with all of her medals, badges, and braid, and a gold satin ribbon bow in her hair. The ribbon was strictly non-regulation, but also a personal touch that Azusa would approve of.

Konatsu had spent a few hours with the hairdresser that morning to put his long hair up into an extravagant coiffure that was sure to impress Her Imperial Divinity, and in his own dress uniform jacket and skirt he cut a figure of grace and demure beauty that had many heads turning in his direction. Men looked upon him in awe, the women with an intense jealousy that Ukyou herself often felt, and kept closely guarded within her today.

As they waited outside the Throne Room, one of the Empress' pages approached them with the wide-eyed, even vacuous smile of a member of the Cult of Azusa.

"The Empress will see you now," she said to them.

Ukyou cast Konatsu a brief look of dismay before smiling especially brightly for the page, and following her into the place of Dreadful Cute.

The Throne Room of Her Imperial Divinity,

Azusa the First

The Throne Room was as plush, opulant, and harrowingly pink as Ukyou remembered it. The air was thick with the tittering voices of Her court, the rich sweet smells of freshly baked cookies and punch offered up in extravagant arrangements from every corner of the Federated Shiratori, and with the obnoxiously cloying feeling of being observed from all sides by the dreaded Cult of Azusa.

Ukyou and Konatsu made their way into the cavernous chamber knowing that the eyes of the Cult were upon them, appraising their looks, and judging whether or not they would be found worthy for the beloved Goddess-Empress to behold. The eyes of the Empress did not deign to look upon the common or the profane. As far as the Cult was concerned, there was no place for ugliness in Her perfect universe, and they ensured that it stayed that way.

Here there was only beauty, from the lowliest servant placing fresh sugar cookies upon trays of platinum and burnished gold, to the chief ministers to the Empress - whose vacuous stares and empty prattle emulated the sublime beauty and grace of their liege lady. Compared to the lavish garb draped upon the members of the Empress' Court, Ukyou felt rather plain in her full dress uniform.

Though her eyes did not wander as she proceeded towards the throne, she sensed with considerable relief that the court approved of her and of her adjutant. Konatsu's gender was not seen as a liability in this place, indeed, his stunning _bishonen_ beauty was a powerful asset to Ukyou. Many in the court could only look upon the former kunoichi with a sense of heartbreaking awe as he minced gracefully towards the throne at the exactly proper distance behind his superior.

The Empress was seated upon Her throne of creeping vines, sunflowers, roses, and lilies intricately wrought out of solid gold wire and leaded crystal of many colors - looking for all eyes to be a fairy princess in Her pink taffeta and white lace gown. An array of lasers and tiny incandescent lights skillfully concealed within the gold wire backlit the throne, and cast shards of radiance from her, adding to the sense of magic and fantasy that surrounded her. Her luxurious mane of golden brown hair was fluffed up to maximum volume, and held in place with a diamond tiara and such a light touch of hairspray that it defied the laws of physics. In her right hand was a winged-heart sceptre of finely wrought gold, platinum, and gems worthy of the most revered characters from the Magical Girl comics. In her left, a demitasse of hand-blown glass was filled with sparkling fruit punch that shimmered in the light.

This nineteen year old girl, a girl the same age as Ukyou herself, was the Goddess-Empress of a star kingdom over six centuries old.

As Ukyou knelt reverently before her Empress, she thought back to the day Azusa's parents had died, and the turn of events that destroyed the old Federated Shiratori.

The Shiratoris had been wealthy even in the days of pre-Jump Earth, but it was the advent of star travel that catapulted them to preeminence in the Inner Sphere. From their bold expansion into space, coupled with their fortunes and their vast networks of influence, they had become the leading noble family among a conclave of powerful states. The Shiratoris had been the first ones to forge an alliance with their neighbors, thus creating the first of the Great Houses. While the Kunos were still a second rate family of landed sell-swords, the Shiratoris were setting in motion the overthrow of the Terran Hegemony, and the ultimate creation of the Star League.

After six hundred years of glory, it had taken a single tragic accident to reduce the power and majesty of the Shiratori family to what it was today: an overdressed and endless tea party. Azusa had been ten when her parents died in a car crash. Under other circumstances, there would have been an orderly transfer of power to other members of the family until she came of age, but instead the Cult had stepped in.

At first, the Cult of Azusa was nothing more than a glorified fan club. It wasn't even called a cult back then. Azusa, as the only child of the ruling family, had been in the public eye from the day she was born. Showered with constant attention and near religious adoration from well-wishers, afforded every luxury by parents who were often too busy with urgent affairs of state to spend real time with her, and never expected to be anything other than cute in the eyes of her people, Azusa grew up spoiled, vacuous, and fearfully pretty.

When most of the nobles agreed that the power of the Federated Shiratori be held in regency until Azusa came of age, the Cult whipped itself into a sudden, unforeseen frenzy. Student groups, her primary supporters, began to riot. Soon, general strikes were being called throughout the nation, and even the military got into the act when it looked like they were going to be ordered to violently suppress the revolution.

Initiated by what was little more than a rabid cult of personality, the uprising would have died out shortly after its inception, had not a rival faction within the Shiratori family seized upon the opportunity, and pronounced their support. With the sudden backing of these Shiratoris, the Cult found itself in command, and pronounced Azusa their Goddess-Empress. It was no doubt the intention of these nobles to rule through the puppet Cult of Azusa, and its shallow, naive, ten-year-old Empress. Even they could not have foreseen the tragic results of their actions.

By allowing the Cult to transfer all power to this haughty, spoiled child, they had sealed their own doom. The pronouncements of Azusa became Law under the influence of the Cult, and all who denounced her were dealt with harshly. Influencing this little girl - who took to her role as divine ruler of the nation with a terrible resolve - was no simple task, and though she was not clever, she was too stubborn to be swayed and too capricious to predict. By the time she was twelve, all power was concentrated in her pre-pubescent hands. Her enemies were either destroyed, or cowed into submission by the mob rule of the Cult.

Being only ten herself at the time, Ukyou barely remembered the tumult. She had studied it in school - the events carefully revised by the Cult and its supporters to cast the revolution in a positive light - and had heard it spoken of by older officers in the Army, but it was with little real understanding of what the Federated Shiratori had lost until she herself received a command. The gross incompetence the Cult had created and let fester became shameful to her, and even more so was her recognition by the Empress as a favorite.

Yet here she was, down on bended knee, offering homage to her Goddess.

"Oh, Ukyou!" Azusa squealed with uncontained glee. "You're so CUTE!"

A cold sweat broke out on Ukyou's brow as Azusa made this pronouncement before the entire Court. Whispers of the Empress selecting human beings for her Collection of Cute had been circulating for years, though none of Her Court had dared to confirm or deny them. The thought of becoming a prisoner of the palace, an object whose sole purpose for existence was to make Azusa happy with her mere presence, was beyond horrifying.

"Thank you, your Majesty," she replied, her eyes lifted to Azusa in what she hoped was an expression of gratitude, and not the abject terror she really felt.

"Come!" Azusa beckoned prettily. "Sit with Azusa! Azusa simply _must_ have Her absolute cutest general by Her side to offer Her counsel."

Ukyou rose unsteadily to her feet as those around her oh'd and ah'd at such an honor being granted her. More than a few grimaced out of jealousy.

"Thank you, your Majesty," she repeated, wondering what the hell was going on, and incredibly relieved to find that she was still her own person - more or less.

"Bring your little friend with you, too," Azusa effervesced. "He's such a DARLING!"

Konatsu curtsied deeply for his Empress, and approached the throne with Ukyou. Plush chairs were provided for them at Azusa's feet, and trays of cookies and exotic candies were offered by servants dressed as fairies or as cute furry animals. As they took their seats, Azusa's other ministers closed ranks around them. Ukyou could tell that a few of them were miffed about the presence of the two Army officers - no matter how cute they were - but did not dare object to the whims of their Empress.

Azusa, as used to being the center of attention as she was to always getting her way, was direct and to the point.

"It has come to the attention of Azusa's advisors that She must soon marry," she declared, and there was much agreement from the sycophants who surrounded her.

Ukyou nodded silently, noting that Azusa didn't seem to care one way or the other about the issue so long as she got to wear the most beautiful, extravagant wedding dress in the known universe when it happened.

"After much thought," Azusa continued, and were it not for the fearfully dangerous position she was in, Ukyou might have laughed at this. "Azusa has decided that Her loving subjects deserve to see their Empress get married. It will take their minds off the dreadful war She wages against those nasty, icky people in the Furinkan Combine."

Again, Ukyou stifled comment. Azusa was not prepared to accept the fact that the only reason there was a war with the Combine was because she had declared one. Furthermore, the Federated Shiratori Army would actually have to fight the Combine for the war to become truly dreadful, as most of the time they were content to sit in garrison. The war was such a non-event that even an ardent hawk like Tatewaki Kuno refused to recognize its existence.

"What vexes Azusa," Azusa lamented, "Is that She cannot decide who would be worthy of becoming Her royal consort." She put on a pouty face. "Poor, poor Azusa..."

Her adoring minions clucked and sighed in chorus.

Ukyou nodded silently once more, a sloe-eyed smile lighting ever so slightly across her lips. Though instinct often coached her to be silent as much as possible in the presence of the Empress, this was one chance she could not ignore.

"Perhaps I might be able to assist your Majesty," she offered demurely.

Azusa lit up like a pachinko machine 'catching fever.'

"Oh, could you?!" she asked hopefully. "Ukyou-chan, you are the absolute GREATEST!"

Ukyou bowed respectfully at this remark. "Thank you, your Majesty... Now the way I see it, there is only one man in the entire universe who could _possibly_ approach your sublime grace, your ethereal beauty, and your magnetic charisma..."

"Yes?" Azusa asked expectantly.

"That is, a man to whom the people could look to as the country's very own Prince Charming, right out of the fairy tales..."

"Ooo!" Azusa chirped, her excitement building. "Who-EVER could it be?"

Ukyou decided to push her luck. After all, she needed to butter him up in the eyes of the Empress and her sycophants if her impromptu revenge was to succeed. Konatsu blinked his eyes at her in disbelief, understanding almost instantly where she was going with this.

"A man of noble blood, pure heart, and sterling reputation..." Ukyou sighed. "They're hard to find, I know, but I think I can recommend one such man to my Empress."

"Please!" Azusa pleaded with unusual humility, clutching urgently at Ukyou's hands. "Ukyou dearest, Azusa-chan simply _must_ know who this man is!"

It was Azusa's abrupt use of the diminutive for herself which convinced Ukyou that she had gone far enough. When Azusa became "Azusa-chan" about anything and was denied, it usually got ugly shortly thereafter.

"That man can be none other than Chief of Staff General Mikado Sanzenin," Ukyou declared in a solemn voice.

"YESSS!!!" Azusa shrilled excitedly, more to have an answer from her 'cutest' general after all that suspense than any true satisfaction at her recommendation.

Her response triggered an immediate reaction among her advisors, who began bobbing their heads in heated agreement. Various remarks extolling Mikado Sanzenin as the ideal mate for their divine Empress began to circulate out to the Court itself, which murmured its own heady approval.

Azusa, caught up in the moment, smiled gleefully.

"Mikado Sanzenin it is!" she chirped. "Oh, Mickie...!"

Amazingly, one of her sycophants actually offered an objection.

"But, your Divinity," the man whined. "He's such a playboy..."

Azusa whirled on the man, fire practically shooting out of her eyes. The sycophant paled with the expectation of being summarily beheaded. Almost as quickly as she had turned on him, however, the fire seemed to go out in her eyes.

"Oh, poop! That is soooo true..." she pouted.

Ukyou leaped into the breach. "But your Majesty, if I may?" she nearly begged.

"Go ahead," Azusa replied crisply.

"My Empress," she began, thinking desperately about something positive to say about marrying Mikado Sanzenin, something that might outweigh his... _proclivities_. "Imagine how your conquest of Mikado Sanzenin, the great lover of our age, will inspire your people to even greater heights of worship? Who alone but you, O transcendent Empress, could possibly hope to make him her own, forever more, forsaking all others?"

She could see the fires beginning to kindle once more within Azusa's vacant eyes.

"How true!" Azusa cried. "Ukyou-chan, not only are you my absolute cutest general, but you are also my smartest!" She turned to her subjects. "It's settled!" she cried triumphantly. "Azusa shall marry Her darling Chief of Staff, Mikado Sanzenin!"

Ukyou leaned back, basking in the adoration she received from Empress and Court alike for her wise resolution to the issue. She caught an incredulous look from Konatsu, and threw him a jaunty wink in return.

_Come and get me, 'Mickie'...!_

Aquila City, Planet Tiber

"Bless you!"

Mikado Sanzenin wiped blearily at his nose, ignoring the lovely and quite naked woman with whom he shared his bed.

"What brought that on?" she asked him as he sat in troubled silence.

"I'm not sure," he replied dully. An inexplicable feeling of dread came

over him, effectively killing his usual amorous mood. He had been sensing this strange premonition of doom ever since Brigadier Kuonji had skipped out on him with phony travel orders to gods knew where, but until now had left the subject of her desertion for his staff to handle. It was no surprise to him that very little had come of it thus far.

That would have to change, he decided.

"Pack your bags," he told her. "I need an audience with the Empress."

I'll fix you now, Kuonji, he thought darkly. You should have known better than to cross Mikado Sanzenin.

Kentaro Tendo Starport

Planet Nerima, Capella System

The Nerima Confederation

27 April 3025

Grand Duke Soun Tendo, in the company of Nodoka Saotome, watched as the DropShip _Autumn Mist_ settled down upon the tarmac of the landing pad. It was the last of the DropShips bearing the surviving elements of Oni's garrison to touch down upon the surface of Nerima. He remained tersely silent as the convoy of ambulances approached the battered Overlord Class vessel, for his daughter had insisted upon transporting the lion's share of the wounded home aboard her own ship.

He watched from his limousine as the DropShip's crew began the ritual of bringing on shore power, each man straining to lift and carry the heavy power cables from the electrical bunker on the pad's perimeter to the service trunk at the base of the ship. 'Mech Bay doors rolled open and ramps were deployed as the first of the stretchers appeared. Men who had lived in near darkness for weeks on end squinted in the harsh light of day as they carried their own to the waiting ambulances.

When the living had been taken away, the dead followed. Soun forced himself to watch as the bundled corpses were taken off the ship and laid out in rows upon the tarmac to await the return of the ambulances. Though he had read the casualty figures with a heavy heart, it was only upon seeing them in their silent ranks that he could accept the magnitude of his nation's loss.

This is what his pride had bought, he realized. Had he chosen to surrender, as Nabiki had urged, these men and women who lay cold and still upon the hard asphalt would be alive. The Capella system was in Confederation hands, for the moment, but had their sacrifice bought the Ryuugenzawa Expedition enough time? He feared that they hadn't.

Nodoka must have sensed his deep regret in that moment, for a reassuring hand touched his shoulder.

"They served their lord to the end," she said to him. "Respect and honor that loyalty, Soun."

"I know," he replied gravely. "I know..."

When the last of the dead had been taken off the ship, the crew and the troops made their tired way down the ramps. Open-topped trucks were ready to take them to a staging area where their families waited anxiously to see them. Soun followed them with his eyes as they boarded the trucks, recognizing a few of the surviving officers among them, but none of the enlisted.

Kasumi walked down the ramp last of all. Soun started towards her from the limousine, with Nodoka and the bodyguards trailing at a respectful distance. She offered a weak smile to her father as she saw him approach.

"Acting General Tendo of the Oni Expeditionary Force, returning as ordered, Your Grace," she said to him, saluting.

Soun stopped a pace before her, and returned her salute.

"It's good to have you home," he said to her.

She nodded. "It's good to be home, sir."

A moment of absolute silence passed between them. Even the sounds of trucks and the muted rumble of the _Autumn Mist_'s powerplant shutting down were muted by the gravity of those few seconds.

"You've done your old father proud," he said finally.

"Thank you, Father," she replied, and then fell exhausted and nearly sobbing into his arms.

The ride back to the castle was silent until Nodoka spoke.

"Kasumi, dear?" she asked her, concern in her voice.

Kasumi looked away from the window to face Nodoka. "Yes, Aunt Saotome?"

"Something troubles you, dear," she observed. "Is it all the casualties we saw at the starport?"

"It's more than that, Aunt Saotome," Kasumi replied. "I'm worried that all we did on Oni will be for nothing."

"Nonsense," Soun returned. "Between your resistance on Oni and our guerrilla actions on the other occupied worlds of the Confederation, Prince Kuno's hands are tied. And that's not counting what the League is doing to him with its invasion."

"I know," Kasumi sniffed. She wiped at her nose with a handkerchief and forced a smile. "I'm so tired," she remarked. "It's getting to me."

"It's nothing but rest for you, Daughter," Soun agreed. "I've arranged for Colonel Birch to take over day to day operation of the 1st Nerima Guards during their refit and recovery period."

"Thank you, Father."

She needed rest desperately. This war was draining her of all that was good and vital within her. Leading the 1st Nerima Guards into combat was an act that she undertook because it was her duty, not because she wanted to do it, or that she enjoyed it.

It was the reason she had prevailed upon Father to make Akane the Heir when her youngest sister came of age. For all of her misgivings, Akane was the one who was both willing and able to shoulder the burden of power. Kasumi would be there to offer her sister and her husband-to-be advice, and to help with the administrative duties, but she knew better than anyone that she was not suited to the throne.

She wanted to settle down. She wanted a quiet life and a family of her own. Ten years spent helping her father run the Confederation had dampened her search for a good man, but she was confident that whoever he might be, he was out there somewhere, waiting for her.

"It was the least I could do," he replied, interrupting her reverie. "I do have other good news as well."

She perked up. "Oh?"

"I received word shortly before your arrival from our Consulate in the Palatine System that the _Dragonfly_ was nearly finished with its repairs. They should be underway within the next few days."

"That's a relief, Father," she said, a ray of hope returning to her. If her sister and the Saotomes could only find Ryuugenzawa a little faster. Tatewaki Kuno could not be held in check forever, and that brought to mind another concern, one closer to home than the fanatical Prince of the Furinkan Combine.

"Where is Nabiki?" she asked him.

"Living in town," Soun replied. "I get daily reports of her movements. She spends most of her time out on the town in the entertainment district."

Kasumi nodded silently. Since most of the intelligence network had been hand-picked by Nabiki, any agents Father had on surveillance duty were either low quality or else already compromised by her younger sister. She would have to make a few phone calls on her own to see what was going on with Nabiki, and pray that whatever plot her sister was nursing, it would keep until she could be found and neutralized.

Nabiki Tendo awoke with a start.

Her cell phone was ringing from somewhere under the bed, where it had been unceremoniously dumped during the rapid undressing she had received at the oafish hands of Rolf Thuringia, Count Baldur's son. The dolt was still sleeping as she fumbled clumsily with her hand under the bed for it.

She flipped open the phone, which thankfully muted the ringer, and scanned the display to see who it was that had the nerve to call her at the crack of noon, before deciding to answer it.

The number that flashed on her display gave her pause. It was the phone number of her contact with the League of Five Nails, a man who had been understandably silent since the failed summit and the subsequent siege of Capella.

What could they possibly want from her?

She decided to answer the phone, but as soon as the man on the other side started talking, she began to regret it.

Tetsuo Gosunkugi was due to arrive on Nerima under diplomatic truce in less than a day. He wished to meet with her, apparently unaware that she no longer had any authority to treat with him in an official capacity. He would quickly learn the truth from her father when he arrived, and then she would be cut out of the discussion for certain.

For whatever reason he had come to Nerima, it had to be important. She wanted in on it, if only to see what it was.

"Tell him I'll meet him," she said crisply into the phone. "Consider it a preliminary meeting before he can make his presentation to the Grand Duke. We'll meet on Oyama Station, the Promenade Hotel, at, say, fifteen o'clock local standard time... Yes, that's in less than three hours... I realize that. Good-bye."

She frowned at the agent's response.

"No, actually I _DON'T_ think it would be very prudent for him to come down to the planet at this time," she replied. "If he wants to speak to me, that's when and where I'll see him. If Gosunkugi doesn't like it, he can go right back to the League."

She closed the phone and set it on the nightstand. Rolf stirred briefly beside her on the bed. She froze, and waited in silence until she was certain that he had gone back to sleep, then she slipped out of bed to get dressed. She needed a shower and a change of clothes, but she wasn't going to do that here.

The last thing she needed was to make small talk with Rolf, let alone try to get out of explaining why she needed to be in orbit above the planet within the next three hours.

"Leaving me already?" he asked suddenly as she slipped into her black denim jeans.

She cringed at the sound of his voice. Had he been pretending to be asleep? She hadn't thought he was smart enough to try that trick on her.

"It's daylight," she replied crisply as she hooked her bra shut. "You should probably be getting back to the Alcazar."

Rolf shook his head. "What's there that I can't get here?" he asked her.

She was in no mood for this. Just because she needed him as leverage against his father's wavering resolve did not mean that she needed to put up with him for any longer than she had to.

"Rolf, I have to be somewhere, and I don't have a lot of time for this."

He sat up in bed, the sheet draped carelessly over his nude form.

"Take me with you," he said to her.

She laughed harshly in return as she threw on her pullover sweater.

"You've got to be joking," she remarked.

"I'm not," he replied.

She gave him a hard stare. "Look, Rolf, just because I let you fuck me every once in awhile, it doesn't mean I want you around me all the time. This is business, not pleasure."

Rolf gave her a tight-lipped smile. "That's what I heard," he replied, and Nabiki felt herself grow cold. "Does your father know that you're planning on meeting with one of the Gosunkugis?" He returned her look. "I'm willing to bet that he doesn't, and that you'd like to keep it that way."

She bit down on a curse. It was likely that he was joking, but she simply could not afford to take the chance that he would go to her father out of spite. One thing she had learned about Rolf Thuringia in the last few weeks was that he was capable of just about anything when it was done for spite.

"You're a real bastard, Rolf."

He slipped out of bed. "I learned from the best, Nabs. Don't worry, I'll keep my eyes open and my mouth shut the whole time."

"Why are you doing this?" she asked him wearily.

"Because I'm bored," he replied, pulling on his own clothes. "I've been waiting here for a month now while you worry about the best time to depose your father, and now that the Combine has faced its little setback, I'm starting to wonder when something interesting will happen." He gave her a pat on the butt. "And I'm a little curious about the way you plan on handling this Gosunkugi the League has sent to us."

"I don't know how I'm going to handle him yet," she returned, removing his hand from her derriere. "First, I have to find out what he wants."

"Well, it just so happens that I'm curious about that, too."

She sighed with some relief. Rolf was just as shallow and reckless as she had supposed. He was only looking for a new thrill, since the whole _coup d'etat_ plot had been a bust as far as he was concerned. The scent of intrigue had him anxious for the thrill of more danger.

"Okay, Rolf," she said to him. "You can come along. And if you behave yourself, I might even let you pick up where we left off last night."

He kissed her on her neck. "You won't even know I'm there."

"Somehow I doubt that," Nabiki replied.

"Why did you tell him to meet you so soon? We'll barely make it in time."

Nabiki turned her head to Rolf for a moment and regarded him. If she didn't answer his question, he'd find another way to annoy her. It was one of the reasons she despised him. If she wasn't already hip deep in trouble with her machinations and needing his help, she would have been well rid of him.

They were in the First Class section of the surface to orbit shuttle that ran between Nerima and Oyama Station. The Station's population was high enough at twenty thousand people, and its vital zero-gravity industries important enough to the war effort, to warrant a regular service in spite of the state of emergency that had come over the Capella System. Though the seats cost a thousand apiece for First Class, Nabiki had bought up all twelve of them to ensure their privacy in the cabin.

"It's simple," she finally replied. "The League doesn't know that my plenipotentiary powers have been suspended, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. By agreeing to meet them on such short notice, I keep them from making unnecessary communiques to the castle that might bring this fact to light."

"There's a chance that they already know about you," Rolf pointed out."I'm aware of that," she sniffed. "Frankly, I don't have much choice but to do this if I want to stay in the game. I have a bad feeling about the League's intentions. Their timing is too opportunistic."

"What do you mean?"

She shook her head sadly. Not only was Rolf lousy in bed, but he could be rock stupid at times. "I have the feeling that Tetsuo might be here to propose a strategic alliance."

"You're kidding?"

She closed her eyes. "Why else would he be here? Why would they warn us about the Combine's surprise attack from Capra? And why enrage Prince Kuno with a futile invasion, unless they were trying to take the heat off Capella?" She gave him a hard look. "Face it, Rolf. They want something for all of this effort and sacrifice on our behalf."

Rolf leaned back in his chair. They were weightless pending their arrival at Oyama, and he took a sip of his bourbon and coke from a squeeze pouch.

"None of which falls into your plans for the Confederation," he observed.

"Remarkable," Nabiki snorted. "He can be taught. Yes, an alliance would be a bad thing for my plans right now. It would give the people hope for an eventual truce, perhaps even a victory against the Combine, and right now, that's the last thing we need them to have."

"I don't see why," he replied. "Their opinions don't matter."

She let out a sigh of disgust. "Because, you idiot," she growled at him. "Their opinions _do_ matter. This whole plot depends on the perception that we are beaten, and that continuing to resist will only throw their lives and property away. All it takes is one loyalist officer or noble, plus a fired-up rabble that thinks we're selling them out, and we've got a disaster on our hands. We could find ourselves overthrown just as fast as my father."

"We'll have the Army backing us," Rolf said defensively.

"We'll have _most_ of them on our side," Nabiki pointed out. "And of those, perhaps half of them will be troops who would never support me if it looked like the Confederation could win. Furthermore, there's no guarantee that any of the troops will have the nerve to fire on their own population in the event of a riot. I'm not willing to take that chance."

Nerima Confederation JumpShip _Dragonfly_

Drydock Three, Palatine Yards

In orbit above Planet Tiber, in the Palatine System

27 April 3025

"Station the Modified Maneuvering Watch!"

Captain Hinako Ninomiya observed the Bridge silently as her crew went into action. The repairs had been completed early that morning, the testing of the circuit breakers performed satisfactorily mere hours ago, the ink on the closeout inspections was barely dry, and they were already preparing to leave the drydock. It cost money to sit in drydock, money Hinako was loathe to spend if she could help it.

It would take the better part of the day remaining to them just to pump out the drydock's atmosphere and tow the starship out into space, time that could be spent by the shipyard's administrative staff to close out the ream of paperwork generated by the job. When they were done, they could send it over to the _Dragonfly_ by shuttle for her signature and her release from escrow of the payment on the remaining balance due. There was no need to pay for an extra day or two in drydock just so the bureaucrats could get things squared away, and knowing that they weren't going to collect any more income from her, they might just hurry the process.

She was eager to leave the system and continue with the expedition, knowing that whatever reprieve they had been granted from the Combine's wrath, it could not last indefinitely. Akane was in command now, which made her feel more comfortable about the situation. Akane appreciated the urgency of the Confederation's plight better than a wandering mercenary like Genma Saotome.

Her faith in the young Heir to the Confederation was bolstered by the return of Ranma. Not only had she persuaded the cocky mechwarrior to return to the expedition, but she had even managed to make him a Confederation Army Regular! Hinako had to snicker at that. With Ranma firmly in Akane's camp, his father's cooperation was practically gift-wrapped.

"Engineering reports that the Main Engines are ready to answer all bells," her Assistant Engineer announced. Hinako shook her head at how eager her crew was to leave the system. It would be many hours before the _Dragonfly_'s drives would be needed.

"Have a little patience," Hinako said to him, smiling. The Bridge crew laughed good-naturedly at the Assistant Engineer's expense.

"We've just received word from the _Dragonfly_ that they are commencing the pump-out of the drydock," Captain Grant of the _Palomino_ reported. "They should be ready for rendezvous within eighteen hours." A little cheer went up in Crew's Mess at this.

Akane Tendo was pleased by the news as well. "Thank you, Captain," she replied. "What is the status of our own departure preparations?"

"Ma'am, we can be ready to lift in two hours from the time you give the word," he replied. "The last of the consumables are being loaded now, we're quared away with the hotel bills and the rental cars, and the crew is all present or accounted for."

She took a sip of her tea. "So all we're really waiting on is word from the Consulate regarding Tarou, and from Doctor Ono regarding our wounded that are still in the hospital."

Grant nodded. "Basically."

"How long will it take us to rendezvous with the _Dragonfly_ in orbit?"

"Three hours at the most, ma'am," Grant replied.

"Very well. Plan for a reactor start-up and lift off by four o'clock tomorrow morning."

"Yes, ma'am."

Grant left the Crew's Mess to carry out his orders.

Ryouga Hibiki wandered in as the Captain left. Akane waved him over.

"Y-Yes?" he asked her. Since she had assumed command of the mission, he had hardly spoken to her.

"Hi, Ryouga," she greeted him. "I've been wanting to talk to you for a few days now."

"R-Really? About what?"

She placed a hand on his at the table, making him turn red. "I'm really glad that you came with us from Capra," she said to him. "You've been the most tremendous help to us, especially during the fire on board the _Dragonfly_." She laughed. "I'd give you a medal for it, if you weren't just a mercenary."

Ryouga blanched. "Just a mercenary?" Oh, Akane... is that all you think of me?

"Ranma tells me you were born and raised in the Confederation," she went on, ignoring his question for the moment. "I have to be honest with you, Ryouga. Now that I'm in charge of this expedition, things are going to be a little different around here. What I'm asking is that you join the Confederation Army as a Mechwarrior Lieutenant."

He nodded slowly. After Ranma's return, he had been expecting something like this. The Hibikis had always been independent mechwarriors within the Confederation, taking work that wouldn't put them in conflict with the country of their birth, but never actively seeking to defend it, either. It was the wanderlust that all Hibikis seemed to feel that kept them from ever settling down in one place for long.

Could he make such a commitment, knowing that sooner or later, he would feel the urge to move on? If anyone but Akane had asked him, he would have said no. He had been content to drift along with Akane and her mission to Ryuugenzawa, even if Ranma was right and the place no longer existed. Now she was making him choose.

"I don't want to sound pushy, Ryouga," she added softly. "I would never do something like that to you. But at the same time, we are undertaking a mission so important that the very existence of the Confederation depends on its success. I can't have people aboard that don't belong with us."

He understood what she meant. If he agreed to join the Army as Ranma had done, he could stay. If he said no, he would have to leave. Akari would be devastated, he thought sadly.

"Just a Lieutenant?" he asked, his voice weak as he cracked his joke.

She smiled impishly at his remark. "We've already got more chiefs than indians, you big silly!"

His heart skipped a beat. She simply did not realize what calling him that did to him. He wasn't sure what kind of relationship she now had with Ranma since his return - from what he had seen, the two were all business in public - but Ryouga knew his own feelings in the matter, and he knew that Akane held a place as dear to his heart as the place Akari now occupied.

_Two women_, he thought to himself. _I love two women, and I can't bear to part with either of them, much less make a choice between them_.

"I'll do it," he found himself replying. As if he had a choice...

"Wonderful!" Akane cried. "Oh Ryouga, I knew you wouldn't leave us!"She leaned over the table to hug him. "I'd like to swear you in before we lift off. Is that okay?"

"Um, yeah," he managed.

Akane rose from the table. "This is great," she enthused. "I've got to speak with the yeoman about this. I'll see you later, Ryouga, okay?"

He smiled weakly for her benefit, wondering how he had gotten into this mess so easily.

He waited until she was out of sight before leaving. Before he knew it, he had wandered into 'Mech Bay Four. His yellow and black trimmed BattleMaster dominated the compartment, and especially dwarfed the Locust piloted by his enemy, Happousai, who was still recovering from the knife wound that Tarou had given him. As he looked up at the cockpit, he spied a familiar pair of legs dangling from a maintenance hatch near the torso-mounted lasers.

He found himself drawn up the gantry to the cockpit. Akari appeared from the maintenance hatch as he reached the upper level, her eyes shining at having her two loves so near - Ryouga Hibiki, and his BattleMaster.

"Good morning, Ryouga dearest," she said to him in greeting. She brushed aside a lock of pink hair from her temple, a gesture which always made him blush with nervous excitement.

He bowed respectfully for her. "Good morning, Akari," he offered her. "I have some good news."

She grinned at him. "Let me guess. You agreed to join the Confederation Army, didn't you?"

His mouth fell open. "H-How?"

Akari set down the torque wrench she had been using to check the weapon mount foundation bolts for his battlemech's lasers. "Lady Akane asked me about it at breakfast this morning."

"A-Akane?"

"Of course," she replied, taking a step towards him. "Whenever she has a question about you, she comes to me first. Isn't that sweet?"

Ryouga wasn't sure what to think of it. Were he and the lovely Senior Technician that much of an item for the crew? They had only been on a few dates this whole time on the planet! He'd only kissed her once - and only after she had asked him to!

"I'm so proud of you, Ryouga dearest," she continued blissfully.

This made him take notice. "Really?"

"Absolutely," she returned. "A lady should always be proud when the man she adores does something noble and proper."

She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him lightly on the lips, the effect of which nearly set off the Bay's fire suppression system from the heat of his blush.

"Congratulations, Lieutenant Hibiki," she whispered to him.

Ryouga, his brain now the consistency of mush, nodded dumbly and stared off into space with vacant bliss.

"Heya, Pig-Boy!" a voice called to him, snapping him out of his reverie in an instant.

He spun around to see Ranma standing on the gantry. He seemed to have been there for awhile.

"What do you want, Ranma?" he growled. Akari did not need to know about his dreaded Jusenkyo body, and remarks like that were bound to elicit questions.

"I knew you'd wander down here sooner or later," he replied. "Sometimes it's easier to pick a spot and wait for you to blunder by than it is to go out looking for you."

"Get to the point," Ryouga warned.

Ranma flashed him a jaunty wave. "I knew you'd crack," he said with a grin. "How long did you last before she signed you up?"

"What difference does it make?" Ryouga countered. "Akane needed me, and I was there for her." He looked away in condescension. "Unlike some people I could mention, who ran away first."

Ranma flinched. "Ouch... Not bad," he conceded for Ryouga's benefit. He leaped across the gantry to the battlemech to perch upon the upper torso deck. "At least I outrank you," he pointed out with a smirk.

"You should be ashamed of yourself, Ranma," Ryouga replied coolly. "You've only had your commission for a few days and you're already throwing your rank around."

Again, Ranma flinched.

"Jeez..." he grumbled. "You aren't making this much fun."

"You mean you came down here just to taunt Ryouga?" Akari asked him, amazed that anyone would want to give her beloved mechwarrior a hard time.

He shrugged sheepishly. "Not exactly," he answered her.

"Then what?" Ryouga demanded.

Ranma rolled his eyes. "I was just.. you know... I..." He tapped his fingers uncomfortably on the armor plating. "What I'm trying to say is that I... Well..."

"Spit it out already!" Ryouga snapped at him.

Ranma's eyes flashed at him in challenge.

"I just wanted to say that I'm glad you're coming with us, Ryouga!" he yelled. "There. Are you happy I said it?"

Ryouga was taken aback by this.

"Captain Saotome!" Akari cried, her faith in Ranma restored. "That's wonderful of you to say something like that."

"Yeah well..." Ranma muttered, his hand clenched behind his head. "It ain't what I'm good at, so I hope you appreciate it."

Ryouga remained still, his face a blank mask.

"Well?" Ranma pressed. "Do you?"

"Of course he does!" Akari answered for him.

Ranma hopped to his feet and stood before Ryouga. "Hey man, you okay?"He snapped his fingers in front of Ryouga's eyes, which did not even blink in response.

"Ryouga dearest?" Akari asked worriedly.

"I think he's lost it," Ranma observed.

Ryouga abruptly turned to Ranma, and grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Tell me you weren't just saying that!" he shouted in Ranma's face.

Ranma's head bobbed up and down as Ryouga shook him.

"I ain't just sayin' it!" he replied. Ryouga stopped shaking him. "I meant it, man. It'll be good to have you with us." He looked sidelong at him. "You'll remember that I said something like this back on the JumpShip," he added. "It wasn't THAT long ago..." He clapped him on the back. "Besides, who do you think put her up to recruiting you, anyway?"

Ryouga closed his eyes.

"Thank you, Ranma," he replied quietly.

"Huh? What for?"

"For thinking of me like that," he said, his eyes still closed. "A man gets to wandering, and soon he doesn't realize what he's missing by not belonging to anything." He opened his eyes and looked at Akari. "It's good to be wanted, to be welcomed and accepted."

Ranma nodded silently, knowing exactly how Ryouga must have felt. The life of a wandering mechwarrior was a lonely one indeed, but he had always had his father for companionship. Who had Ryouga turned to? That hairy freak, Tarou?

"Hey now," he said to him. "Let's not get all mushy here. I'm glad you're coming with us and I meant it. Don't go readin' too much into this."

With that he jumped off the BattleMaster to the gantry ladder and left the 'Mech Bay.

_I really wanted to pull Ryouga's chain_, he thought to himself. _I'm losing my touch_.

As he climbed through the hatch to the connector tunnel that linked the four 'Mech Bays, he nearly ran into Yuka, who was walking forward. She spun on him, her eyes cold, but she did not say a word. He decided that was fine with him and let her go without comment.

True to her oath, she had not spoken a single unkind word to him - or even about him, as far as he knew - though that had meant that she hadn't said anything at all to him. He was at a complete loss as to how to deal with her. Short of having her come to a sudden and messy end, there didn't seem to be any solutions other than ignoring her.

Sayuri on the other hand, was a little warmer to him, though that was a matter of degrees. It helped that he and Akane had been able to procure a surplus 30-ton Sparrowhawk fighter for her from Tiber's reserve garrison. It wasn't in the best shape, but it was functional, and it kept her from being Dispossessed. She at least would say hello to him in passing.

She continued to pay the price for the duel though, having suffered some kind of personal rift between herself and Yuka, who was now totally isolated in her contempt for Ranma. It was a tough break for her, but if nothing else, splitting up the two fighter pilots had granted him a measure of lasting victory in the wake of the duel.

Pansuto Tarou watched the crew load the last of the consumables aboard the DropShip and knew that he had nearly run out of time to make his escape. His Hunchback was still outside, which left him under the impression that they were still trying to convince the Consulate to take custody of him. If they didn't, would they just let him go, or would they decide to try him for his attempt on Happousai's life once they were back on the JumpShip?

If he was going to make good on his plan, he had to do something, and now.

Slowly, he rose to his shaggy feet. The man assigned to guard him was busy talking to one of the crew as they tossed twenty kilo cans of flour and coffee in a bucket brigade up the ramp. His guard quickly received word from his fellows that the monster was moving, and spun around to place the muzzle of his rifle where it would do some good.

"Easy, big guy," the guard warned. "Nothing funny."

"Man, I'll be glad to get rid of that freak," one of the crew added.

He looked around a moment, then sat down on the deck again, apparently cowed. The guard returned to his conversation.

Tarou pulled quietly at his chains, knowing as he did that after weeks of carefully straining at them with his powerful muscles, they were close to failing. He would have to part them on the first try, as he would likely not get a second chance.

He watched the guard closely as he flexed his massive arms with all his might. The steel manacles dug into his wrists, drawing blood that soaked into his shaggy brown body hair. With a terrifyingly audible _snap_, the chain that linked his wrists parted.

The guard did not notice. With all of the activity in the 'Mech Bay, the sound went undetected.

Next came his leg chains. With his hands free, he could apply very carefully the force he needed to finish them off.

Tarou tensed, ready to spring into action as soon as they parted. Once the leg chains were broken, the loop of additional chain that held him in place to the deck would simply fall away. He had waited for weeks to get this chance, and with the sedatives at their lowest levels thirty minutes prior to Doctor Ono's arrival to administer more, he would not get a better one.

The leg chain parted with another snap. Ever so carefully, he slipped off the anchor chain and prepared for his next move.

The guard with the rifle was his only threat. The rest of the crew would flee in a panic as soon as it was discovered that he was loose. After that, all he needed was hot water.

"SECURITY VIOLATION!" the 1MC crackled, as the ship's General Alarm klaxon sounded. "SHIP'S REACTION FORCE, LAY TO THE FLIGHT DECK! ...RIG SHIP FOR SECURITY VIOLATION AND GENERAL EMERGENCY!"

Ranma Saotome started for the Flight Deck. It was his job as the Lance Commander to lead the ship's reaction force against the intruder(s), a drill he had observed once on the way to Capra, but had never experienced as the Lance Commander. His mind raced at the possibilities for who the intruder(s) could have been.

Unless this was just Akane running a stupid drill...

There was that possibility. She liked being in charge, and she had gone on for some time about how they had all become complacent from their time on Tiber. He agreed - to a point - but the middle of lift-off preps was no time to get everyone back into shape.

Captain Grant had already unlocked the Small Arms locker, and the ship's Copilot began issuing body armor vests, pistol-grip shotguns, and shells to the handful of crew and techs who made up the reaction force. As their leader, Ranma was entitled to carry a laser pistol, which he refused.

"What's going on?" he asked as the reaction force hastily donned their gear. None of them looked up to the task of repelling an intruder.

"Tarou slipped his leash," Grant returned. "One of my crew is down, and Tarou took a hostage."

"Did anyone see which way he was headed when he left the ship?"

Grant shook his head. "He didn't leave. He's on the Crew's Mess right now, sitting at one of the tables with his hostage. He says he just wants to speak to Lady Akane."

"Speak?" Ranma asked, surprised at this. Tarou wasn't supposed to be able to talk in his Jusenkyo form. "You mean he changed back to a human?"

Grant nodded. "Looks that way."

"Well there ain't no way Akane's getting close to him," Ranma declared."Who's he got for a hostage?"

The Captain of the _Palomino_ tried to keep a straight face, knowing that Ranma wouldn't like it.

"Aerospace Pilot Yuka."

Ranma slapped his forehead. "Shit... It figures that I would have to save her sorry ass, wouldn't it?"

Akane stepped onto the Flight Deck, with Ryouga, Genma, and Akari in tow.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Tarou's gotten loose," Ranma answered her. "He's taken Yuka hostage, and he's sitting in the Crew Mess waiting to talk to you."

Ryouga cursed in disbelief.

"Can't we just shoot him and get it over with?" Genma asked.

"Not unless we absolutely have to," Akane replied. She looked to Ranma. "And no provoking him, just because of who he has for a hostage, okay?"

Ranma put his hands up. "Cut me some slack, okay?" He turned to the reaction force. "Let's go, people. Try not to shoot each other in the back as we go down the ladder, all right?" He followed well behind them as they went to secure the Crew's Mess.

Sayuri and some of the crew armed with fire axes, BFWs, and other makeshift weapons of opportunity held the Crew's Mess when they arrived. It looked like Tarou was in no hurry to leave, as he rested the muzzle of his captured automatic rifle under Yuka's chin, his finger just outside the trigger guard. As Ranma entered to take in the situation, he noted that Tarou's finger slipped casually over the trigger. One false move, and whatever passed for brains inside Yuka's head would be splattered all over the ceiling.

It was tempting, _very tempting_, but he held himself in check.

"I didn't ask for you, Saotome," Tarou greeted him tersely. "I want to speak to Akane Tendo."

Ranma pushed aside his fellows and started down the center aisle towards Tarou.

"That's far enough," the _bishonen_ mechwarrior advised. His finger began to curl around the trigger. Yuka, already pale with fear, became absolutely terrified upon realizing that Ranma Saotome held her life in his hands once again.

"Tell us what you want," Ranma said to him. "If you want to get off the ship, that's fine with me. You want your 'mech back, that's cool too. I don't blame you." He swallowed a little bile. "But whatever you do," he continued, looking straight at the girl he had come to despise. "Don't hurt Yuka... She's a total bitch, but she doesn't deserve to get her head blown off over this."

"Thanks for your concern, Saotome," Yuka muttered sourly.

Tarou clucked at him. "I know," he said conspiratorially. "It's tempting." He edged the rifle up a little tighter against her chin. "But as you can see, I had my chance to escape, and I didn't take it."

"So what do you want?" Ranma asked him. Akane appeared at the door to the Crew's Mess as he spoke.

"I have a business proposition for Lady Akane," Tarou replied.

"I'm not interested," Akane retorted sharply. "Let my friend go."

Tarou shook his head gently. "Oooooo, so sorry. There are too many guns in the room for me to do something stupid like that. I do apologize for the rude manner in which I've garnered your attention, Lady Akane, but given that my other body doesn't permit me to speak, I had little choice but to change back to a human the hard way."

Akane slipped up behind Ranma. "All right," she said to Tarou. "Let's hear what you have to say."

"Akane..." Ranma muttered.

"Do you have any better ideas?" she challenged him.

Tarou cleared his throat to speak. "As amusing as it is to watch you two spar, please allow me to come to my proposition. Now given my vantage point in the 'Mech Bay and the fact that good Doctor Tofu underestimated the dosage of sedatives he thought would keep me under wraps, I was able to learn a great deal about the nature of your little expedition..."

Akane took this with a nod of acknowledgement.

"Go on..."

Tarou smiled graciously for her. "You don't know how happy I was to learn that you had taken over command from that fat idiot Genma Saotome. I feel much more confident in your ability to recognize a fair offer when you hear one," he said to her. "As I was saying, I've overheard many things about your mission, such as the location of this sixth crypto key that you're searching for. No doubt the fifth one was on Capra, correct?"

"Get to the goddamn point, man," Ranma growled. "What is it that you want?"

Tarou shot him a heated look. "The sixth key is in Empress Azusa's Collection, correct?"

Ranma turned to look over his shoulder at Genma, who nodded.

"Yeah," he replied.

The next part was difficult for Tarou to speak of, and it showed in his voice. "It just so happens that I have an intimate knowledge of that place." He looked away for a moment. "You see, when I was younger, I was part of her... Collection..."

Ranma paled in horror, and he was not alone. From the sound of just his voice, much less his haunted eyes, he knew Tarou wasn't lying.

"I can guide you," Tarou went on. "Since I escaped from that hellish place, I know of ways you can get inside without being detected. That's my offer, Lady Akane. I'll guide you safely into and out of the Empress' Collection of Cute so you can get what you need."

"And in return?" Akane asked him.

"A full pardon for any crimes I may have committed within the jurisdiction of the Confederation," he replied. "It's true that I could have escaped from the ship, but one phone call to the planetary authorities would have ended my bid for freedom in a heartbeat. I want a legitimate out. A clean break."

"That's it?"

"Let's make something clear," he told her. "I don't put down the gun until you, acting on behalf of your father the Grand Duke, grant me a pardon. Right here, right now."

"And then?" Akane asked him, her voice drawn and taut.

"Once you get what you've come for, I want off the ship - with my battlemech fully repaired - on the first inhabited system outside of the capitol that you come to."

"And that's all you want?"

"That's it," he confirmed. "There, I'm not asking for very much, now,

am I?"

Akane drew close to Ranma.

"What do you think?"

He looked at her as if she were on fire. "You're asking me?"

"Yes, I'm asking you," she snapped. "As my Lance Commander... No, strike that. As my _friend_, Ranma... What do you think? Can we trust him?"

Ranma regarded Tarou for a moment, surprised by Akane's declaration of friendship as much as he was pleased by it. The handsome _bishonen_ watched them warily for any sign that he was about to be double-crossed.

"I don't know..." he replied. "It looks like a question of whether or not _I_ can trust him. I was the guy Pop picked to go in and get the damn key, remember?"

"That was before I took over," she whispered.

"Look me in the eye and tell me you weren't planning on sending me anyway," he replied in a deadpan voice.

"Okay," she relented. "So, can you trust him?"

Ranma shrugged. "Honestly, I ain't got a clue."

"Well?" Tarou asked them archly. He nudged the rifle into Yuka a little harder to make his point, and she issued a frightened yelp.

"You've got a deal," Akane said to him, angry and frightened at how threatened Yuka's life was in that moment. "But there are going to be some conditions attached."

Tarou gave her a menacing look.

"Conditions?"

"Yes," she declared. "Conditions. First of all, we aren't all that satisfied that we can trust you. I believe you when you say that you've been there before. I've no reason not to believe that. You've made your point clear on why you chose to remain onboard the ship when you had the chance to escape with your battlemech, but once we leave, there's no more threat from the authorities, either."

"Your knowledge is valuable to us," she went on. "I'm willing to trade you your freedom for that knowledge, but for now, my conditions are this: you will release your hostage and surrender to my crew."

Tarou wasn't pleased with this at all.

"Furthermore," she continued before he could voice his objection. "You will remain under a form of house arrest, berthing in the forward storeroom of the _Palomino_ as you were during the transit from Capra. You will be in human form, and not under sedation. You'll get a period of exercise in one of the 'Mech Bays for two hours every day - supervised of course, plus three breaks a day for sanitary purposes - also under supervision."

"When we have successfully recovered the key, and verified that it is the one we need, I will grant you a full pardon, your freedom, and your battlemech in addition to a modest sum of cash to assist you until you can find work."

Tarou scowled at her, but he didn't refuse her offer outright.

"Consider my position," Akane said to him. "You've injured one of my crew and taken one of my pilots hostage. You nearly murdered the master of my school of martial arts. Now I don't particularly care for Master Happousai, and I can't even say that he didn't have it coming to him, but I also can't change the fact that he is one of my subjects, and you have wronged him. I have no good reason to trust you, Tarou. Submit to my terms, and earn that trust."

Ranma blinked in admiration for Akane. He had never imagined that she could be so articulate in the face of danger.

Tarou gave her a grudging smile of approval. He lowered the rifle from Yuka's chin and set it on the table. In a flash, Ranma snatched it away, and tossed it behind him to Ryouga.

"You are a shrewd bargainer," Tarou replied. "I confess that I did not expect it from you."

"Do we have a deal?" she asked him tersely.

Tarou extended his hand with all of his usual arrogance.

"I believe we do."

Ranma watched them warily, his muscles nearly singing with tension as Akane took Tarou's hand and shook it. One false move, pal... he thought grimly, and they'll be scrubbing you off the floor with a damp sponge...

"I submit to your custody," the _bishonen_ mechwarrior declared, and offered his hands. Ranma could see the purpling bruises from where the manacles had dug into his flesh.

"That won't be necessary," Akane told him. Ranma nearly came unglued at her carelessness, but held his tongue. Tarou offered her a gracious smile and started towards the door.

"See him down to his 'quarters,' Ryouga," Ranma told him.

Ryouga nodded grimly and took up the escort of his former companion.

Once Tarou was out of sight, Yuka slowly eased herself from the table.

"Are you okay?" Akane asked her friend.

"A little shook up," she replied quietly. "He took me by surprise in the passageway."

Her eyes flicked over to Ranma. "I know you were tempted to try something, Saotome, knowing that it would get me killed," she said to him. "I could see it in your eyes."

Ranma didn't reply to her.

"Thank you for not doing it," she added quietly. "If our places had been reversed, I don't know if I could have -"

"Save it," Ranma told her. "I meant what I said to Tarou. You're a total bitch and I hate your guts, but no one deserves to get their head blown off like that. Not even you."

Yuka inclined her head to Akane as if to say something, then changed her mind. She stalked off the Crew's Mess in silence.

He watched her go, then turned back to Akane, expecting to catch hell from her after insulting her friend. She gave him a cool, measured look instead.

"What?" he demanded. "I meant everything I said. I ain't gonna pretend otherwise."

"I know, Ranma," she returned. "But for the sake of morale, could you at least pretend to get along with her?"

He folded his arms across his chest. "Maybe."

"Would you do it as a personal favor to me?"

He scowled at her. "Dammit, Akane, don't do that, okay?"

"Why?" she asked him with a pretty smile. "Because you know you couldn't refuse me?"

"Put it that way and I might just surprise you," he retorted. He rolled his eyes at her. "Would you settle for me staying out of her way?"

"You've been doing that," she observed. "Tell you what, I'll hold her to the same standard of conduct that I hold to you."

"I wouldn't expect anything less," he groused.

"I hold you to a very high standard of conduct, Captain Saotome," she said to him dryly.

He threw up his hands. "Tell me something I _don't_ know."

"Where's all the action?" a wizened little voice demanded, making both Ranma and Akane's blood curdle. "Everywhere I look on this pig, someone's toting a shotgun."

The two mechwarriors turned around to see Genma cringing in the corner of the Crew's Mess by the bug juice dispensers. Doctor Tofu stood in the doorway, a look of dismay upon his face. In the center aisle stood Happousai, looking as if he had never been on the very brink of death.

"Akane! My sweet!" Happousai cried joyfully. "Did you miss me?" He launched himself at her, only to be slammed down against the deck by Ranma in mid-flight.

"Lay off, old fart," he growled.

Happousai shrugged off the blow and popped up to his feet. Where Ranma had expected him to start into a furious attack, he instead made him an aside. "Heya, Hot Stuff! I'll get to you later... You bring the ice water, eh?"

"Forget it," Ranma said gruffly. "Aren't you supposed to be half-dead in a hospital somewhere?"

"Gimme a break," Happousai cackled. "I've had worse." He gestured back to Genma. "Tarou wasn't the first person to ever try and kill me. That oaf you call a father and his friend the reigning Grand Duke gave it a shot, but all they did was slow me down for a few years. Tarou's little stab in the dark doesn't even come close by comparison."

He looked around. "Speaking of the big hairy devil, where is he? The Doc and I get back to the ship from the hospital in time for your little security drill, and all we hear about is how you let him escape."

Akane stepped up to him. "He's in custody," she pointed out. "I don't want you going anywhere near him, do you hear me?"

Happousai affected a pout. "All I wanted to do was gloat a little..."

"That's the _last_ thing we need," she countered. "I'm sure Doctor Tofu filled you in on the current status of the expedition?"

The little freak's eyes went dewy. "That you're in charge now?" he cried happily. "I'm ecstatic! Let it be made clear that I accept your gracious offer to name me as your second in command."

"What?!" Ranma and Akane chorused. "No way!"

"B-But, Akane," Happousai grovelled. "Don't you want me as your -"

"NO!!!"

"Fine," he sniffed. "After all I've done for your family... Saved your lives on Capra from Tatewaki Kuno..." He kicked at a table leg. "I see how it is..."

"We appreciate your help," Akane soothed.

"We do?" Ranma asked, earning an elbow in the ribs from her.

"Yes, Ranma, we do," she said to him with a look that dared him to defy her. He decided discretion was the better part of valor, and stepped casually out of arm's reach. "Master Happousai, we do appreciate all that you've done for us, but the position of second in command belongs to Mister Saotome."

Genma whimpered from the drink machine, certain that Happousai was going to beat him into surrendering what little power he had left to him.

"Even that's wasted on him," Happousai observed dryly. "Ah well, perhaps I should content myself with being back in the company of so many beautiful women. Where did that hot tamale in tech's coveralls go?" he wondered aloud. "Ye gods, but I'd like to break me off a piece of _that_ action!"

Ranma was glad Ryouga was busy with Tarou, or else All Hell would certainly have broken loose at that lewd remark.

"Let me make something abundantly clear to you," Akane warned. "Unlike some people I could mention, who let you get away with doing or saying anything you want, _I_ won't stand for it! You'll behave yourself, Master Happousai, or you'll find yourself thrown off my ship!"

Happousai nudged Ranma in the ribs, taking care to find the spot Akane had so thoughtfully tenderized for him. "Please tell me that you're getting some with her every night," he whispered to pig-tailed mechwarrior. "I can't bear the thought of a hot sweet firebrand like her going to waste."

Ranma started at the thought, his face turning beet red. "You gotta be kidding me," he replied nervously.

Happousai narrowed his eyes at Ranma. "Are you _sure_ you aren't gay?"

Ryouga took Pansuto Tarou to the forward storeroom. It was filled with spare parts and lubricants mostly, all under lock and key. Though it was not the ideal place to hold a captive, it was serviceable.

"I never got a chance to ask why you attacked Happousai," he remarked to his prisoner.

Tarou gave him an insultingly smug grin. "Need you even ask? You know my feelings where Happousai is concerned. The question that begs to be asked is why you did not?"

Ryouga looked away, shamefaced.

"Think about it, Ryouga," he said to him. "When you come up with an answer, let me know. You know where you can find me."

"Step inside," he told Tarou. "I'll bring you a cot and some blankets in a little while."

Tarou stepped backwards into the room, so that he could keep his sardonic grin directed at Ryouga the entire time. The fanged mechwarrior stabbed at the 'door close' button, and watched as it slid shut before his former companion.

When he checked that it was locked shut on override, he stepped away from the door with a troubled look on his face. He shouldn't have let the question get to him, but it did. They had been together for several years as fellow mercenaries, and though they did not get along that well, they had always performed admirably under fire together. He felt like he was betraying his comrade yet again.

As he made his way up the ladder to the Middle Deck, his mind lost in thoughts of the past and of an uncertain future, he failed to hear the sound of triumphant laughter that pealed from the storeroom.

NCJS _Dragonfly_

In orbit above the planet Tiber,

Palatine System, the Federated Shiratori

28 April 3025

Shampoo's eyes adjusted to the dim light of 'E' Deck as the sounds of water from the ship's tanks shifted around her. They were safe for the moment, tucked between the nest of pumps and piping that handled the starship's potable water and sanitary sewage systems. Here they had access to both hot and cold water, and the galley on 'D' deck was only one level above them in case the supply of compressed rations they had brought with them from the _Domingo_ ran out.

They had made their way aboard during the confusion in the last hour before the drydock was pumped down, and the various welding cables, nitrogen lines, shore power cords and other detritus were being removed from the ship. It had been a simple matter, not even requiring her to use her Jusenkyo body to do it. Once aboard, they found a suitable hiding place, and began the long wait.

She listened carefully to the announcements made over the ship's 1MC system, and learned that the DropShip _Palomino_ had just docked. The Saotomes were probably about to come aboard. The thought of crushing Ranma's windpipe with her bare hand warmed her. Once they were dead, and the materials they had on Ryuugenzawa safely in hand, her mission was complete and she could return home in triumph.

Elder Peony's attempt to overthrow Cologne would be cut short, and General Herb would be denied. With these two enemies of the state dealt with, the Commonwealth could turn its attentions to what really mattered, namely the Furinkan Combine.

As for Ryuugenzawa, she did not care. Someone else could go investigate. If she never heard the name again after this mission, it would be too soon. Her place was in a front-line unit on the border with the Combine, or else in a raiding battalion whose exploits would become legendary in the estimation of her people.

She felt Mousse stir beside her in the darkness, his body warm and at the same time uncomfortable in its proximity. She could not deny that she had enjoyed herself thoroughly with his body, and that he had experienced pleasure far beyond his ken with hers, but that was where the attraction ended. He was still Mousse, half-blind, a little stronger of will now, but still hopelessly in love with her.

She found that his sentiments made him weak in her eyes in spite of his new-found resolve. What good was love if it made you submit to your lover the way he had so readily submitted to her? No, the man Shampoo would come to love would not be so feckless. She wanted an equal - or near equal, truth be known - not a slave.

"I love you, Shampoo," she heard him whisper.

"Mousse, how many times do I have to tell you? Don't ruin what we shared together with those words."

Her rebuke left him cold, she could feel it now, and she regretted her outburst. There were still many things she needed to know from him.

"I'm sorry," she added. "It's the stress talking."

He remained silent, and she cursed herself for a fool.

"I'm going to explore," she said finally. She pulled herself in free-fall over to a sampling sink, and ran a trickle of water from the pressurized header. Once she had converted to a cat, it would be up to Mousse to shut the valve.

She let the water splash her face, and winced at the cold and the vertigo of her change. She emitted a meow of discomfort at Mousse, then bounded away into the darkness.

Mousse watched her go, knowing that he was the reason for her abrupt departure. Their time together before the Jump to the Palatine System seemed to belong in another era. Where she had been passionate, she was now cold and aloof.

He should have known that it couldn't last. That she had used him. Sitting there in the darkness of an enemy starship, he accepted at long last that she did not love him, and never would. Even in the throes of their lovemaking, she had felt nothing more for him than she might have felt for one of the clan's comfort men.

It was a terrible realization for him.

Since the time they were children together, he had suffered countless indignities for her favor. He had felt the sting of General Herb's wrath for helping her leave Lightoller. To save her from the Fated Circle, he had forsaken his own career. Every sacrifice was for nothing. Each sacrifice had brought him nothing but pain. The hybrid general had been right all along about Shampoo.

He could endure no more pain. He would not.

There was only one course of action left to him. He would do as the General had instructed him. The secrets of Ryuugenzawa would belong to the Musk Dynasty. They would rise up to overthrow the Council of Elders, the chains of servitude and inferiority would be broken, and the natural order of humanity would be restored.

For the first time in his life, he would be proud to be a man.

Shampoo floated down a passageway on 'A' Deck. Though there were few of the crew moving about, she moved along the baseboards to keep out of sight. The ship was preparing to get underway, and soon its plasma drive would fire, granting her a measure of blessed gravity. She scampered through an open airtight door as the opportunity presented itself, and found that she was on the Bridge.

"Captain Ninomiya, Tiber Approach has granted us permission to leave orbit," one of the crew reported. Shampoo looked around for the Captain, but did not see anyone fitting that description.

"Very well," a little girl's voice replied with surprising authority. Shampoo watched as what appeared to be an eight-year-old floated into view from behind the Captain's station. She gave a nod to one of the ship's officers.

"Chief of the Watch, on the 1MC: Activating the Main Engines, all hands be prepared for acceleration," the Officer of the Deck ordered.

The Chief of the Watch acknowledged the order, and passed it on the 1MC.

"Conn, Engineering; Main Engines ready to answer all bells."

"Very well, Engineering. Helm; All-Ahead Standard."

"All-Ahead Standard, Helm aye," the Helmsman replied. He adjusted several controls at his station, and the ship lurched slightly as the Main Engines began to fire well aft of them. "Officer of the Deck; Maneuvering answers All-Ahead Standard."

"Very well, Helm."

Shampoo steadied herself under the gentle quarter-gee acceleration of the ship, grateful to have something solid beneath her paws. She crept farther into the compartment to get a good look at the Astrogation displays. Perhaps she could learn something of the ship's next destination once they emerged from Jump.

The displays were all in Standard, which she was better at reading than speaking. She was no astrogator, but she knew enough about the Inner Sphere to realize that the ship's next projected Jump would take it deeper into the Federated Shiratori.

Why did they want to go farther into the interior of the country?

"Helm; set course laid in by astrogation control," the Officer of the Deck ordered.

"Helm, aye. Officer of the Deck, the Helm is slaved to Astrogation."

"Very well, Helm."

Shampoo's tail swished in boredom. The Bridge of this ship was no more interesting or helpful than any other.

As she turned to leave the compartment, she spied Akane Tendo entering, and with her was Ranma Saotome. Her ears flattened at the sight of him, and her fur began to bristle. She waited until they had passed her, her huge violet eyes following their every move.

"Ah, Lady Akane. Captain Saotome," the eight-year-old greeted them. "You'll be happy to note that we shall reach the Jump Point in one hundred and nineteen hours at our present acceleration."

"Is there any way we could decrease that time?" Akane asked her.

"Within the limits imposed by our stores of reaction mass and what our bodies can withstand, yes. If we increase thrust to one-half gravity, we can cut our transit time by half, but we'll also consume twice the fuel." Hinako did a quick calculation. "By providing close to three quarters of a billion newtons of thrust for about sixty hours, our HEPLAR drive will use approximately a hundred and forty tons of reaction mass, or about a third of our total capacity."

Akane shrugged. "Guess it wasn't such a great idea."

"It was a fine idea," Hinako countered. "If you aren't concerned with replenishing your fuel reserves. Considering our position, we have to be a little more careful about it."

"Point taken," Ranma said to Hinako. "I guess that's why she's the Captain, huh, Akane?"

She shot him a dirty look. "I was only trying to see if we could get out of here a little sooner."

"It was a valid question," Hinako said to her. She favored Ranma with a scathing glance. "The only dumb questions, Captain Saotome, are the ones that are never asked."

Shampoo was utterly baffled by this. Was the Confederation so desperate for good officers that it recruited children? The little girl was apparently very intelligent, and her voice carried with it a maturity that did not match her tender years, but did they actually expect her to be capable of carrying out such demanding duties on her own?

"Well excuuuuse me!" Ranma retorted. He turned for the door, and froze.

Shampoo looked him right in the eyes, her ears flattened once again.

"What is it, Ranma?" she heard Akane ask him. He did not move, nor did he make a sound.

_Does he somehow recognize me?_ Shampoo thought in a panic. _Is that even possible?_

"C-C-C-C-Cat..." he managed, his teeth chattering away madly. "Th-Th-There's a c-c-ca-cat here..."

She hissed at him angrily, and was amazed when he flinched in terror.Before she could press home her advantage and escape, she was scooped up with lightning speed by the little girl.

"KITTY!" Hinako shrieked with joy. She presented it to Ranma.

"Ga-ga-get it away!" Ranma moaned, covering up and quaking as if he feared it would rip him to shreds.

"Ranma?" Akane asked, worriedly. "Are you okay?"

"NO!" he screamed. "I'm not okay! Get that damn cat away from me!" He backed up against the bulkhead as the crew looked on in surprise.

"Awwwww..." Hinako pouted as she held on to Shampoo with an iron grip. Shampoo scrabbled and kicked and clawed desperately to escape, but the girl was a veteran with fussy cats, and knew how to hold one without getting hurt."You don't like her?" she asked Ranma. "I think she's cute!"

"A purple Siamese." Akane observed. "I've never seen one like that before. It must be some kind of mutant strain."

"Who cares what color it is?!" Ranma moaned, trembling mightily as he cowered away from the hissing, spitting Shampoo. "Get rid of it!"

Hinako held up the cat to Ranma's face. "But isn't she cuuuute?" she asked him. He slammed his eyes shut and began to gibber.

"Maybe you should do as he says," Akane said gently to Hinako.

Captain Ninomiya turned away from Ranma, still clutching Shampoo. "I guess," she pouted. "She's a very pretty cat," she added. "I wonder where she came from?"

"Who cares?" Ranma groaned, regaining only a little of his composure. "Throw it in the airlock and blow it already!"

"Ranma!" Akane cried, shocked that he would even think such a terrible thing.

"It's probably a shipyard cat," the Officer of the Deck pointed out. "A lot of the yardbirds consider having a cat around a sign of good luck."

Hinako began stroking Shampoo's head roughly, earning another round of irritated hisses. "Poor kitty," she simpered to Shampoo. "You're already thousands of kilometers from home... Oh well! I guess you're the _Dragonfly_'s cat now."

Ranma took that moment to duck through the air-tight door in escape, with Akane following after him.

"I didn't know you were afraid of cats?" Shampoo heard her ask him.

"I'd rather not talk about it," he replied gruffly. "Can't we just forget that this ever happened?"

"No way," Shampoo heard Akane retort as the door started to slide shut. She laughed just to spite him. "I think it's cute."

"Oh, ha ha."

Hinako continued stroking Shampoo's fur. In spite of herself, she began to enjoy the sensation, and craned her head around in such a way as to encourage the _Dragonfly_'s Captain to scratch her behind the ears while she was at it.

"You're a good kitty, aren't you?" she asked Shampoo.

_When I want to be_... she decided, purring contentedly, and wondering how she could exploit Ranma's new-found weakness to her best advantage.

Kawaii City Starport

Kawaii City, Planet Genevieve

Martina System, the Federated Shiratori

30 April 3025

Federated Shiratori Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mikado Sanzenin knew that something dreadful was afoot from the moment he and his latest paramour stepped off the DropShip. He was greeted with flowers for one thing, abundant bouquets, garlands, and wreaths of them. The silky petals of thousands of roses were showered over him and spread before his feet as he traversed the jetway from his personal spacecraft.

Accustomed as he was to the royal treatment as Chief of Staff, this was something altogether unusual and disturbing. It was the kind of reception that the Empress would receive, if she ever deigned to leave the planet for awhile - something he knew that Azusa was loathe to do. Like the Heian Period court at Kyoto a millenium before the discovery of Jump, Azusa and her fawning coterie of sycophants could not possibly imagine anything so vulgar as leaving the capitol for the dreary provinces of the Empire.

The most disturbing thing about the entire reception was that no one would explain to him why they were treating him in this way. There were no officers in the Army present to question, only a few of the more strident leaders of the Cult of Azusa, and they were bound body, mind, and soul to their Empress. If they would not talk, it was because she had commanded that it be so, and that was yet another thing to be disturbed about.

Mikado's unease at the situation was given another jolt as his staff limousine accelerated onto the elevated highway that led into the gingerbread splendor of Kawaii City. His image was everywhere, in some cases fluttering twenty meters tall on massive banners that hung from the graceful arcs of bridges and skyways, in other cases his glittering smile beamed from huge advertising displays on the sides of skyscrapers. Posters and pennants with his regal visage were everywhere. His name flashed across public-info tickers and drifted through the sky on the sides of blimps. The citizens of the city waved and cheered to him as he sped through the city towards the palace.

As his limousine approached a fantasy castle with its delicate spires, gilded onion domes, dramatic palisades, sweeping arches, and candied minarets that would have made a Bavarian king weep, he realized why he was being greeted with such pomp. Flowing from standards projecting from the castle's outer keep were two figures in wedding attire. One was of the Empress, looking vapid and blissful, the other was of Mikado Sanzenin.

He choked on his martini at the sight of them.

The Hotel Promenade

Outboard Ring, Oyama Station

Orbiting the Planet Nerima, Capella System

The Nerima Confederation

27 April 3025

"Ah, Nabiki Tendo," Tetsuo Gosunkugi said, rising to greet her. "It's good to see you again. I regret the fact that we didn't get the chance to speak to each other after the summit."

Nabiki regarded him for a moment before responding. Tetsuo was as weedy and glad-handed as she remembered him to be. The dark circles under his eyes were something of a trademark with the Gosunkugi family, and made it difficult for her to judge if he was as exhausted as he appeared to be.

"The pleasure is all mine, I assure you," she returned.

In the last minute negotiations upon her arrival at the space station, Tetsuo had agreed to meet with them in a small conference room reserved for the hotel's guests. Nabiki noted the spartan furnishings; limited to four chairs, a small table, some tasteful artwork prints on the sound-proofed walls, and a sideboard with a selection of light refreshments. She also noted the man in the nondescrept business suit who stood several paces behind Tetsuo, obviously the League Ambassador's bodyguard.

Tetsuo made a small gesture to Rolf.

"I don't believe we've met," he added, an invitation to Nabiki to explain the young noble's presence.

"Rolf Thuringia," Rolf introduced himself before Nabiki could reply. "A pleasure, your Excellency."

"Rolf's with me," Nabiki added thinly, her voice barely containing her contempt. "He's promised to keep his mouth shut," she added, as much for Rolf's benefit as Tetsuo's.

Tetsuo looked Rolf over for a moment, as if to satisfy himself that this was possible. "Shall we get started, then?"

Nabiki took a seat across the table from him. Rolf chose to stand, remaining behind her as if matching Tetsuo's own bodyguard. Tetsuo noted this and gave a brief smile of relief.

"I'm not exactly clear on the reasons why you chose to meet me in orbit," Tetsuo opened. "There is such a furtive air about this meeting, it's almost as if you have something to hide. In fact, your insistence that this meeting be conducted with such secrecy has me rather concerned."

Nabiki leaned forward in her seat. As expected, Tetsuo was suspicious. There was little reason at this point for her to add to his reservations.

"My reasons are simple enough," she replied. "If you haven't discovered it already, let me enlighten you on the matter of my personal disposition." She paused for effect. "My plenipotentiary powers have been suspended."

Tetsuo nodded slowly. Nabiki couldn't tell if it was because he suspected as much, or that he already knew, and wanted to see how candid she would be in the matter.

"If that's true, then why am I wasting my time talking to you?" he asked. His thin and reedy voice had a rhetorical quality to it.

It seemed to Nabiki that Tetsuo was not in possession of all the facts regarding the current political situation on Nerima. She sat back in her seat, trying not to show her relief. His ignorance meant that she still had a few cards in her hand to play.

"My father is insane," she replied coolly. "Certifiable. He's convinced that he can defeat the Furinkan Combine, and anyone who doesn't share that view ends up stripped of their authority. I'm sure you can agree with my assessment of him after the disastrous conclusion to the summit."

Tetsuo pursed his lips in thought. Nabiki could almost visualize the gears turning in his head as he mulled this over.

"I had thought he'd done something rather rash with that," he said, nodding. "Promising your younger sister to an unknown mechwarrior was really throwing it in Prince Kuno's face."

"He's cracked, I'm telling you," Nabiki put in.

"So who is this Ranma Saotome, anyway?"

"No one of consequence," Nabiki replied, her tone guarded. Tetsuo did not need to know about Ryuugenzawa, even if it was a fairy tale. There was no need to make the situation any more complicated by bringing it up.

"Let's get back to my question then," Tetsuo said, though whether he was satisfied with this answer was not immediately clear. "Why am I here talking to you, if you're on the outs with your father, and have no power to negotiate with the League of Five Nails?"

"Because you won't get anywhere with him," she responded calmly. "You're lucky that he even let you into the system." She folded her hands together. "As for me, well, it's only a matter of time before his dementia becomes too much for even his most devoted supporters to ignore. Someone will have to step in at that point..."

Tetsuo inclined his head to her in understanding. "I see," he grunted. His eyes flicked over her as if discovering a new side to her personality, one that he had not expected. "I never figured you for the throne, Nabiki Tendo. It seems to me that you'd rather stand behind it."

"You are partially correct," she replied with a silky smile. "If it means preserving the family's wealth, I'll take my turn on Nerima's throne, but the Confederation isn't something I look forward to ruling for long."

She gave him a coy wink. "You wouldn't happen to know someone who might be interested in a tired old Successor State, would you?"

Tetsuo flushed with surprise. It was clear by his reaction that he hadn't imagined that she would be so forward with the League after setting herself up so cozily with the Combine at the summit.

"Perhaps we can come to an arrangement that would be mutually beneficial to our two countries," he declared after a moment's consideration. "I just happen to have a powerful bargaining chip against the Furinkan Combine that you might be interested in."

Nabiki allowed herself a moment of measured silence before responding.

"I'm all ears, Excellency."

Tetsuo looked about the small conference room self-consciously. Nabiki took his gesture as an indication that he feared spies or listening devices, which meant that he had not taken such an option for himself.

"This must be kept in the strictest confidence," he began.

"Of course," Nabiki agreed.

Tetsuo looked around again before facing her. "My cousin, Hikaru, has sent me to Nerima to propose a strategic alliance against the Furinkan Combine," he began, carefully assessing Nabiki's reaction to this. She remained poker-faced. "You will note our good faith in our timely warning of Prince Kuno's would-be surprise attack from the Capra System, and in our efforts to draw him away from the Capella System."

Nabiki nodded in agreement. "I was wondering what your angle was in that regard," she replied. It was as she had feared, Hikaru Gosunkugi wanted an alliance.

"Then you are receptive to this?" Tetsuo asked, perhaps a little too eagerly for a diplomat of his rank.

She waved in abnegation. "Slow down, your Excellency," she cautioned him. "First I want to hear what you have to offer the Confederation."

"Our promise of military support is not enough?" Tetsuo asked with the proper amount of indignation.

"I'm looking for something more concrete than promises," she returned crisply. "You mentioned a bargaining chip a moment ago. I don't think that was made idly."

Tetsuo took a sip of water before answering her.

"If you aren't receptive to my proposal, perhaps I should take this matter to the Grand Duke," he sniffed.

Nabiki reined in the sudden flash of temper incurred by his threat. He was probably only bluffing, testing her to see how she would react. It was a reminder to her that while he was no Domitian, Tetsuo was an experienced horse-trader, and he knew how the game of diplomacy was played.

The slight narrowing of her eyes was the only outward indication of how close she had come to exploding in Tetsuo's face.

"Excellency, I would caution against such a move," she replied in a chilly voice. "You would not be dealing with a stable man, but a lunatic." She gave him a warning look. "Furthermore, his remaining tenure as the ruler of the Confederation is likely to be cut short. The future rests with me, your Excellency. You would do well to remember that."

Tetsuo seemed suitably chastened.

"Very well, Nabiki Tendo. In the interest of brevity, I'll come to the heart of my proposal. In exchange for a permanent strategic alliance with the League of Five Nails, among other concessions to be discussed, I am prepared to turn custody of a very important hostage over to the House of Tendo."

Nabiki's mind raced with the implications of that declaration. His choice of principals, namely the House of Tendo over Nerima Confederation, implied that this hostage was also of noble or royal blood. Ordinarily, this would mean a Gosunkugi hostage would be sent to the Confederation to ensure that the League honored its commitments. But Tetsuo had also said that this hostage would be a powerful bargaining chip against the Combine.

It could only mean one thing...

"You have a Furinkan Combine hostage?" she asked him.

Tetsuo nodded.

"Someone whose well-being Prince Kuno would have to consider?"

Tetsuo nodded again, a cheshire cat grin slowly spreading across his face.

Nabiki's curiosity was growing. She was loathe to make any deals with the League of Five Nails, and adamant against her father doing the same, but she needed to know all of the variables at work within and against her plot"Who?"

Tetsuo leaned in close.

"We captured the Shogun of the Furinkan Combine on New Hawaii during our raid of the Alpha Centauri System," he replied evenly.

"You what?" It was beyond belief that the League could get so lucky, or that the ruler of the Furinkan Combine, even a fruitcake like Shogun Kuno, could be so careless.

"He's in the hotel," Tetsuo added. "You can't imagine how happy you will make me if you take him off my hands."

Nabiki's jaw dropped open in disbelief. Tetsuo was supposed to be more careful than this. What the hell was going on?

"You brought him here?" she hissed. "He's in the hotel? THIS hotel?"

"I'm prepared to offer him up right now as a further sign of our good faith," Tetsuo added. "My cousin Hikaru would prefer that our alliance be cemented with a marriage to your sister, Akane Tendo, as I'm sure you can understand."

Nabiki could not believe this was happening to her. Taking custody of the Shogun would give the people of the Confederation exactly what she didn't want them to have: hope. She knew that it wouldn't matter in the long run that the League would assist them, or that Kuno might accept a cease fire in exchange for his father's return. The Furinkan Combine would break any cease fire as soon as practical - especially if Akane were to be promised to Hikaru Gosunkugi - and the League could barely defend itself, much less continue coming to the Confederation's aid. She knew all of that, but she doubted that the war-weary people of the Confederation would be willing to look that far ahead.

The only thing she knew for certain was that Tetsuo could not under any circumstances come into contact with her father. Not with this kind of offer to make.

"Of course," she began to say, but the words died in her throat as Rolf lunged over the table at Tetsuo, a long stiletto with a hilt of gold and mother-of-pearl inlay plunging soundlessly into the League Ambassador's chest.

Tetsuo's bodyguard was caught as flat-footed by this act as Nabiki, and fumbled for a moment with the pistol in his coat pocket as Rolf pushed off from the table to do the same. Tetsuo looked dumbly down at the dagger which protruded from his chest, the hilt throbbing from the expanding stain of red on his shirt in time to the terrified beat of his heart.

"Rolf, what the fu-?" Nabiki choked out as the bodyguard drew his suppressed automatic and fired.

She watched Rolf take the bullet in the side of his chest as the sharp hiss of a laser beam scythed from a derringer in the palm of his hand. The beam struck the bodyguard square in the nose, and carved a centimeter wide channel straight up his face to neatly bisect the top half of his skull. The bodyguard made a few wet noises, then pitched over to the floor, his brain oozing from the charnel canyon of his burned cranium and into a lumpy pinkish-grey puddle on the carpet.

Rolf crumpled to the carpet himself, a bloody hand clutching at his own gunshot wound. The stench of melted hair and cooked brains mingled with the tang of ozone from the laser and the hot, acrid smell of burnt gunpowder.

"Rolf?!" Nabiki screeched. "Why the FUCK did you...?"

He looked up at her, his eyes glazed with pain. "He was going to wreck your plan," he gritted out. "OUR plan," he amended. He tried to stand, and found that he didn't quite have the strength.

"What are you talking about?" She was close to hysteria, having never witnessed such an explosion of violence and death firsthand.

"Turning the Shogun over to the Confederation," Rolf replied. He tried once more to stand, and managed to pull himself up to the table. Nabiki could see the small ragged hole in his back, and the gleaming blue-white fragments of living bone from his shattered shoulder blade that dripped with the freely running blood and bits of cartilage out of the exit wound. "It'll ruin everything," he continued. "You know that. I saw it in your eyes."

He steadied himself, drawing a panting gasp of breath. She could see that he was in intense pain, pain that was most likely due to his collapsed left lung.

"Goddamn, this hurts," he wheezed. He gestured with his free hand towards Tetsuo, whom Nabiki realized was still alive. "At least _he_ doesn't feel very much..."

Something snapped back into place in Nabiki's shattered mind, and she pulled her cell phone out of her purse.

"I could use some help," Rolf agreed, noting the phone.

She whirled on him. "It's not for you, you stupid bastard!" she screamed at him. "It's for him! Don't you realize what you've done!?"

She could tell by the confused look in his eyes that he didn't.

"Don't waste your time," he muttered with great weariness. "The blade is poisoned."

At this Tetsuo made a whimpering noise, the first sound he had made since before he had been stabbed. His gaze fell once more to the dagger which pulsed weaker and weaker in his chest.

"I'm surprised he's still conscious," Rolf added, his voice slurring. "It's supposed to paralyze you as it works. That close to the heart, he should be..." He began to lose his grip on the table, and toppled over onto his bottom in a sitting posture, looking like a drunk who can't remember where he is or how he got there.

Nabiki looked back to Tetsuo as Rolf hit the floor, and watched with horror as the League Ambassador's eyes began to glaze over. The dagger's motions became fluttering and erratic, and she knew the end was close.

Tetsuo Gosunkugi managed one last gasp of breath, his eyes dull and wide with disbelief, and then he was dead.

A thin scream issued from deep within Nabiki's throat. It was a sound that mirrored Tetsuo's own disbelief at his murder, modulated with equal parts of rage and grief. She didn't even realize that she was doing it, and looked around frantically for the source of the hellish noise.

"A little help here," Rolf said raggedly.

She ignored Rolf's feeble pleas for assistance, lost in hopelessness and despair. How had it all come to this? While her intentions had never been exactly trey-nine pure, she had been sincere in her desire to end the death and destruction of the Succession Wars. All of her plotting, all of her machinations, they had brought only failure and death. Tetsuo and his bodyguard were just the latest casualties in a war that seemed to be spiraling further and further out of control. There would be others. Many others.

She found herself drawn towards Rolf's gold-plated derringer. The tiny weapon glittered on the carpet, promising a swift, almost silent end to her life. It was in her hand before she realized it, the laser surprisingly heavy for something so small.

Suicide was something she had scoffed at once, an act of borne of cowardice more than anything else she could say about it. As she clutched the derringer tight and put the cold, polished quartz focusing lens of the muzzle against her breast - and right over her fluttering heart - she understood that it was possible for some good to come from the act. At least this way, she wouldn't be around to fuck anything else up. If more people died, she rationalized, at least it wouldn't be _her_ fault.

She squeezed the firing stud.

"The thing's only good for one shot," Rolf informed her, spitting up a clot of dark, sticky blood.

The sound of his voice brought her back once more to reality. She was not dead. The derringer was depleted of its charge as Rolf had claimed. Anger controlled her now, but it was a cold and calculating rage. _What the hell were you thinking!?_ she railed at herself. This isn't over yet. Not yet, dammit!

She wiped carefully at the weapon, knowing that it would require a more professional treatment to remove all traces of her from its surface. She let the laser fall to the carpet where she had seized it, then moved to the body of the recently departed Tetsuo Gosunkugi and turned out his pockets. There was only one way to salvage the situation, and that was to take the Shogun by force and hide him away, before his presence on the station became public knowledge.

When she had taken what she needed from Tetsuo's pockets, and replaced the rest, she dialed the number of her most important connection on Oyama Station. She needed men, competent men who didn't ask questions and were paid in cash up front, and she needed them now, while she still had the time and the freedom to act.

She could hear Rolf moaning now, his voice getting weaker, and his words punctuated by wet choking coughs. She watched him for several minutes while she waited for the first of her agents on Oyama to answer her most urgent summons, her eyes burning with contempt and loathing for him. In one irreversable act of stupidity, he may have cost her absolutely everything.

One thing was for certain, she observed as Rolf slowly expired on the carpet, her bitter relationship with Daddy was going to the next level. There was no point in playing games with him anymore. It was time to act, and to act decisively.

The stench of death was growing stronger in the room. She wanted to leave - was desperately fearful of being discovered - but at the same time she could not take the chance that Rolf's life could be saved. As far as she was concerned, she had never come to this room; Rolf Thuringia was a deranged young man who had arranged the meeting with the Ambassador on false pretexts of diplomacy in order to assassinate him, and had himself been killed in the process. It would take a lot of grease, and just the right massaging of the facts, but she could make it stick long enough to accomplish her objectives.

She hated Rolf. She had never hated anyone with such an intensity, and yet she could not bring herself to finish him off. It wouldn't have required much effort, he was close to suffocating in his own blood anyway, but she couldn't bring herself to even touch him.

His eyes opened, his breathing slow and labored, and he turned his head up to face her. She regarded him with a boreal intensity as he opened his mouth to speak, and instead fell into a fit of choking coughs that laid him out flat on the carpet, his eyes fixed upon the ceiling.

She leaned over him as he lost his agonal struggle.

"You were the worst sex of my life, Rolf."

He almost seemed to nod in agreement as his taut body relaxed in death.

Nerima Confederation DropShop _Palomino_

In transfer orbit above the planet Genevieve

Martina System, the Federated Shiratori

3 May 3025

"Hey, Pop," Ranma called to his father, who paced soundlessly in 'Mech Bay One. "We're almost to the planet. Are you ready for this?"

Genma looked his son over for a moment.

"You're awfully eager about this expedition all of a sudden," he observed.

Ranma shrugged. "We only need one more decrypt key," he replied. "The faster we get it and leave, the better."

"That's all, huh, boy?" Genma grunted.

"Pretty much," Ranma agreed with another shrug.

Genma pushed his glasses up from the tip of his nose. "I think there's more to it than that."

"What are you talking about?"

Genma gave his son a stern look. "Face it, boy. She's got you whipped."

Ranma cocked his head in a questioning look.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked in a surly voice.

"Do I have to spell it out for you, boy?" Genma returned, his voice taking on the stentorian quality that he reserved for reproaching his son. "You've betrayed your father and your family name, and all for a woman!" he railed angrily.

"What?!" Ranma cried in response.

Shifting gears, Genma took on an expression of long suffering, his voice cracking with emotion. "O, the misery of it!" he wailed. "Where did I go wrong? My son... My son is... is... pussy-whipped!"

Ranma's face flushed beet red, though whether this was out of anger or embarrassment was not clear.

"No way!" he choked out. "I never...!"

Genma threw up an arm to his brow in despair. "That's the worst part!" he returned miserably. "If you were actually sleeping with her, I might be able to forgive you - but you aren't even doing that! She's got you wrapped around her little finger, turning you against me, ME, your own flesh and blood!"

He fished in his pocket, eyes still averted in shame, and threw a pile of coins at Ranma's feet. Ranma, too angry and confused to make more than spluttering noises of protest, stooped to examine one of the coins. It was a gaming token - absolutely worthless where they were.

"Your thirty pieces of silver," Genma explained solemnly.

Ranma threw the coin down on the deck.

"Dammit, Old Man!" he snarled. "When are you gonna start making some sense?!"

Genma put away the theatrics and faced his son gravely.

"Ranma, you've shamed your family by accepting a commission with the Confederation. For centuries the Saotomes have been independent mechwarriors, at least until you came along. All it took was a little fluttering of Akane Tendo's eyelashes to flush all of that proud tradition down the toilet."

He continued before Ranma could offer up protest. "Not only that, but by accepting her commission, you're supporting her decision to replace me as the commander of the mission." He began to tremble with despair. "How could you, boy? I'm your father!"

Ranma looked him over. "So that's why you've been off sulking this whole time," he realized.

Genma looked away, insulted at the idea that he should be sulking at anything.

"Don't sweat it, Pop," Ranma added uneasily. "She already said that this was temporary."

"And you'd believe her, wouldn't you?" Genma returned snidely.

"Well, yeah," Ranma agreed. "She's got no reason to lie about it."

"So naive," Genma clucked. "I guess that's your mother talking."

Ranma gave his father a dirty look for even mentioning his mother at a time like this. He decided to call it quits for now.

"You're hopeless, Pop."

Still, the idea that he was somehow wrapped around Akane's finger, however ridiculous that sounded, troubled him. No girl should have that kind of power over a guy.

_We'll just see how 'whipped' I am!_ he thought to himself.

The Imperial Palace

3 May 3025

Federated Shiratori Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mikado Sanzenin faced a choice: he could marry Empress Azusa and become her royal consort, or he could flee the Federated Shiratori. Neither choice seemed very palatable to him. To flee would mean giving up his rank and privilege to become a common mercenary; an abhorrent thought to a man who had draped himself in the mantle of so much political and military power. On the other hand, the thought of marrying Azusa Shiratori utterly repulsed him.

He despised his Empress as the spoiled rotten and vacuous little girl that she was. To even imagine the idea of sitting at her right hand and enduring her mindless prattle and her fawning, empty-headed Court made him break out in a cold sweat. The thought of sleeping in the same bed as Azusa brought forth waves of nausea, much less the act of consummating their union.

What could he do? He was screwed.

The most infuriating aspect of this affair was that she hadn't even asked him to marry her. She had simply started the wedding process without him, before he even arrived in the system. All that was expected of him was to show up.

He poured himself another drink, something he had done a lot of since his arrival. There had to be a way for him to derive some kind of advantage from his situation. Becoming a mercenary offered the advantage of freedom, but promised nothing but hard times and hard work. Mikado had a particular aversion to both of these things.

Marrying Azusa at least conferred a special status upon him. Though he would be named only as the Imperial Consort, it was possible that he could have a more direct hand in the policies of the Federated Shiratori...

He snorted laughter at this. Since when had he ever cared about the Federated Shiratori? His overriding passion was the loving of women. Could he still do that as a consort?

It wasn't like he was bound by the moral prohibition against adultery. Mikado particularly enjoyed making love to married women for the forbidden thrill it gave him to have sex with another man's wife. It certainly wouldn't matter to him that he was the one doing the cheating.

There was also the fact that he would have access to a whole slew of beautiful women - who were most likely rock-stupid and therefore easy marks for his charm - in Azusa's Court. If he grew tired of Azusa, and he knew it wouldn't take long, he was still the Chief of Staff, and would need to leave the system on inspection tours and such.

That idea began to take hold with him. It offered all of the advantages of marrying Azusa, such as they were, and few of the disadvantages. Was it his fault that his official duties always kept him from his 'beloved' wife? He chuckled a little too loudly at this, and poured himself yet another drink.

He settled back into his chair, and wondered what else he could expect to go wrong today. What he did not expect was Ukyou Kuonji and her adjutant Major Konatsu arriving in his chambers unannounced.

"What are you two doing here?!" he demanded. The booze and the stress of his predicament were not doing his normally cool temperament any favors.

Ukyou saluted. "Pardon the intrusion, General," she began, and her smug look immediately began to grate on Mikado's nerves. "I wanted to offer my formal congratulations on your engagement."

Her obviously false hail-fellow-well-met enthusiasm triggered a storm of brain activity within Mikado's head, and he rose unsteadily to his feet.

"This is all YOUR fault, isn't it, Kuonji!" he shouted at her. This is where she had gone to! She had put Azusa up to this! "This whole engagement smells of your meddling!"

Ukyou's smile melted away. She had never seen him drunk before, and certainly not belligerently drunk.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she returned. "Sir."

"Don't bullshit me, Kuonji!" Mikado thundered. He was really starting to feel his blood boiling now. "You've hated my guts for years."

She matched his hard stare. "You're drunk, General."

Mikado sloshed his martini at her in the process of waving a fist. "So what if I am?" he leered. Then, with remarkable control and poise, he brushed back his hair with a smile, his teeth gleaming preternaturally in the indoor lighting. "I've still got it where it counts."

Ukyou couldn't help but be a little impressed by his display. It was no wonder why most girls flocked to his bed.

"Sir, I should let you get back to your work," she said coolly. Konatsu began to bow for him.

"Hold it right there," Mikado ordered them. He advanced upon them both with a manic gleam in his eye. Despite his obvious intoxication, he practically glided across the carpet towards them, his charisma radiating forth in waves.

In spite of herself, Ukyou held fast. Konatsu followed her lead.

Mikado took the former kunoichi's white gloved hand and kissed it with great warmth and ardor, his soft eyes held gently with those of Konatsu. The adjutant blushed furiously, and turned away in shy defense against the Chief of Staff's magnetism.

He turned to Ukyou next, who stood stock still under his luminous gaze.

"I'll never forget the first day I laid eyes on you, Ukyou," he said, his voice deep and melodious. She quivered in spite of herself, and tried to remember that he was not only roaring drunk but an insincere womanizer.

His hand came up to raise her chin to him, the contact fleeting and causing an electric thrill to course through her. Her muscles locked up, prventing her from escaping. With gentle ease his hand caressed her cheek as he locked those deadly eyes into her own brilliant green orbs. For her it was like staring into the eyes of a cobra; entrancing, mystifying, and very dangerous. She was transfixed by him, unable to resist his next move even though her mind was screaming warnings at her.

His lips touched hers, teasing at first, and then pressing firmly into contact, kissing her deeply and sweetly. Konatsu made strangled noises at her side that went unnoticed by either of them for a very long time.

Mikado finally broke from the kiss. His soft eyes flashed into slate grey slabs of diamond hard battlemech armor.

"I'll destroy you if it's the last thing I do," he growled at her, his voice filled with hatred, and breaking the spell that was over her. "Remember that, Kuonji. You've made me even more powerful than I ever was before."

She stumbled backwards, stunned and humiliated by the ease with which he had manipulated her. Konatsu drew her away towards the door before she could come to her senses and let her anger take over. For this offense, she would most certainly kill Mikado, and in so doing, incur the Empress' undying wrath.

He watched them both go and roared laughter, throwing his martini glass against the wall. It didn't matter that his life was about to become a living hell, so long as he was able to share that experience with the woman who had done this to him.

"I'll consider it my wedding present to myself," he declared aloud.

"Are you all right, sir?"

Ukyou shook the cobwebs from her head.

"How do you feel?" Konatsu pressed.

"Disgusted," she spat out, still not believing that Mikado Sanzenin had kissed her, and that she had enjoyed it!

"The General has a certain effect on people," Konatsu said, sensing her self-loathing for being taken so easily by his seduction. "You shouldn't let it get to you."

"Easy for you to say, sugar," she growled. "You weren't in lip-lock with him." She wiped vigorously at her mouth, wishing she were close to her quarters so she could brush her teeth. "To think I was coming to gloat!" she lamented.

It was worse knowing that if Konatsu hadn't been there, Mikado might have been tempted to bed her on the spot. Wouldn't that have been sweet revenge for him! She shuddered at the thought, and resolved to keep a little more distance from the Chief of Staff in the future. Like a few hundred light-years if she could help it...

"Shall we go to the starport, sir?"

"Yes, Konatsu," she replied. "I think I'd very much like to get away from the palace for awhile."

Kawaii City Starport, Quarantine Zone

"Where the heck is she?" Ranma asked. Ukyou had left word for them through the Starport Authority that she would meet them when they arrived on Genevieve. It had been three hours since their arrival, and there was still no sign of her.

"I think you're putting too much faith in her," Akane sniffed.

"Now what's that supposed to mean?"

Akane narrowed her eyes at him.

"You haven't seen her in ten years, and now all of a sudden she's going to go out of her way to help us steal something from the Empress' Collection?"

Ranma shrugged. "Yeah. Why not?"

"Forget I mentioned it," she said, glowering at him.

"Whatever."

He jumped up from the bench seat where he sat, and started towards the Customs gate. They had been waiting for Ucchan inside the Quarantine Zone of the starport, an area of neutrality where the system's import laws were not enforced. People and freight could not leave the zone without submitting to an inspection by the Customs personnel.

"Where are you going?" Akane asked him.

"I have no idea," he returned, not looking back. "But I thought I'd take a look around instead of sitting here taking crap from you."

Akane had only been miffed at him before. Now she was angry.

"And how exactly have I been giving you 'crap'?"

He stopped a few paces short of the turnstile that led to the inspection point. "You've got something against Ucchan," he began. "I don't know what it is that's got you so uptight any time her name gets mentioned, but every time you dig on her, it's like you're insulting me for having anything to do with her."

Akane was stunned by accuracy of his accusations. She looked away from him uneasily.

"I'm right, aren't I," he observed smugly.

"Maybe," she conceded.

Ranma walked back over to her. "You wanna tell me what's going on that has you so uptight about her?"

She looked at him with accusing eyes. "I don't like the way you let her fall all over you for one thing... It's not becoming of an officer of the Confederation... And I'm not 'uptight' about it, as you so eloquently put it."

It took Ranma a moment to understand what she was getting at. When he did, his eyes lit up. "Are you... jealous?"

"Puh-lease..." she snorted contemptuously.

He wouldn't let it go. "You are, aren't you! 'Not becoming of an officer of the Confederation...' What kind of lame-o remark is that? If you're jealous 'cause of Ucchan, don't be, okay? How many times do I gotta say this? She's a friend. Nothing more."

"You might feel that way, but does she?" she countered. "I don't think you should be encouraging her like this."

The issue of Ucchan's shows of affection towards him, and her actual motivations behind them, was one he had been reluctant to cover in any sort of detail. The truth was that with her timely departure from Tiber, he had been able to sweep all thoughts of their 'engagement' under the rug of his subconscious.

"I still think you're jealous," he said at length.

"Jerk."

Ranma grinned at her. So much for being 'whipped,' huh, Pop? "Man, it's worse than I thought."

Akane's cheeks flushed. "Ranma, I don't care about it, okay?" Her tone suggested otherwise. "Can we just drop it?"

He caught the warning tone in her voice, and decided to ease up, at least a little. "Sure. Consider it dropped." He snapped a peppy salute in her direction. "Yes, ma'am!"

Akane's expression shifted from one of exasperation to profound dismay.

"Is that all you think this is, Ranma? Some kind of game between us?"

The look on her face when he gave his mocking salute made him feel lower than snail snot.

"I'm sorry," was about all he could think to say.

"Hiya, Ranchan!" a voice called. "Sorry it took so long."

Even if he hadn't recognized the voice as Ucchan's, the look of dread on Akane's face would have been all he needed to make the ID.

"Hiya, Ucchan," he replied, turning in time to receive a kiss on the cheek from her that went a hair's breadth beyond 'friendly.' He could almost feel the daggers shooting into his back from Akane's eyes. Strangely enough, he thought, Ucchan's cute-looking adjutant didn't seem to be taking it any better than Akane.

"I had some things to do at the palace that kinda got out of hand," Ukyou continued. She brushed her uniform jacket lapel uncomfortably at the thought of her encounter with Mikado. "But enough about that." She bowed briefly in deference to Akane. "I realize that we haven't really gotten off on the right foot together, Akane, but I want you to know that I'm here to help you and Ranchan get what you needed."

Akane rose and took Ukyou's offered hand. Ranma could see lines of tension in both of their faces as they shook hands in a business-like manner.

"As long as you understand that Captain Saotome has other commitments to keep at the end of this encounter, I see no reason why we can't be friends," she replied.

Ukyou blinked away the discomfort at Akane's impersonal greeting, as well as at her implied possession of Ranma. _Captain Saotome? Oh, Ranma-honey, what did she make you do while I was away?_

"Right," she returned. "Absolutely." _Whatever, sugar_...

"So what's up?" Ranma asked her hastily, eager to defuse any further conflicts between the two before they arose. "You get everything squared with the Empress?"

Ukyou gave him a friendly smile. "Yes and no," she replied. "You see, I've sort of become involved with the Empress' wedding plans while I was here. I haven't had a chance to talk to her about diplomatic duty."

"No kidding?" Ranma said. "Azusa's getting married?"

"To who?" Akane asked. Even she wanted to know the name of the person stupid enough to want such a thing.

Ukyou gave them a sly smile.

"Ah, well, you remember, Ranchan, when I said I was having problems with my job?"

"Yeah."

"You see, Chief of Staff Sanzenin was my biggest problem. So I, well, recommended him as a candidate for marriage to the Empress. Azusa thought it was a great idea." She had to stifle a laugh, and even Konatsu's cool demeanor wavered towards mirth for a moment.

Ranma guffawed. "Way to go, Ucchan!"

She bowed proudly to imaginary applause. "It took care of the one problem, and it might help you with yours as well."

"Oh?" Akane asked her.

"Yup," Ukyou returned. "I can get you onto the palace grounds as invited guests at the wedding. It's in two days. It will probably be your best and only chance to get onto the grounds, and it will be nice and legit."

"Whoa," Ranma gushed. "Really? I mean, how did you get so much pull? I'da thought the Cult people would be calling all the shots for something like this."

Ukyou blushed. "Well, it's not all wine and roses. Her Imperial Divinity wants me to be her Maid of Honor. That's one of the reasons why I've been so busy. The Cult's been doing most of the leg-work - heck, they've been planning this wedding for a year even without knowing who the 'lucky' guy was going to be. I'm just the bag-girl for the last minute stuff."

In spite of herself, Akane was pleased by this turn of events. Getting onto the palace grounds legally would be a huge advantage over trying to breach the external security, and with a wedding going on, it would be easy to move in the crowds without being noticed.

"I'm impressed," she agreed.

"Thanks," Ukyou returned. "Look, I really hate to leave just as soon as I got here, but I have to meet with the Empress again very soon. Can I set a up a dinner date with you, and we can go over this?"

"Akane and I would love that," Ranma said quickly for the two of them. The fist that clenched at the Confederation Heir's side relaxed.

Ukyou nodded, oblivious to how close she had come to setting off a firestorm with Akane. Her intention really had been to invite the two of them. "Great! If you give me the number Pier Services set up for your ship, I'll have Konatsu phone you later with the details. Ta for now!"

She blew Ranma a kiss, and spun on her heels for the Customs Gate.

Kawaii City

"Somehow, I don't think this was what Ucchan had in mind," Ranma observed, as the seven of them walked along the painfully-cheerful sidewalks of Kawaii City from the parking garage to the restaurant where Konatsu had made the reservations. The festive air of the city on the eve of Azusa's wedding was reaching a fever pitch, with street vendors hawking every manner of souvenir and trinket to commemorate the event. The banners and flags featuring General Sanzenin and the Empress were everywhere.

It was late summer on Genevieve, the air was warm and muggy, and dark clouds fought with the setting sun to dampen the gingerbread splendor of the city.

"Major Konatsu said we could bring a few friends," Akane remarked, a little overwhelmed by the city's saccharine charm. She preferred the stately architecture of Gondolin over the fairy-tale hyperbole of the Empress' capitol.

Ranma looked at Ryouga and Akari, his father, the brooding Pansuto Tarou, and the always-friendly Doctor Tofu.

"Ryouga, Akari, the Doc, and even Tarou I can understand, considering his inside knowledge of where we need to go," he said to her. "But bringing Pop along is probably like pouring gasoline on a fire."

"Stow it, boy," Genma growled. "Wild horses couldn't keep me away from something as important as this."

Ranma winced at his father's pun. "Ha ha. Fine. Whatever. The first sign that you and Ucchan are gonna go at it hammer and tongs over something, you're outta there, okay?"

"I've put the whole thing behind me," Genma replied sourly. "If she can't do the same, then that's her problem."

"All the same, Mister Saotome," Doctor Tofu added. "It might be best if you kept a low profile."

Genma grumbled something incoherent in reply. The seven of them continued on.

"You've been pretty quiet this whole time, Ryouga," Ranma observed. "What's up?"

Ryouga blinked several times as if coming out of a trance, which, considering the fact that he was holding Akari's hand as they walked, probably wasn't far from the truth.

"I'm just hoping that it won't rain," he remarked finally.

"Aw, come on," Ranma said, pointing up to the sky. "It's going to have to get darker than that."

A distant rumble of thunder punctuated his statement.

"All the same," he continued nervously. "Let's get inside, quick." He inclined his head towards Tarou and his father. "The last thing the people of this city need to see are two giant... whatever you ares..."

"And not a cross-dressing freak?" Tarou added snidely. He sipped at a can of iced tea purchased from one of the most obnoxiously cute vending machines any of them had ever seen.

Ryouga looked ghostly pale with horror at the idea that someone would add the mention of a certain little black pig, but Tarou seemed to take Ranma's cue, and held his tongue.

"Hey, at least I'm _human_," Ranma returned.

Tarou splashed the tea in Ranma's face.

"Why, so you are!" he laughed arrogantly. "A fem-boy, but human."

Ranma wiped at the tea in her eyes. "You just asked for a one-way ticket to the Hurt Locker..." she menaced.

"Ranma, stop it!" Akane snapped. She cast an angry look at Tarou. "And you!" she barked. "You're supposed to be showing us good faith. If this kind of disruptive behavior is what I can expect of you, then you give me no choice but to break off our agreement." She looked up into his cold unyielding eyes. "I may not be in any position to clap you back in irons, Tarou, but I still have your battlemech. Remember that."

Tarou bristled, his muscles twitching, ready to spring. The looks on the faces of the two Saotomes, of Hibiki, and even Doctor Tofu, told him that they would not hesitate in their response. More effective against him than their implied threat, however, was the fact that a confrontation now would ruin his chances of discovering the location of the Ryuugenzawa System.

"I remember," he said to her evenly. Then to Ranma. "I apologize."

Ranma didn't look like he was going to accept.

"Knock it off, boy," Genma admonished his son. "He apologized already."

"So?"

"Keep your focus on the mission," Genma said to him.

Ranma snorted. "Apology accepted," he grunted. "This time."

"Might I, ah, suggest that we get inside?" Ryouga added sheepishly. The sky seemed to be getting darker, and the street vendors were starting to pack up their wares against the approaching summer thunderstorm.

Ukyou looked up from her notes on the wedding at a nudge from Konatsu. Akane she recognized, and Doctor Tofu, and especially Ranma's less than welcome father, but the rest of their party were total mysteries.

"Where's Ranchan?" she asked Akane, who stifled a laugh.

"I'm right here," Ranma replied, brushing idly at her mandarin blouse.

Ukyou goggled at the buxom redhead wearing Ranma's clothes. She had Ranma's pretty blue-grey eyes, and her hair ended in a pigtail like Ranma's, but that was where the resemblance ended, in her opinion.

"What the hell -?"

Ranma blushed. "Remember that long story I mentioned the day you left Tiber?"

She vaguely remembered something along those lines. Like why he was all wet when he came down the ramp of his ship...

"Sort of," she hedged. The others made themselves comfortable at the remaining chairs, and a tiny part of her that maintained her reserve of sanity made a note to request a larger table from the management.

"Well, this is it," Ranma finished. "Don't ask how, don't ask why, just believe me when I say that I am the same Ranma Saotome you saw this afternoon at the starport. I just change into a girl when I get wet."

Ukyou blinked several times in disbelief. "I don't understand." She gave a desperate, questioning look to Akane, who nodded solemnly.

"You don't want to know what Pop turns into when he gets wet," Ranma added.

"I assume then," she said haltingly, "that there is a way to reverse this effect?"

"Hot water," Ranma, Genma, Akane, Ryouga, Akari, Doctor Tofu, and Tarou all replied in chorus.

This is too weird, Ukyou thought frantically.

"I-I guess it would be easier if I just accepted it, wouldn't it," she remarked, her voice quavering.

"Trust me," Akane agreed with her. "It is."

"So..." Ukyou said slowly, to keep the conversation going. "When did this happen?"

Ranma did the math. "About four and a half months ago."

"Never mind all that," Genma said to them. "We have more important matters to discuss. The boy here says you can help us get what we need on this planet. Is that true?"

Ukyou nodded slowly, a little amused by the fact that Genma Saotome continued to refer to the obviously female Ranma as his 'son.'

"I can," she replied.

"Let me handle this," Akane broke in. Genma shot her a grumpy look, but complied. "What exactly can you do to help us?"

Ukyou weighed the implications of their exchange, such as, who was really in charge here, Genma or Akane? "Well," she began. "I can get you four invitations to the wedding. That should get you onto the palace grounds with a minimum of fuss, since the invitations are naturally for exclusive guests of the Empress and Her court.

"I can also draw out for you a basic floorplan of the, ah, place, along with the details of the security arrangements. I'm not sure exactly what you have in mind to do, so I'll leave that up to you."

She didn't get much further than that, because of the sudden uproar at the front of the restaurant. Konatsu got up to take a closer look, but by the excited cries from the staff and patrons, she began to get a sinking feeling.

"Ukyou-dear!" the voice of Azusa the First, Goddess-Empress of the Federated Shiratori, cried out to the open air.

"Shit!" Ukyou spat out under her breath. "What in blazes is she _doing_ here!?"

Tarou excused himself abruptly and headed for the kitchen.

"Ukyou-dear!" Azusa cried again. The restaurant manager quickly pointed her out.

Before anyone else could make their escape, Azusa and her entourage had them surrounded. Ranma had never seen so many beautiful looking idiots in her entire life.

"Bow, you nitwits," Ukyou hissed at all of them.

They all stood and bowed low for Azusa as she approached the table, a distraught expression on her otherwise fatuous face.

"Ukyou-dear!" she wailed. "You simply _must_ help Azusa-chan!"

Ukyou cringed. Whatever could possibly bring the Goddess-Empress of the Federated Shiratori to _her_, instead of the other way around?! The pleading look on her Empress' face answered at least part of her question. In the past week she had become more than an advisor to Azusa, she had become a confidant, even something of a friend. The normal barriers between the Empress and her subjects had come down where Ukyou Kuonji was concerned. She had to respect the trust with which Azusa had granted her.

"Yes, your Majesty! Anything!" she replied.

Azusa sat down in Genma's chair, the elder Saotome being jerked away from it without hesitation by Ranma and Akane when the Empress glanced around for an empty seat.

"Azusa simply cannot find enough bridesmaids!" she wailed, a sound so whiney, pathetic, and frighteningly intense that Ranma jumped at the sound of it. "Azusa-chan absolutely MUST have twenty-five bridesmaids, or else Azusa-chan's wedding is RUINED!"

Her entourage clucked sympathy for their Empress. Ranma tried not to gag.

"I-I don't understand," Ukyou cried. "I thought that was all worked out? We had everyone selected and their gowns fitted and everything."

Azusa made an incoherent whimpering sound.

"NO NO NO!" she cried out. There was an element of rage in her voice. Terrible rage. Ukyou wondered what the hell had gone wrong. "Three of them are so... so... _POOPY_ that Azusa refuses to have them as Her bridesmaids!"She sniffled loudly. "Oh, what is Azusa-chan to doooo...?!"

Ukyou bit down on her lip, reeling with disbelief. This whole mess smelled rotten, and she suspected that at least one petty rivalry within Azusa's court had brought this disaster to pass. Who could say how three handpicked bridesmaids had been discredited so close to the wedding?

"Ukyou-dear!" Azusa wailed once more. "You must help Azusa-chan!"There was no mistaking the hard edge in her Empress' voice. If she didn't think of something, and soon, more heads were going to roll - perhaps even literally. Azusa could get downright homicidal in moods like these, and no one in the Cult was going to refuse her.

"Your Majesty, I have a solution," she began, knowing that she was about to get in over her head. WAY over her head...

"You do?!" Azusa spluttered, her lower lip trembling expectantly.

Ukyou gestured to Ranma, Akane, and Akari. The third girl she didn't know from Eve, but those pink streamers of hair running from her temples were exactly the kind of thing the Empress went to pieces over.

"Your Majesty, allow me to introduce three very intimate friends of mine from the, ah, Palatine System; Ranma, Akane, and..." She shot an intense look at Akari, who blurted out her name by reflex. She then made a subtle cutting gesture at the other two before they could protest, just in case they were stupid enough to try it in front of Azusa.

Azusa looked them over, Ranma first, who smiled back vacantly, turning pale with hastily-suppressed horror and shock.

"Oooo!" Azusa squealed, tugging happily at Ranma's pigtail. "How cute!"

She turned next to Akane, who by dint of nineteen years as a daughter of Grand Duke Tendo, curtsied with poignant grace.

It was Akari's pink streaks of hair that settled the matter.

"They're PERFECT!" Azusa squealed. "They absolutely _MUST_ be Azusa-chan's bridesmaids!" She kissed Ukyou's cheek. "Ukyou-dear, whatEVER would Azusa do without you?"

_Oh, I don't know_... Ukyou thought darkly to herself. _Hopefully fall off a cliff or something_...

Empress Azusa, convinced that all was once more right with the world, skipped away without so much as a 'good evening,' leaving her entourage to scamper off after her. Ukyou caught a few dark looks from recently acquired rivals among them as they left, and she knew that no matter what, she had to get out of the system after the wedding. She enjoyed untouchable favor now, but with powerful members of the Cult slowly dripping poison into Azusa's ears, it could not last. Her fall would be hard indeed.

Only when the Empress and her sycophants were long gone, and the envious looks from the restaurant's patrons had given way to a return to normalcy, did Ranma and the others dare speak.

"What did you just do, Ucchan?" Ranma growled with surprising ferocity at her. Akane could only seethe. Akari and the others gaped in shock.

"I just did you a huge favor," she returned, the wheels turning in her head.

"How's that again?" Ranma shot back. "You just volunteered me to be one of her bridesmaids!" she hissed. "ME! I'm a guy! I ain't wearing no stinkin' bridesmaid dress!"

"First of all," Ukyou hissed back. "No bridesmaids, no wedding. No wedding, and you guys just lost your best chance to break in and get that stupid key. Second of all, you are all now, by royal decree, _trusted_ members of her court. If you _do_ get into a compromising situation, at least you'll have _some_ leverage to get out of it. Third, now I can get more of your group into the palace without a fuss, since I've just freed up three of the four invitations..."

She blew out a sigh that lifted her bangs. "Look, I was kinda on the spot there, in case you hadn't noticed. You simply don't understand how dangerous she can get when she's in these kinds of moods."

"Ukyou's right, boy," Genma muttered.

"Pop!" Ranma protested. "How can you say that?"

"Focus on the mission, boy," his father returned. "What's more important, getting that last crypto key, or your macho pride?"

She clenched her fists tight. "I can't believe this," she said between clenched teeth.

"Okay," Akane said to Ukyou. "I don't like this, but I see your point. We can work this to our advantage."

Akari nodded. "It might even be a little fun," she said softly.

"Fun," Ranma snorted.

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," Ryouga barked at him. "We have a lot of work to do between now and..."

"The day after tomorrow," Ukyou supplied. "You're right, we don't have a lot of time. I have to get the three of you fitted for gowns and shoes, get hairdresser appointments, accessories, makeovers, the list goes on and on."

"Allow me, sir," Konatsu demurred.

"Thanks, honey," Ukyou said to her adjutant. "I wasn't going to ask, but..."

"But you have far too much to do already," the former kunoichi finished for her. "I understand, sir."

"I'm glad someone does," Ranma harrumphed. She got up from the table. "I'm gonna go look for Tarou. After what he told us about his connection to this place, I don't blame him for wanting to split when he saw who was coming."

"I don't know about the rest of you," Tofu added. "But I think we had better take this planning session somewhere else." He gestured about to the patrons and staff who continued to chatter about them.

Ukyou saw the doctor's point.

"Agreed. How about going back to your ship?" she asked Akane. "It's probably the most secure place going on this planet."

"Fine," she said, nodding. It was going to be an interesting working relationship with her rival, she decided. Her only misgivings lay in Ukyou's supposed altruism, which she didn't buy for an instant. What was she going to want for all of this so-called cooperation?

Bridesmaids' Dressing Rooms

The Imperial Palace

6 May 3025

"I can't believe that I'm actually wearing this," Ranma groused. She was dressed in a frilly peach colored gown of taffeta, silk, and lace that dripped with gold beads and seed pearls. Her shoes were too tight, her boobs hurt because the gown didn't give them any support, and her crimson hair was piled up into an extravagant coiffure that was glossy with hairspray. Akari, similarly dressed and coiffed, was helping her with the final touches to her wealth of satin ribbon bows.

"You look cute," Akane teased her. Her own gown was a little too tight in the hips for comfort, but given how little time they had available for fitting prior to the wedding, she supposed it was a minor inconvenience. It could have been much worse.

Ranma shot her a dirty look. "Right now, 'cute' is the last thing I feel like looking." The fact that they had spritzed her with perfume was not helping her mood.

Ukyou stepped into the dressing room, her own gown swishing sibilantly at her feet. In addition to the skillful application of makeup from Konatsu, the skin on her face, throat, shoulders, and arms was lightly dusted with a touch of glitter, as per the wishes of the Empress for her Maid of Honor. She stopped short upon beholding Ranma in her bridesmaid attire, still not used to the fact that her beloved's gender was subject to change with a little cold water.

"Twenty minutes until showtime," she announced to the assembled party. She turned then to address Akane specifically. "How's Ranma-honey holding up?"

Akane rolled her eyes in Ranma's direction. "He'll make it," she replied. "I think."

"How do you girls walk in these stupid things?" she complained, trying to mince about without breaking her ankles. "No one can see our feet in these dresses, so why can't I wear my black slippers instead?"

"At least he'll be at the end of the dais," Ukyou observed, ignoring Ranma's question for the preposterous thing it was. _Men!_ "Konatsu and I will be right up by the altar, in the middle of the action."

Ranma nodded sullenly. She was to be the last of Azusa's twenty-five bridesmaids, which would put her near the very edge of the cathedral and practically out of sight with the audience's attention focused on the bride and groom.

The plan was for her to slip out of the ceremony and into one of the chapels located in the transepts set to either side of the cathedral's nave, and from there doff her gown and join up with Tarou. Then they'd hit the Collection of Cute while everyone was busy with the wedding.

It was supposed to be simple, but Ranma knew better.

"I can hack it," she told the assembled women. "So when do we have to be in place?"

"Ten minutes," Ukyou replied. "That will give us just enough time to get there." She gave them a vacant smile, having been practicing for the sake of the moment. "Shall we?"

Ranma nodded once more, cringing at how easily Ucchan could emulate the vacuous followers of the Cult of Azusa. She felt butterflies in the pit of her stomach, putting them down to the pre-mission jitters and not the fact that most of the planet would soon be seeing her in a dress.

The file of Bridesmaids stretched and snaked from the entrance of the cathedral proper to the entrance of the nave. Ranma craned her neck around the mill of press, well-wishers, and hangers-on, to see a line of tall, tuxedo-clad Groomsmen standing opposite them. The rustle of so much lace, frill, and starched linen was a sound unto its own in the close confines, forcing everyone to speak just a little louder to be heard. There were so many people present with no apparent justification for being there, that Ranma wondered how necessary the security passes Ukyou had obtained for them really were.

She could see Ukyou standing pensively near the entrance with the Best Man. The Groom's carriage would arrive first, and he would await his bride just outside the cathedral. Once they were together, the groomsmen would escort their opposites among the bridesmaids down the central aisle two-by-two, until at last General Sanzenin and Empress Azusa followed, arm in arm, with their flower girls and ringbearers and other personal retainers. She heard the other bridesmaids whispering about how long and extravagant Azusa's bridal train was, and how many girls it took to tend the thing. All Ranma knew was that as the last bridesmaid, she would be the first to walk down the aisle.

She cast Akane and Akari furtive looks. They were chatting together about other weddings they had attended, what the bride wore, the reception, and crap like that. For a couple of girls who didn't know either the bride or the groom, they seemed to be awfully into this wedding. She wondered if it was just one of those things that made girls different from boys.

A cheer was raised outside the cathedral, where most of the castle's population was watching from the inner keep and from the balconies and windows of nearby towers and minarets. Ranma watched as General Mikado Sanzenin, resplendent in his ceremonial full dress uniform with cape, gloves, plumed tri-corner hat, knee-high boots and brilliantly polished sabre, strode proudly up the steps of the cathedral with his honor guard, waving to the crowds as he awaited his bride.

He did not wait long. Azusa's carriage was drawn by twenty-four white stallions, each bedecked in shimmering gold and mirrored tack and harness. The carriage itself was something out of a fantasy movie; all baroque curves and sweeping lines, the pale exotic hardwoods handrubbed with rare scented oils. Gold and platinum-iridium trimming, dripping with Russian-cut faceted beads of leaded-crystal, blazed with the faerie light of thousands of tiny solid-state lasers. Hussars on white destriers with checquered red and gold tabards, and white baldrics festooned with medals and decorations draped across their chests, clutched long lances tipped with pennants of the Shiratori white and gold, their naked dress sabres glittering in their wide black belts. Their horses were specially shod with flint inserts that flashed and sparked on the cobblestones as they cantered proudly to the cathedral, and a hundred silver bells on their saddles, reins, and stirrups jingled merrily in the afternoon sunlight.

In the courtyard beyond, battlemechs in pristine condition stood at attention, the ones with hands carrying enormous battle-standards that snapped and fluttered in the breeze. A flyby of aerospace fighters was planned for after the ceremony, she had heard mentioned.

Ranma watched all this with equal parts curiosity and distress. Was all this pomp really necessary? If he did end up marrying Akane someday, their wedding might end up looking very similar to this one. It was enough to gag a maggot.

The carriage doors were opened by the footmen, and an older gentleman dressed in a Federated Shiratori Army uniform stepped out. He turned and offered his hand to the Empress, who stepped with forced grace upon the red carpet that led to the cathedral. Ranma could see that her difficulty was caused by the enormous pile of white lace stacked up behind her in the carriage. As she and the older man - who was obviously a relative of hers by his resemblance to the Empress - walked, the bridal train unfurled from within the carriage. A flock of young girls waiting in the wings of the procession appeared a few at a time to tend the monstrous swath of white as it spilled from the carriage. Ranma watched in disbelief as the thing only finished issuing from the carriage when Azusa had mounted the steps of the cathedral, a distance of some thirty meters!

The Empress was in white, layers upon shining layers of it, silk and satin in a luxuriant brocade bodice and skirt exquisitely embroidered with lilies, clouds, and doves in platinum thread, and inset with seed pearls, quarter-carat diamonds, and tiny silver hearts. Her veil was set with a cloissone enamel comb studded with diamonds and topazes, inlaid with lapis lazuli, and trimmed with laser-etched gold. Her golden brown hair fell in plaited waves from her temples to her waist beneath gauzy layers of lace. What Ranma marvelled at the most about her were her eyes, which were as blue as cornflowers, and as vacant and huge as saucers.

The older officer graciously handed Azusa over to Mikado at the top of the steps. He bowed for the general, and then withdrew to the side. Mikado whispered something to Azusa, who brought a shy hand to her lips before waving excitedly to her worshipful subjects. Mikado waved once more as well, and then they turned to enter the cathedral.

That was their cue, Ranma realized. The music had already started, supplemented with a hundred voices from the Imperial Choir.

Ranma minced up to the center of the foyer as her escort held out his arm for her. She accepted it with a forced smile, noting that the man's infuriating pretty-boy looks could give Tarou a run for his money. The man led her gracefully towards the open doors of the cathedral nave and the crowd of thousands who waited within. Akari joined up with her escort several paces behind them, she noted with one last backwards glance. Akane offered up a teasing wink.

She remained tense in her escort's arm as they walked with stately precision towards the altar at the far end of the cathedral. In that moment, in the arm of a man, she felt as if it would take a week to get there. It did not help that her father, along with Doctor Tofu, Happousai, and Ryouga, had managed to find seating along the center aisle.

The urge to smack her father upside the head as he made faces at her was difficult to quell. Doctor Tofu's bemused smile was only a little better. Ryouga, fortunately for the sake of his continuing existence, was too busy staring in awe at Akari several paces behind, and Happousai had already reached some kind of pretty-girl overload, and merely watched the procession with wistful, dewy eyes.

At last they reached the altar. They bowed briefly, then she and her escort went their separate ways to the ends of the dais. Akari followed several seconds behind, then Akane. Both gave her tiny smiles and then resumed their required eyes-front positions, bouquets clutched to their breasts.

As the Wedding March began to swell from the high vaulted ceilings it was time for Azusa and Mikado to walk down the aisle together. The first glimpse she got of the two was when they stepped up onto the dais to receive the benediction. Azusa's train extended more than halfway down the center aisle, she imagined.

Ukyou and Konatsu stood near the Empress' side, both looking radiantly happy, which Ranma supposed was normal for Ucchan, being a girl and all, but downright weird for her adjutant. As Ukyou was still getting used to the Jusenkyo Effect, so Ranma was having a hard time adjusting to the idea that Konatsu, the girl who had been so helpful in getting her squared away as a bridesmaid, was really a GUY beneath the long hair, makeup, and the pretty dress!

And people think _I'm_ a freak!

It promised to be a long service. She hoped it would.

"Are you ready, fem-boy?" a voice hissed at her side.

Her eyes narrowed to slits as she regarded Pansuto Tarou. Who was a _bishonen_ guy like him to talk about being a 'fem-boy'? The mercenary mechwarrior was dressed in a white tie and jacket cut short bolero-style in the front, and full-backed with tails behind. A broad white sash trimmed with gold thread wrapped his trim abdomen, and Ranma could make out the thin silhouette of a stiletto tucked within, above the left hip. White trousers with a high waist to complement the bolero jacket and white shoes buffed to a shine completed the outfit.

"That depends, monster-boy," she returned, remembering Ryouga's unflattering sobriquet for him. "Are you?"

Tarou snorted with contempt. "I'll be waiting."

He slipped into the transept, which had been cordoned off from the cathedral nave with a large hanging tapestry. Few observers paid him any mind, their attentions fixed upon the wedding of their beloved Empress.

She cast a glance towards Akane, who seemed to be waiting for her to make a move. As the assembly was beckoned to be seated, she ducked purposefully beneath the tapestry, and into the transept. Tarou stood near a door leading off from the small candle-lit chapel, a kit bag in his hand. The sound of the priest's voice echoed over the cathedral's sound system beyond the tapestry. No one had followed her to see what was the matter.

The first thing Ranma did was take off her shoes, setting them beneath one of the pews near the candles. She'd go barefoot for this heist before trying any kind of physical activity on those blasted heels.

"There's a storage room through here," Tarou informed her. "We can get changed there before we proceed."

"Did you bring the hot water?"

"What for?" Tarou asked. "You're going to have to change back into a girl anyway when we finish."

Ranma bristled, but decided not to push the issue. There were no guarantees that they could pull this off in time for the closing processional.

The storage room was clean, indicating that it was used frequently. That was good in that their clothes wouldn't get dirty sitting there, but it raised the slight possibility that someone might come along and discover them. Tarou began to strip off his white tuxedo as Ranma fumbled with the zipper in back of her gown.

_Gods, I hope no one walks in on us right now_, Ranma thought darkly as they undressed. _This would be difficult to explain_...

Tarou undressed first, and slipped into a stretchy black bodysuit of synthetic weave.

"Didn't remember the bra, eh, Saotome?" he asked her.

Ranma self-consciously covered her bare breasts. "Even if I wanted to wear one, which I don't, they wouldn't let me. Something about the bra-lines showing through the dress."

"A pity," the _bishonen_ mechwarrior grunted with mock sympathy.

"Eyes front, jerk," Ranma growled back. "Just because I happen to be a girl right now doesn't mean that I want to swing the other way."

Tarou flipped her a matching black bodysuit. It was sized for her, meaning that he had never intended to bring the hot water. Ranma put it on, glad for the support it gave her sore breasts. Maybe there was something good to be said about bras after all.

A winding stairwell stretched up from the storage room to a service landing that allowed access to the cathedral's ceiling for cleaning and maintenance. They would need to make their way across that access. From there, they could gain access to the cathedral's spire.

"Is this the way you escaped?" Ranma asked Tarou.

"Don't be an idiot," Tarou retorted. "Why would I have taken such a convoluted way out of the tower? The only reason we're going this way is because our access to the palace was limited to the cathedral for the Empress' wedding."

"I was just askin'," Ranma grunted. "You seem to know your way around here pretty well, is all."

Tarou laughed bitterly. "This planet is my homeworld," he replied. The door to the service catwalk opened, letting the sound of the wedding ceremony roll into the landing. "I still remember what they used to call this world, before the Empress changed everything to suit her whims."

"Oh yeah?" Ranma chirped "Do tell."

"New Avalon," Tarou replied. "My family were part of the nobility here."

"I can see that," she agreed. "You've got the snotty noble attitude in spades."

Tarou ignored the remark with a soft curse, and stepped out onto the catwalk. Fortunately for them, the television cameras the networks had set up to cover the wedding were all controlled by remote, meaning that there was no one to encounter as they crossed.

"Our mechwarrior family at first supported the Empress and the Cult of Azusa," he continued. His voice was barely audible over the blaring from the speakers, and collective sounds of the huge audience below. Ranma spied Ukyou casting a questing look towards the ceiling for them, and waved.

"Go on," she pressed, when Tarou paused in irritation at her antics.

"So I used to come to the castle with my family a lot when I was little," the _bishonen_ mechwarrior continued. "I came to know the place very well."

His voice drifted off as they scuttled across the catwalk.

"Then Azusa got you," Ranma observed.

"It wasn't her, per se," Tarou corrected. "It was the Cult." He opened the far access door and slipped through. "Azusa merely remarked on how 'cute' I looked once. Then one day during a visit, I was taken by two of them from my parents before they could leave the castle, gift-wrapped, and sent to her tower."

Ranma grimaced at the image conjured up by Tarou's words.

"She was surprised at first to see me," Tarou continued, his voice growing heavy with emotion. "But she quickly got used to the idea of having me around. I was better than a pet, you see. I could talk. I could play with her - at least, in as much as I was a toy." He shuddered at the memory of things Azusa had made him do and say.

"You let this happen to you?" Ranma asked in disbelief.

Tarou gave a bitter grunt. "I didn't have a choice," he replied. They were at the stairwell leading up to the spire. "The caretakers were all Cultists, people who thought that giving Azusa everything she desired was the most important thing they could do in the entire universe. There was no right or wrong for those people. They would say or do anything to make their Empress happy.

"To keep me in line, they threatened to have bad things happen to my parents. I was just a child, and having seen what they had done to me, and how easily it had happened, I believed them. I played along, thinking I was protecting my family. I was proud of myself for enduring."

"So then what?" Ranma asked as they climbed the endless series of steps.

Tarou looked away for a moment. "One day I received a message from one of the servants whose devotion to Azusa wasn't as strong as the Cult believed. She said that my parents had been stripped of their titles and property for demanding that the Cult return their son. My father escaped the system with the family 'mech to join the counterrevolutionary movement, and my mother and some of my cousins were imprisoned for his treason. She died there, six months after I was taken. Poison is what I was told, but no one knew if she was murdered or had committed suicide."

Guilt crept up within Ranma for giving Tarou a hard time.

"So I escaped," he went on. "There was nothing holding me there any more. Not after five years of hell. Once I was free of the castle, I took a chance and visited some old friends of my family. They were smarter than my own kin, deciding that it was better not to make any waves. They were able to smuggle me out of the system to rejoin my father. I didn't, of course, since he had died in the sporadic fighting during the first two years of Azusa's reign, but the family's 'mech was still there, being held for me or someone else in my family who might yet escape."

"By the time I claimed my family's 'mech, it was too late to overthrow the Cult. I became a mercenary instead. Three years ago I met up with Hibiki, and the two of us became partners of a sort."

He stopped near the top of the spire. "So now you know my tale of woe. Repeat it to anyone, and I'll cut your heart out."

Ranma brushed him aside. "Relax," she returned, eyeing him warily. "So you're doing all this for us out of some kind of revenge against the Empress?"

Tarou's countenance darkened. "I have my reasons. One of them is to honor the bargain I struck with Lady Akane. The rest are my own business." His fists clenched tight for a moment before he continued, as if coming to a decision within himself that he did not happily embrace. "And as for the Empress... No matter what she did to me or put me through, I know that it wasn't her fault. She's a spoiled little child, Saotome. A child who doesn't know any better... Can you really hold her accountable for wrongs she can't possibly realize she has committed?"

"I guess not," Ranma replied.

"No," he said, mostly to himself. "You cannot."

He reached into the kit bag and withdrew a pistol. Protruding from the muzzle was an expanding hook tied to a coil of thin-gauge aramyd-weave line.

"It's a bit overly dramatic, I know," he offered. "But no one will be looking up at us if we cross over to the donjon proper from the cathedral."

He leaned out of the spire's window to look around. Ranma watched the huge bronze bells above them for a indication that they might begin to toll. The numerous signs printed on the walls warned of what happened to people without proper hearing protection when the bells started ringing.

Tarou took aim and fired. The pistol made a coughing sound, and the grapnel dug into hard stone. He pulled taut on the line with the pistol, then detached the spool from the pistol and carefully anchored it to the spire with a contact adhesive. The line was barely visible to them from where they stood. Ranma doubted that anyone on the ground could see it at all.

Tarou then produced hoods, gloves, and calf-length soleskins for their feet.

"Aramyd weave," he declared, handing Ranma a set. "Don't touch that line with anything other than this stuff unless you want to experience the joy of becoming a traumatic amputee."

"I've worked with this type of gear before," Ranma grunted, pulling the hood over her head. Her hair was going to look like hell after she took it off, she noted ruefully, but a splash of bright red color was bound to attract unwanted attention. Once they were fully clad, the two of them resembled ninja. "You first or me?"

"You," Tarou said. "You don't weigh as much."

Nothing the two of them could do would cause the line itself to part, but there were no guarantees with the grapnel or the adhesive base on the spool. By all rights, both ends should be able to support their weight. She hoped.

Ranma sighed and took a deep breath. She let it out slowly to cleanse herself before checking that the line was still secure. She then pulled herself out onto the line, hanging by her hands and crossed ankles. It was easy going with a gently rising grade that would pay off handsomely on the return trip if they were in a hurry.

She was on the roof of the castle within minutes. The various minarets, domes, and towers that gave the structure its fantastic look were easily accessible to two motivated and well-equipped burglars like she and Tarou. It was almost laughable that her years spent as a Scout had better prepared her for this moment than all of her battlemech and aerospace combat training combined. Akane's admonition that she no longer steal for personal gain came back to her.

This wasn't just for herself, she knew. This was for the Confederation. For Akane. And no, she wasn't 'whipped,' as her father put it. She was doing this because it was the right thing to do!

Tarou followed, the line and its two anchors holding steady under his weight. When he was across, he unslung the kit bag, and handed Ranma a small pouch with her tools and gear.

Azusa's tower was naturally the tallest. It was also centrally located, projecting up out of the lower six levels of the castle, and festooned with ubercute carved stone creatures out of mythology who perched at various points from the structure. It would be an easy climb if their first method of entry failed, but it would increase the chances that they would be noticed.

"At least we won't have to worry about most of the security alarms during daylight," Ranma replied. She had spied several video camera arrays mounted on the roof, but for the most part, they were directed down at the vast courtyard. They could avoid the others, and even if they missed one, she knew from experience that few camera displays were manned by an attentive operator.

"They've changed a few things," Tarou noted. "There weren't so many cameras up here before."

"Knee-jerk reaction to your escape," Ranma returned. "They didn't plan them out very well, or they'd have some pointing up instead of down towards the courtyard."

They made their way across the roof. Ranma noted that Azusa's palace had a lot in common with Azure Cloud Castle in regards to security. Namely, that it was weak and poorly arranged. No one had caught him in his free-climb up to visit Akane in the South Tower, and it didn't look like anyone was going to catch her here.

The roof access to the castle was shut from the inside. The mechanism was a standard latch, meaning that you had a little leeway with the access itself. After verifying that it had no security system contacts, Ranma wiggled at it for a moment to discover how much play she had to work with, then had Tarou hold the thing up as far as it would go while she looked inside with a folding mirror and a penlight.

She removed one of her slim-jims from the kit bag, and slipped it into place. The latch sprang a moment later, and the hatch popped open to reveal a storage closet below. The smell of cleaning products was stong.

Ranma was the first one down, examining the door while Tarou joined her. There were no contacts on the door, and no one seemed to be outside as she listened. She opened the door a crack, to peek out into a carpeted hallway.

She called up a mental picture of the sixth floor as detailed by the floorplan Ucchan had recalled for them. There was an elevator equipment room at the end of the hall, their next destination.

She crept out into the hallway, with Tarou close behind. This level of the castle seemed deserted with the wedding going on. Most of the staff were on the lower levels, putting the finishing touches on the reception.

The equipment room door was locked with a non-contact cardkey system, which was a very important detail that Ucchan had neglected to mention.

"Can you get through?" Tarou hissed. "If we have to climb the tower, we need to start now."

"Gimme a second," Ranma returned. Most non-contact cardkeys were little more than very short range radio interrogation systems. Inside the cardkey was a bundle of simple electronics and a coil of copper wire that acted as the transceiver antenna. Much like the IFF transponder in an aircraft, they were inert until they received an interrogation signal from a reader, then used the energy of that signal to send back a low power reply with the correct passcode.

Ranma had a programmable dummy card in her kit bag of burglary tools, but she didn't know if they had the time to go through every possible code sequence, even on the limited string of bits the cards were capable of handling. As with most things of this nature, however, there was a bypass - in this case, the Fire Service code. In the event of a fire, the cardkey system went inactive and unlocked the door to allow swift access out of the affected building. Normally, this set off alerts within the security system, but you could accomplish the same thing locally without making a fuss.

"Well?" Tarou asked.

"I said gimme a second." She fished through her kit bag for a small yet powerful electromagnet, and ran it carefully along the lower left edge of the flat scanner plate. There was an electrical contact for the Fire Service release in that general area for that make of system, and she needed to pull it closed with her electromagnet to activate it.

She was rewarded with a halting series of clicks as the contact alternated between open and shut. She narrowed down the precise location, then had Tarou pull open the door. It opened silently for them.

"A lady of many talents," Tarou observed dryly.

"Watch it, bub. Don't let the tits fool you. I'm all guy," Ranma growled.

"Touchy, too."

She crept inside. The elevator equipment room was mostly empty. A few control panels on the wall drew Ranma's interest.

"What are we looking for?" Tarou asked her.

"An SCM," she replied, dusting off a laminated sheet of tech's crib notes near one of the units.

"A what?"

"System Control Module. Most of these elevators are arranged in banks. Something's gotta tell them which car answers which calls." She found one that looked promising. "I think this one is it."

"How can you tell?" Tarou asked, curious.

"Azusa's tower is too tall for a hydraulic elevator system," she replied. "They're only good for five or six floors, which is fine for the lower part of the castle. This control unit is for a winch and cable system."

She studied the schematic for a moment, trying to remember what Major Beauregard had taught her about control protocols for that particular make of elevator system. Like most Scouts, Beauregard had a little larceny in his heart, and had taught her a few things about security systems and related equipment, and most importantly, how to get around them.

She opened the panel with a stubby barrel key on a ring of similar keys from her burglary kit, and set a few internal switches accordingly.

"Great," Tarou grunted. "What was that for?"

"The west elevator for Azusa's tower now only answers call requests from the sixth floor. Anyone on another floor who pushes the call button will have to wait for the east car to answer."

"Supposing someone on the sixth floor calls for an elevator while we're busy?"

"I can take it out of service for as long as we need to once we get there," she replied. "We'll have our straight shot right to her Collection."

They left the elevator room just in time to avoid a passing security guard check. Ranma watched from the shelter of the cleaning supply closet as the guard tugged at the door to the equipment room, then yawned and continued on his rounds. Apparently no one cared about supply closets, even ones with roof access...

Doctor Tofu nudged Genma awake.

"I don't see Ranma yet," he said to the elder Saotome. "Do you think something has gone wrong?"

Genma rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The ceremony dragged on with no clear end in sight. "It's too soon to worry," he replied. He pointed to the Empress and General Sanzenin. "When those two are finally married, and Ranma isn't back yet, _then_ we'll start to worry."

Akane wished for a moment that she was with Ranma and Tarou. The bouquet she clutched to her chest was becoming tiresome, and the ceremony itself dragged on and on without end. There was no way that she would stand for this exhausting level of ceremony in her own wedding.

She coped with the boredom with little daydream fantasies, projecting herself into Azusa's place before the altar, and substituting Ranma's cocky grin for Mikado's studied expression of contentment. It was a little ridiculous, she admitted, considering her reluctant fiance's feelings regarding marriage, but she was swept up in the moment. She was in love with him, the feeling becoming more and more comfortable with her every day, and where was the harm in hoping that he felt the same?

She didn't think that this was an unreasonable hope, but the fear of his rejection lingered in spite of this. He was such a study in opposites that it made reading his heart nearly impossible. Still, the one question remained which gave her that sense of hope: why else would he have come back to the expedition, if he didn't feel _something_ more than duty for her?

He _had_ to feel something more for her.

She considered telling him how she felt about him later that evening, at the wedding reception - assuming of course that they didn't have to make tracks for the starport. Ukyou was still a threat to her, and maybe if she told him that she loved him, he would...

Yeah, right, she groused to herself. Now you're _really_ dreaming, Akane... If there was one thing she had learned with absolute certainty regarding Ranma Saotome, it was that you didn't back him into a corner. Not in war, and not in love. Pinning him down with a declaration of love before he was ready for it was asking for the thing she feared most: rejection.

Azusa's Tower

"It figures that she'd have a special key for this," Ranma groused. They were in the west elevator serving Azusa's tower. The standard barrel key that handled access to restricted floors for most elevators had been replaced by something much more formidable: a magnetically-encoded lock.

"You can get around it, right?" Tarou asked, his confidence high after watching Ranma's high-tech burglary skills at work.

Ranma knew better. The key was a piece of treated stainless-steel with carefully delineated bands of magnetic permeability encoded with data bits. Dummy-keys similar to the ones used to bypass cardkey and magnetic swipe readers existed, but they were extortionately expensive and difficult to find. It was one of the tools she did not possess in her kit.

"Right?" Tarou pressed, getting irritable.

She opened the panel with her electric-driver, and studied the interior. Her frown gave her away to Tarou.

"You can't get around it," he grunted.

She prodded at the wiring around the key reader mechanism. There were no schematics printed inside the panel for her to examine. If she played and probed with the internals long enough, she could probably find out which contacts unlocked the proper floor, but it would also involve having someone back in the elevator equipment room looking at the SCM.

Tarou might have possessed some rudimentary electronics skills, since all mechwarriors needed a little technical knowledge if they wanted to do basic maintenance on their 'mechs, but this was specialized gear, and they had no means of communicating back and forth even if he did know what he was doing.

"I could," she replied. "But not in the time we have to do this." She pointed to the ceiling of the elevator. "It looks like we climb from here."

He shook his head at her in disgust.

"Don't give me that crap," she growled at him. "I got us this far, didn't I? This kind of stuff happens when you pull a job like this practically on the fly. You deal with it, and move on."

She searched the interior of the elevator for the trapdoor. There was a section of decorative soft-ceiling that needed to be pulled first, and she made short work of it with her driver.

The elevator shaft was dimly lit, and had a refreshing breeze blowing down from above.

"Punch for the highest floor you can get without using a key," she told Tarou as she pulled herself up through the open hatch.

Tarou did so, and the elevator started to move, smoothly and silently. Ranma inspected the positioning contacts for the elevator's leveling circuits as it moved. When the elevator stopped, she poked her head down to regard him.

"Now take the elevator out of service." She tossed him a barrel key. Tarou inserted it in the proper lock and turned the service switch to 'off.'

They had two floors to climb to reach the forbidden level of Azusa's personal apartments. It was easy going, though the ladder rungs were thick with dust that made Ranma's nose tickle. The locking mechanism that held the shaft doors shut when there was no elevator car present was released, and the two of them pulled the doors open just wide enough to take a look.

Two soldiers stood at sloppy attention on the opposite side of the small elevator lobby, looking sleepy and bored. Ranma could tell by the amount of pink in the decor that they had come to the right place. The doors slid shut with a bump, making her cringe. The two guards, sleepy though they looked, might have noticed it.

"What's wrong?" Tarou asked with a whisper.

"We've got a welcoming committee on the other side," she replied.

"Armed?"

She tried to remember what she had seen of them in that brief instant. "Pistols, I think. There are two of them."

"We can handle them," he returned.

"Yeah, but can we do it without sounding an alarm?"

"Are you suggesting that we turn back and try to climb up from the outside?" Tarou said, his eyes hardening in challenge. "There's no time for that."

Ranma blew out her breath with a snort. "There's gotta be another way. How did you get out of her Collection in the first place?"

"There is a dumbwaiter that services her apartments," Tarou replied. "It leads to a pantry kitchen on the floor below her Collection. I climbed out a window there, and then down to the roof of the castle."

Ranma looked down. The elevator was stopped on that floor. "Why didn't you say so before?" she complained. "We could have gotten off on that floor and taken the dumbwaiter up!"

"But you were the one with the plan and the nifty thief's tools," Tarou returned. "I thought you could handle it."

"Never assume," Ranma said, starting back down the ladder. "Get moving."

They slipped back into the elevator. Ranma replaced the decorative soft-ceiling, and hoped no one would notice the tiny paint chips she had dusted the carpet with in the process of removing it.

Ranma unlocked the elevator long enough to open the doors, then took it back out of service. The pantry kitchen was deserted with all of the staff preparing for the reception.

Tarou led her to the dumbwaiter, which would prove to be a tight fit for her, let alone the much taller mechwarrior. Still, it was serviceable.

"Send me up," Ranma declared, climbing into the cramped compartment.

"What about me? I can't get into this thing and then push the button."

"Then tell me where I need to go."

Tarou grit his teeth. "When you're out, I'll send the car all the way down to the main kitchen, and climb up the shaft."

"Suit yourself."

The private apartments of Azusa the First were not as gaudy as Ranma had been expecting, but not by much. Pink still seemed to be the dominant color in use, and the decor could best be described as Barbie Rococo. The dumbwaiter opened on an airy dining room with tall, French-style doors that led to an intimate balcony facing away from the castle, and graced with a stunning view of the distant mountains.

She waited for several minutes, making observations about the room and trying to orient herself within it with respect to the rest of the tower while Tarou labored up the shaft. When he finally appeared, he shot her a dark look and heaved himself through the service door.

"Now where?" she asked him.

It took a moment for him to remember. "That way," he replied, pointing to a door.

Ranma listened carefully at the door before opening it. The room beyond was Azusa's bedroom. A large brass four-poster bed with curtains dominated the room. Dozens of stuffed animals were neatly arranged atop the pillows. The rest of the room was cluttered with various bric-a-brac, and the decor continued along the Barbie Rococo theme.

"You sure?" she asked Tarou.

"Positive. That first door over there is the bathroom. The second one leads to a spiral staircase down into the Collection. Every morning when she gets up, so goes down to say hello to all of her treasures, and at night she wishes them all good night."

Ranma shot him a questioning look. "You're kidding me, right?"

"I wish I was, Saotome."

A glint of metal caught Ranma's eye, and she snatched up a tiny metal key with a gilded, heart-shaped handle. It was a magnetically-encoded key, she realized, but it was far too small to have operated the elevator. She decided to keep it for the moment, in case it opened anything useful.

As Tarou had stated, the second door led to a spiral staircase. They took it down one level, with Ranma feeling as if she were descending into the Abyss itself. This was forbidden territory, the stuff of awful legend and terrible nightmare. The stairs opened up into a large chamber that was filled with the objects of Azusa's affection.

They beheld her dreaded Collection of Cute.

"What a bunch'a junk!" Ranma remarked, holding up a plastic toy that looked like it had come from a fast food kid's meal. A collection of worthless plastic rings likely recovered from gumball machines was carefully spread out on a shelf next to the toy. More baubles and gewgaws were piled up on other shelves. Stacks of collectable trading cards featuring famous mechwarriors of the Inner Sphere were piled up elsewhere, though some, like the card for Tatewaki Kuno, had been defaced with a metallic silver marker - presumably by Azusa herself. It was the most tacky, tasteless assemblage of consumer trash she had ever seen, and there were even weirder trinkets. A pair of pliers, the cap to a tube of lip-balm, what looked like a hairy rubber ball attached to a key chain, a collection of singularly unremarkable rocks that had been plucked off the ground, a ratty bird feather, some seashells in varying degrees of repair, a napkin with some scribbles on it, and dear god... was that a... a _fishcake_ sitting on a blue china plate?

The larger items, like the giant plastic statue of a cherubic boy in checkered coveralls clutching a hamburger, a 1:10 scale Orion battlemech model painted in a camouflage scheme suitable only for a firefight on the planet of wasp-waisted and big-bosomed amazon supermodel dolls, a Totoro traffic sign pilfered from the Ghibli System, and a two-meter tall stuffed Godzilla with a top hat and a black bow-tie, occupied the available floor space.

"You were expecting treasure out of Aladdin's Cave, maybe?" Tarou commented snidely. All the same, there was a haunted look in his eyes as he looked over the chamber where he had spent five miserable years of his life as a prisoner. The chamber itself gave no sign that he had ever been here before. All traces of his captivity had been swept away.

"You said it yourself, she's a magpie," he muttered.

Ranma was aghast. "A pack rat's more like it. How the hell are we going to find the sixth crypto key in the middle of all of this stuff?"

Ukyou Kuonji was starting to get nervous. The rings were being exchanged, and still there was no sign of Ranchan. They were running out of time!

The fact that Mikado gave her menacing looks over Azusa's shoulder every now and again was not helping her case of nerves. She had really bungled things by doing this to him. Her only chance to escape his wrath was to resign her commission as planned, and then browbeat her way on board Ranchan's ship. With Akane calling the shots now, that would prove difficult. If that idiot Genma had still been in charge, she could have guilt-tripped them into it.

There was another way, she reflected sadly. If she demanded a share of whatever they could find at Ryuugenzawa in exchange for the dowry owed her family, she could probably prevail upon Akane to allow her to come along. Though it would mean giving up on her ironclad claim to Ranchan, it didn't mean that she would stop working on him. It just meant that his engagement to Akane took precedence, until she could get him to renounce it and elope with her.

That shouldn't be too hard, right? she asked herself. There doesn't seem to be all that much between them anyway...

"What does this key look like, Saotome?" Tarou asked her.

"It looks like a flat piece of polished rectangular metal, probably colored gold," Ranma replied, remembering Chance G. King's description of the treasure Azusa had stolen from him. Her voice took on a hopeful lilt. "Why, did you find it?"

"Apparently not."

Ranma sighed wearily, and started through another shelf. They were pushing the limits of their time with this search, but even if Azusa herself walked in on them, she was not giving up. It had to be here somewhere!

"We're out of time," Tarou remarked, checking his chronomter. "The wedding has to be about over by now."

"You wanna leave, go ahead," Ranma returned, her voice taking on a hostile edge. "I'll find my own way out of here when I get what I came for."

"I was merely making an observation," the _bishonen_ mechwarrior said to her.

Ranma started on the next shelf, wondering if she hadn't passed over it by mistake.

"You've honored your bargain with Akane," she said at length. "You got me in here, and I thank you for your help. Don't feel like you have to stick around on my account."

"Idiot," Tarou grunted. "Do you think that I will get anything out of this deal if you get caught?"

"Then shut up and watch the stairs."

She kept searching, trying to puzzle out some kind of pattern to the way Azusa presented her junk. There was none. None at least that a rational mind could discern. Who knew what drove the candied mush that Azusa called a brain?

"If we find this key, will the location of Ryuugenzawa be revealed?" Tarou asked idly. He watched the stairs, expecting someone to come along at any time.

"Once we plug it in to the decrypt machine with the others, yeah, I guess so."

Tarou nodded slowly in thought. Though he could not bring himself to blame the Empress for what had happened, he could blame the Cult. He would destroy them, and he would end their stranglehold over the Federated Shiratori in one bold stroke once the Furinkan Combine possessed the secrets of Ryuugenzawa. At the head of the advancing Combine armies, he would see both the Joketsuzoku, AND the Cult of Azusa annihilated.

"Sonofabitch!" Ranma cried triumphantly. It was always vaguely shocking to hear her curse so proficiently, Tarou mused.

Ranma Saotome looked down at the gold plaque that would finally bring an end to their search. It was laying on a bed of white velvet, and encased in a clear plastic box, sitting apart from everything else in the collection. She didn't know why, but she almost felt like crying. For more than three years she and her father had been searching for the six keys. Three hard, lean years, times when they didn't have two C-bills between them.

She opened the box gingerly, and withdrew the plaque. It looked no different from the others, except for the color. From her kit bag, she pulled out a piece of gold-anodized flat stock that had been machined on board the _Dragonfly_ during the transit from Tiber. It looked close enough to the real thing to fool an airhead like Azusa, especially since she had no idea what the real thing was.

She placed the fake key on the velvet and carefully closed the box. Turning her back to Tarou, she tugged open her bodysuit and slipped the real crypto key into her cleavage, the metal cold against her skin.

"Do I want to know where you're putting that?" Tarou asked her sardonically.

"No."

"Fine. Let's get the hell out of here. I had my fill of this place years ago."

Ranma had to agree with that. Twenty minutes was way too long for a place like this.

Akane watched as Mikado drew back Azusa's veil and kissed her with the kind of tenderness that made every woman in the cathedral sigh, herself included. The moment didn't last for her though, as Ranma was still not back.

_Where is that idiot?_ she wondered fearfully. _The wedding had perhaps five minutes left to it, and then they would have to file out with their escorts. If Ranma didn't show up, and soon, there was going to be a groomsman without a bridesmaid, and people were going to start asking questions_...

Ukyou tried not to gag as Mikado kissed his blushing new bride. While the collective sigh from the ladies in attendence threatened to overpower the rising level of the music and the smattering of polite applause from the men, she glanced up to the catwalk. A flash of movement caught her eye, and she saw Ranchan and her accomplice dashing pell-mell across the cathedral.

_Hurry it up, you jackass!_ She winced at the thought of how little time Ranma would have to get back into her bridesmaid gown.

"Okay. NOW it's time to start worrying," Genma remarked to Doctor Tofu. He tugged at the starched collar of his rented tuxedo nervously.

"Keep your shorts on," Happousai replied. He gestured idly with his unlit pipe at the tiny figures of Ranma and Tarou dashing across the service catwalk. "I see 'em."

"Do they have it?" Genma asked excitedly.

"How should I know?" the wizened mechwarrior snorted. "Who do I look like, superman? Find someone with telescopic x-ray vision, why don't you?"

The bridal couple began their triumphant march down the aisle and to their waiting carriage. The small army of young girls tending Azusa's train assembled with military precision, Ukyou noted. Too bad the real military couldn't function like that...

Being the Maid of Honor, she would be among the first to leave the cathedral after the Imperial Couple and their handlers. She would not be around to see if Ranma made it until after she was outside.

Konatsu cleared his throat gently, reminding her to step up and take the arm of the Best Man, a man drawn from Azusa's court, and who didn't really know Mikado from Adam, she thought with a smirk. If it wasn't for the fact that her nemesis was already making plans to use his new-found proximity to the Empress against her, she would have laughed out loud at how he had been so thoroughly railroaded into this.

_Come on, Ranma!_ Akane thought, gritting her teeth as she turned towards the center of the dais to be escorted from the cathedral. She took the offered arm of her designated pretty-boy, and spared one furtive glance back towards Akari, who was beginning her turn. There was no sign of Ranma.

"Your shoes!" Tarou hissed at Ranma, as she wriggled the rest of her way into the gown and zipped up on the run.

"No time!" she hissed back. _I hated the damn things anyway_...

Her hair was a mess, as she had expected, and as she burst through the tapestry to the cathedral nave, she knew she looked pretty disheveled. The pretty-boy she was supposed to be with was already making his way towards the center aisle, his eyes opening wide in surprise at her hasty appearance.

She caught him just in time, drawing a chuckle from those in the front of the cathedral who could see what was happening, and clucks of reproach from obvious vac-head members of the Cult.

_Screw 'em_, she thought to herself. _If they only knew where I've been_...

Her groomsman looked mortified at having to walk with someone so unkempt, and he tried to maintain as much distance from her as possible while still remaining arm in arm. Ranma put on a huge and mindless grin to compensate.

As she passed by her father, Ryouga, and the Doc, she made a tiny wiggle of her bosom at them. She nearly snorted with laughter as Ryouga got an eyeful of her cleavage and blinked in shock. Genma noted the thin sliver of gold tucked carefully between her breasts and gave her a silent thumbs up.

Happousai vaulted from the pew with a cry of glee, and was dragged down in midair by Doctor Tofu before he could cause more of a scene.

Once they cleared the doors to the foyer, her groomsman broke from her with a snooty look of disgust and embarrassment.

"Same to you, pal," she growled back at him. The foyer was filled with the wedding party, press, and guests who had ducked out a little early to watch the Imperial Couple come through. It was a mad house of noise and celebration. Through the great windows of the cathedral foyer, Ranma could see the Empress' carriage pulling away under full honor guard escort to the castle.

She ran into Ukyou and Konatsu first.

"Cutting it awful close, aren't we, Ranchan?" she said to her.

"Hey, I got what we came for," she replied.

Ukyou threw her arms around Ranma in a very unsisterly hug. "Terrific!" she cried. She was kissing Ranma's cheek just as Akane and Akari appeared.

"Ahem... I hope I'm not interrupting anything," the Confederation Heir said to the two of them, red-faced.

"Just celebrating, sugar," Ukyou replied sweetly. "Ranchan did it."

Akane's expression changed in an instant.

"You did?"

Ranma nodded smugly.

"Can I see it?"

Ranma produced the plaque from her cleavage, and was about to hand it to Akane when Genma suddenly snatched it up from behind.

"I'll take that, thank you," he replied.

"What's the big idea?" Ranma asked her father.

Genma slipped the sixth key onto the chain with the others, and put it around his neck, tucking it back under his shirt and buttoning up his tuxedo front once more.

"As long as I'm holding the other keys, I might as well keep this one safe. Unless you want to carry it around the rest of the night the way you brought it in here." He gave his bow tie a final tug. "We've got all six keys, boy. I'm not going to lose them now."

He brushed past. "I'm returning to the _Palomino_," he told them. "Have fun at the reception for me."

Ranma put her hands on her hips, her mouth hanging open in surprise. "Man, now I've seen everything. Pop actually turning down free food and an open bar...?"

"Let him go, honey," Ukyou said to her. She brushed a hand at Ranma's touseled hair. "My, you look like hell. We've got a massive wedding party photo shoot to do after this." She pulled Konatsu over to them. "Konatsu, honey, see what you can do with Ranchan. I have to get the rest of the wedding party over to the castle."

Ranma looked agog. "You mean there's MORE of this crap?"

Akane playfully brushed back a lock of Ranma's hair from her ear.

"I can tell how many weddings _you've_ been to in your life."

"Yeah, ONE." She made an exaggerated sigh. "Let's just get this over with so we can get off this planet, okay?"

The Private Apartments of

Her Imperial Divinity, Azusa the First

7 May 3025

Mikado Sanzenin awoke with a start. He was in a soft, very large brass bed; a four-poster bed with gauzy curtains to isolate its occupants from the rest of the room. He blinked several times at the offending daylight that streamed through the drapes, his mouth dry and cottony.

It took him several moments to realize that he was in Azusa's bed, but when he stretched out and knocked a plush stuffed-unicorn toy off the mattress, it came to him in a rush. He had done it. He had married theGoddess-Empress of the Federated Shiratori, and as his lack of clothing affirmed, he had consummated their union.

As his power of recall slowly came into focus, he remembered that making love to her hadn't been as bad as he had feared. It was actually quite enjoyable - aside from her childish squeals and her over-the-top desire for role-play prior to and during the act. The twelve or so double martinis, the magnum of champagne, and the three cognac nightcaps he had consumed at the reception probably also had something to do with the favorable assessment of his wedding night. He had taken his pre-nuptial bliss preparations quite seriously.

He sat up in bed. The sound of his new bride humming sweetly in the adjoining bathroom gave him a sense of satisfaction.

Azusa appeared a moment later, wearing naught but a short peekaboo nightie that left nothing to the imagination. Mikado raised an eyebrow appreciatively at her. There was nothing childish or immature about her body, he noted. Nothing at all.

She gave him an adoring look, and skipped over to the side of the bed to sweetly kiss him good-morning. Something had changed within her overnight, as if the act of their union had really made her into a woman, and not the overgrown child of yesterday. It was a thought that gave him more than a little satisfaction.

Perhaps being married to her won't be so bad after all, he mused. If she does a little more growing up, she might even be tolerable...!

"Good morning, Mickie darling," she chirped at him, all smiles. She looked extremely good in that nightie, Mikado mused. He let her irritating pet name for him pass without comment.

"Good morning, love," he returned with relaxing charm. "You look ravishing."

Azusa smiled prettily and fluffed at her hair. "Would Azusa's darling husband care for breakfast?" she asked him. She might have done a little growing up, he realized, but her speech patterns hadn't changed. His eyes fell upon her lovely body once more.

_Damn, she looked good_...

He gazed at her, his eyes hungry, but not for food. He reached out a hand for her, pulling her with gentle urgency into the bed. "Let's skip breakfast and go straight to dessert."

Azusa giggled, falling over on top of him, and straddling her long bare legs at his hips. "Oooo, Mickie," she cooed in his ear. "You're so naughty!" By the look in her eyes, she wasn't objecting to a little slap-and-tickle before breakfast.

That was when he noticed that something did not feel right beneath the sheets and comforter that separated them. He reached underneath the bedcovers to straighten himself out, as it were, figuring that Azusa was simply sitting on him funny. When his hand reached his loins, he stopped cold, his eyes lighting up with dread.

"Ooooo!" his bride squeaked. "Azusa almost forgot!"

She fumbled around on the bed for something as he lay there, paralyzed with cold terror. Not finding what she was looking for, she whipped off the bedcovers, exposing him. He did not want to look, but his eyes drifted down his torso to his groin anyway.

His manhood was trapped within an elegantly crafted cage. The cold slate gleam of the metal told him what it was made of: aligned-crystal steel, the hardest, toughest substance known to humanity. The cage was fixed to his waist by a slender strand of the stuff sheathed in soft silk to prevent chafing, which was good considering that it fit him tightly - so tightly in fact, that he'd have to have the ends of his pelvis shaved down if he wanted to wriggle out of it. A tiny magnetically-encoded padlock, also made of aligned-crystal steel, kept the arrangement locked into place. The final insult, however, was the blue satin ribbon bow someone, presumably Azusa, had tied upon it.

"Now where did Azusa put that key?" she asked herself, digging through the bedcovers. She gave him a puzzled look, trying to remember if she had even seen it recently. The key had not been necessary when she had rigged him up early that morning...

"Never mind that!" Mikado yelled. "Why am I in this... this... thing?!"

She popped up from her fruitless search under the bed.

"It's a chastity belt!" she chirped, apparently unaffected by his strident tone, nor the fact that the key was missing. "Isn't it cuuuuute?"

"It's not cute!" he protested. "What made you think you could put this damn thing on my penis!"

Azusa drew herself up haughtily. "No no, Mickie," she reproached him gently. "We're married." She patted the cage affectionately. "That means Little Pierre now belongs to Azusa!"

Mikado purpled. His hands wrenched at the chastity belt in desperation, forcing Azusa to draw back from him in dreadful anticipation.

"Ah ah," she warned him. "That's dangerous."

An electric shock lanced through him, biting into his hands as well as other, more sensitive portions of his anatomy. His yelp of anguish nearly shattered the windows.

"See?" she said to him, a bemused grin on her face.

Mikado groaned in agony as he lay back on the bed, little wisps of grey smoke drifting up from his scorched fingertips and his... well, never mind that.

Azusa, sensing that her darling Mickie was no longer in the mood, bounced off the bed and went back into the bathroom, the missing key obviously no longer a concern to her.

The Grand Hall of

Her Imperial Divinity, Azusa the First

6 May 3025

"Some gratitude," Ukyou muttered over the sounds of the wedding reception that swirled around them. "After all my help."

"We're grateful for it," Akane assured her, glad that Ranma was busy fending off potential suitors over by the buffet, and not present to hear his beloved Ucchan's plea. "But the answer is still no."

"I resigned my commission with the Federated Shiratori today," Ukyou pointed out. "After tonight, I will have no more ties to the Empress. Now explain to me why you really don't want me coming along." She leveled a piercing stare in Akane's direction. "It's because of Ranchan, isn't it."

Akane returned Ukyou's look.

"My reasons are my own," she answered.

"Ha," Ukyou snorted. "The truth is that you're afraid you'll lose him to me if I come along. Admit that much, at least."

Akane seemed to tremble a moment with anger at her accusation, proving her rival's point without saying a word.

"I don't have to explain myself to you," she said finally.

Ukyou could almost hear her window of opportunity slamming firmly shut over the chatter of the guests and the dancing music. She shouldn't have been so overt with her accusation, she realized, but her temper and her firm belief that Ranchan would choose her over Akane had brought it forth.

Having resigned her commission, and knowing that Mikado would come after her at the first opportunity, she was out of easy options for the future. She steeled herself for what she knew she had to do.

"Let me make this easier for you, sugar," she began. "Genma Saotome owes my family for the dowry which he took..."

"That's _his_ problem," Akane returned.

"Hear me out," Ukyou insisted. "Now I'm willing to renounce my engagement to Ranchan in exchange for a share of whatever you find at Ryuugenzawa."

THIS had Akane's interest.

"What kind of share are we talking about?"

"Enough to cover the dowry, plus a comfortable sum leftover for me, seeing as how I've just left my current employer, and need to make a fresh start somewhere."

Akane eyed her dubiously. "And you'll formally renounce your engagement to Ranma in exchange for this?"

Ukyou took a deep breath before responding. "If I get a share of the Ryuugenzawa find large enough to cover the dowry, yes."

Akane thought it over. It would be easy to say no, but with the _Palomino_ still on Genevieve, it would also be easy for Ukyou to expose their crimes to the Cult of Azusa out of spite. She did not like the idea of any more foreigners joining them on what was supposed to be a secret mission to find Ryuugenzawa, and she did not like the idea of having Ukyou close at hand, where she could work her considerable charms on Ranma.

All the same, if she could expunge her rival's claim on Ranma, it might prevent a lot of hassle in the future. Her own engagement would take precedence. After that, it was just a matter of convincing the man she loved to grow up and come to his senses.

"All right," she said at length. "I agree to your offer, as long as you recognize that I am in command of the expedition, and that you will obey my orders."

Ukyou had to swallow her pride in order to accept. A lot of it.

"Deal, but we bring Konatsu along as well." She might need a loyal ally outside of Ranchan around no matter how civil the Tendo Heir might seem to be about the whole affair.

"Fine, but he doesn't get a share," Akane said, agreeing to accept the stunning _bishonen_ adjutant as additional baggage if nothing else. He was a likable sort of fellow for a cross-dresser with more gender identity problems than even Ranma, but his usefulness to the expedition was dubious at best.

"The poor dear wouldn't know what to do with it if he did," Ukyou agreed.

League of Five Nails Army Depot

Planet Condorcet, Oroboris System

The League of Five Nails

9 May 3025

Hikaru Gosunkugi grimaced at the results of his latest horoscope, which foretold reversal and disaster in the near future. Not satisfied with this, he shuffled through his favorite pack of tarot cards, and flinched as the Eight and Ten of Swords featured prominently in his reading with the Magician, the Emperor (reversed), and the Tower. Reeling with dismay, he cast the _I Ching_ multiple times, and received the hexagrams _Sung_ (Conflict), _Lu_ (Treading Carefully), _Ta Kuo_ (Breaking Point), and _K'an_ (Danger) which spoke of betrayal, suffering, and death if immediate yet cautious action was not taken to rectify the situation.

The trouble was, he did not know what was wrong with his situation in order to rectify it.

Survival instincts were strong with him though, and he jumped up from his oracular queries to order his DropShip readied for immediate lift off. As his hand fell upon the telephone in his private quarters on the depot compound, an air raid alert began to wail.

Sweat began to pour from his brow, matting his stringy black hair as the sounds of fusion turbojets screamed overhead to the accompaniment of detonating bombs. The explosions rocked the depot, making his teeth ache.

Hikaru threw himself out of his quarters at a run, staggering out into a hellish vista of destruction. DropShips burned on the landing pads as a few of his security detachment battlemechs engaged in a futile exchange of fire with dozens of fighters from the Furinkan Combine. His warehouses were going up all around him, geysering massive fireballs into the sky. The heat was blistering from a hundred meters away, and the convection forces threatened to pull him off his feet and suck him into the inferno.

"Evacuate all forces!" he screamed to one of his staff officers. The man ran blindly towards a bomb shelter, ignoring him.

Hikaru spun around, watching the depot burn from every corner. The Combine fighter wings made another pass, stitching beams of coherent light into the few surviving battlemechs that opposed them. With growing dread, he realized that this battle was already over, and that he had lost.

He was then catapulted into the air with the shockwave of an exploding bomb, the heat of the burst searing his mouth and throat as he screamed. He had time for one question as the merciful blackness took him.

How had the Furinkan Combine managed to ambush him?

Hikaru Gosunkugi opened his eyes.

He was not dead, as he expected to be, but as his eyes adjusted to the lighting and the muted droning of voices resolved themselves into coherent speech, he wished that he was.

He was strapped down to a gurney in the sickbay of a starship, the out-of-place tug of faux-gravity told him. His stomach could always tell the difference between centrifugal force and real gravity. The interior of the sickbay was not done up in the standard pastel-green paint scheme of a League of Five Nails vessel, and the burly Furinkan Combine Marines who watched over him confirmed his dire suspicions of where he was.

"He is awake, my lord Prince," a voice declared from out of his restricted line of sight. The straps that held him in place also kept his head very still.

Tatewaki Kuno appeared abruptly, strutting into view with a look of haughty glee plastered on his handsome face.

"Ah, cher-Cousin," the Combine Prince greeted him with hollow sincerity. The term of address he used harkened back to the days before the Star League, when the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere had shared a common enemy in the domineering and expansionist Terran Hegemony. It was a time when the member of a Great House afforded his peers chivalry, courtesy, and hospitality. Hikaru doubted he would get much of that from Kuno.

"I trust that thou art comfortable?" Tatewaki continued, all smiles.

Hikaru could not move his head, and his attempt at speech ended in a hoarse croak that hurt his throat.

"My physicians tell me that aside from mild trauma to the mucus linings of thy mouth and throat, thou art well," Tatewaki informed him. "Indeed, when I hadst learned from mine own troops that thou hadst been discovered lying hither and yon at bomb crater's edge, I was vexed with concern for thee."

He looked him over for a moment.

"Imagine for a moment the full-measure of my relief at thy apparent lack of serious injury," he said at length. "For taking little satisfaction in those hurts gained by impersonal bomb and stray beam, know you that I have many injuries to inflict upon thee with great and careful malice."

Tatewaki turned to one of his physicians.

"He is fit to be moved?" he asked imperiously.

Hikaru waited with dread for the doctor to speak.

"Yes, my Lord," a voice replied.

Tatewaki nodded in satisfaction before turning to the Marines.

"Take him to my private dojo," he instructed them.

The ranking Marine saluted at this. "What shall we do with him once we are there, my lord Prince?"

Tatewaki Kuno had been waiting for this moment through two long months of humiliation, reversal, and defeat. He had planned for it, and the troops who awaited his command in the Sick Bay had been trained especially for this event. That they asked their lord at all was merely an observation of the formality that he demanded of all his forces.

He turned a baleful eye towards Hikaru before responding.

"Crucify him."

Hikaru Gosunkugi, keen student of both history and the occult, was well versed with the procedure of crucifixion as practiced throughout the ages. The Romans had been one of the first states to employ it as an inspired combination of propaganda tool and method of capital punishment, and in the process had created one of the Inner Sphere's enduring religions. It had died out as a practice as that very religion absorbed the power of the Empire, yet returned in fits and spurts throughout the ensuing centuries as tyrants and despots of every stripe seized upon the method's effectiveness in making a point of their power and dreadful wrath.

Tatewaki Kuno was by and large a practical man, and known to prefer executions that were swift - beheadings with the sword for those of high rank or social class, and firing squads for the rabble. The fact that Hikaru was currently nailed with very large spikes through his wrists and his feet to a pair of thick interlocking oak beams in the shape of an 'X' meant that the Combine Prince had something truly special in mind for him.

Whatever it was, it did not seem that death was the immediate goal. For one thing, he was not actually hanging in space as would be expected of the condemned. His toes touched the deck, and though it was agony to put his weight on them, he could do so quite easily. The cross he hung upon was also tipped back slightly at an angle, allowing him further support against slipping down to hang by his wrists - which was important when one considered that the condemned in a crucifixion did not usually die from shock or blood loss, but from asphyxiation caused by drooping low enough on the cross that it interfered with the action of the diaphragm on the lungs.

Indeed, it was common practice to break a man's legs if the execution was taking longer than was desired, for then he would not be able to push himself back up on the cross for a frantic gasp of air.

Hikaru craned his neck around to inspect the chamber. It was empty save for the cold eyes of a Combine Marine who watched him with impassive silence. The crisp smell of tatami mingled with the faint tang of old sweat, and confirmed in his mind that this was indeed the personal dojo of Tatewaki Kuno. The fact that Kuno had a cross waiting for him indicated that this torture had been planned for him well in advance - probably from the day of the attack at the Capra Zenith Jump Point.

He did not know how long he had been hanging here, as the shock and pain of the first iron spike being driven through the bones of his left wrist had caused him to faint. He only vaguely remembered the other three being pounded into place, and had been quite content to slip fully into unconsciousness at the time.

Now he was awake. The only sounds in the room were the faint hum of the dojo's recirculation fans, and the steady patter of blood on the tatami from the wounds in his wrists. It seemed that as he wriggled on the cross, he reopened the clots that had formed around his wounds and the supportive wooden washers that kept his wrists and feet from wrenching free of the impaling spikes. In spite of the hot lifeblood they drank, the spikes felt icy cold through his limbs, numbing his extremities. His parched throat, raw from the heat of the explosion that should have killed him, now stung with the sensation of distilled fear.

If this was what Tatewaki Kuno had planned for him, he dreaded how long the Combine Prince would make him hang on the cross before executing him.

Hikaru opened his eyes. The Marine watching him was neither the first one assigned to crucifixion detail, nor the second. Depending on how long they went between shifts, he could have been hanging on his cross for as few as twelve hours, and possibly as long as a full day. Sweat dripped down from the hair matted to his forehead, and he was glad that Tatewaki hadn't made him wear a crown of thorns to go with his cross. Blood mingled with the sweat would have made seeing even more difficult.

It was unbearably hot within the dojo. He knew this was true, and not some product of his tormented mind, as even the Marine who watched over him was sweat-soaked in his uniform. Tatewaki must have ordered the climate control set all the way up to forty degrees. His throat was dry and cracked, a raw sensation brought on by the explosion, and aggravated by the heat and the dehydration that he suffered.

"Enervating, is it not?"

He awoke with a start, eyelids flicking open with audible _clicks_. He hadn't even been aware of slipping back into unconsciousness.

Tatewaki Kuno stood before him, regarding him with a critical and yet appraising eye, as one would examine the sculpture of a Renaissance master. He seemed pleased with what he saw. Hikaru could only imagine what he looked like to an observer.

He croaked a response. The words came out too low and too garbled to be understood. Tatewaki did not seem to care. He was probably speaking rhetorically, as was usual for him.

"I wish for thee to suffer, cher-Cousin," Tatewaki continued. "That small measure of my intent must be clear to thee by now. Aye, thou shouldst suffer for the many woes, great and small, that thou hath put upon me, though I must needs condense such misery into shorter span than the two months thou hath plagued me."

Tatewaki motioned for the Marine to step forward. The soldier did so, clutching what looked to be an oversized sponge in his meaty paw. The Marine brought the sponge to Hikaru's lips, but the frail scion of the House of Gosunkugi winced at the smell of cheap wine gone nearly to vinegar.

"I must confess," Tatewaki declared. "That whilst I loathe the religion of my upbringing, and have since spurned it for the sincere purity of Shinto and the august teachings of Confucious, I find the passion of Christ to be a fascinating tale."

The Marine managed to squeeze some of the wine into Hikaru's mouth. The Gosunkugi Heir was too weak and too parched to spit it out. The sour wine was more than a symbolic gesture on Kuno's part. It would increase his suffering as it tore at his raw throat, and serve to dehydrate him even further.

"I regret that thou couldst not reenact the march to Golgotha," Tatewaki sniffed. "Thy wounded condition and thy already frail constitution didst not permit such."

He studied Hikaru's pale, sweat and wine streaked face for a moment before giving a satisfied nod. "Aye, though I mean for you to suffer, cher-Cousin, thy death is not mine intent."

Hikaru blinked in disbelief. Kuno wasn't going to execute him?

Tatewaki raised an eyebrow, sensing Hikaru's thoughts.

"You ask thyself why it is that I, Tatewaki Kuno, do not wish for thy well-deserved end," he observed. "The answer is as simple as it is direct; I have need of thy arcane talents."

_What?_

Hikaru offered up a questioning groan, which was about the best he could manage under the circumstances.

"Thy talents are whispered of throughout the Inner Sphere," Tatewaki replied. "In exchange for thy life, thou shalt perform such magical services as I require to free the beauteous Akane Tendo and the magnificent Pig-Tailed Girl from the sorcerous grip of that foul and iniquitous archfiend, Ranma Saotome."

He brought a hand up to his chin in contemplation.

"Though it pains me to resort to such black art, I fear that I have no other choice. Saotome's hold over Akane Tendo and Pig-Tailed Girl may yet linger though I send him hither to the abyss no doubt prepared for him. They must be freed from his malignant influences, ere I slay him."

He nodded slowly in agreement with his estimation. "Do this, cher-Cousin, and thy life is spared. Mayhap thou shalt even feel the grace of the First Lord of the Star League upon thee in granted Pardon."

Tatewaki brushed his hands together, as if cleansing himself of a dirty and loathesome task.

"I shall leave thee where thou art for the nonce, that thou might further contemplate the just wrath of Tatewaki Kuno, and that thou might also come to better appreciate his mercy when it is finally granted. For in so doing, thou shalt know in time that the hand which doleth out pain is also the hand which heals with a king's touch."

He left Hikaru hanging upon the oaken beams of the cross without a look behind him.

NCJS _Dragonfly_

Martina System Zenith Jump Point

Martina System, the Federated Shiratori

10 May 3025

Ranma Saotome floated in free-fall on the Bridge with his father, Akane, Ryouga, Happousai, Doctor Tofu, Akari, Ukyou, her former adjutant and cross-dressing pretty-boy Konatsu, and Captain Ninomiya. Much to Ranma's chagrin, Hinako carried the pink and purple Siamese which had been adopted as the Ship's Cat. He kept his distance from the feline, who kept her cold violet eyes fixed upon him more often than not. Pansuto Tarou was not present on the Bridge, as he was to be released from the ship at their next destination, and no one wanted him to know the location of the Ryuugenzawa System - which was about to be revealed.

"Break it out, Pop," Ranma said to his father. "Let's see what the last three and a half years of my life have been good for."

Akane and the others present quickly agreed.

Genma Saotome produced the RADIANT-SIX quantum interference decryption device. It was the size of a lap-top computer, with slots for up to six decryption keys. He removed the keys from around his neck, and after some minutes of verifying with his notes as to their proper order, inserted them carefully into place.

"Hurry it up, already," Happousai whined.

"The data disc is next, Master," Genma announced, setting it into the reader. The unit sprang to life a moment later, asking him whether or not he wished to proceed with the decryption process.

Ranma watched as his father entered the command to do so. The unit made a few muted internal noises.

Then the screen went blank.

"Huh? Oh please, no..." Genma muttered fearfully.

"Maybe it's supposed to do that," Ranma offered weakly. They could not have suffered through so much hell just to find out that the damn thing was broken!

"Quiet, boy!" Genma growled. "I'm thinking!"

He consulted his notes once more.

"Look!" Akane cried, pointing to the display.

The device of the Star League Defense Force pixelated into existence on the unit as she spoke.

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BLACKBLACKBLACKBLACKBLACKBLACKBLACKBLACKBLACKBLACKBLACKBLACKBLACKBLACK

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The following documents have been classified BLACK by the Star League Defense Force I.A.W. SLDFOPSEC 901.7, sec A; UMBRA Classifications. These documents contain information whose existence is not recognized by public authority. Unauthorized disclosure constitutes grave damage to the security of the Star League, and is punishable by DEATH. Observe all UMBRA OPERATIONAL SECURITY requirements for the handling, storage, and dissemination of this material. Reproduction of all or part of this material without express written consent and countersign from Star League Defense Force High Command is forbidden.

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ASTROGATIONAL COMPUTER AUTOMATED

DESTINATION AND TRANSIT SYSTEM

Mk. 21, Mod. 3 & Mk. 22, Mod. 1

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SHIPALTs, Revisions, and Action Change Numbers current for this data are:

SHIPALT 3021-111

SHIPALT 3021-115

Rev 439, ACN 36

Rev 450, ACN 39

Rev 451, ACN 40

See BUSHIPS Directory of SHIPALTs, Vol. 38, 38-19-204.12 and 38-19-219.10 for details.

NOTICE TO ASTROGATORS

PURGE ALL DATA FROM ASTROGATIONAL COMPUTER, ARCHIVES, AND SHIP'S LOG I.A.W. REV 439 OF THE Mk.21/Mk.22 MAIN COMPUTER OPERATING PROCEDURES IMMEDIATELY UPON MATERIALIZATION AT FINAL DESTINATION. FAILURE TO DO SO CONSTITUTES WILLFUL DISREGARD FOR ALL OPSEC REQUIREMENTS APPLICABLE TO THIS _ACADATS_ DATA SET, AND WILL BE PUNISHED TO THE HIGHEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE BY A GENERAL COURT-MARTIAL.

ENTER TO CONTINUE

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"Get to the damn point already," Ranma groaned as he read the various revisions, warnings, and notices.

"Put a sock in it, boy," Genma hissed back. "Can't you see that this is the real McCoy?"

The decryption device began to beep for attention. Several error messages appeared, demanding immediate action.

"What's it want now?" Ranma asked his father.

Captain Ninomiya answered for him. "This device is supposed to be connected to a starship's Main Computer, translating the coordinate data set for the ship's ultimate destination into the Astrogational System," she said. The cat groomed herself in Hinako's arms. "The unit wants to know why it isn't hooked up."

"Hooked up directly?" Akane asked, curious.

"Of course," Hinako replied. "By talking directly to the Astrogational System, the ship's Main Computer is able to devise the most direct Jump route necessary to bring the ship to its encrypted destination, and all without telling anyone where exactly they're going. The Astrogator can find out by making direct queries to the memory banks, of course, but it isn't going to be something he can do without drawing a lot of attention to himself. It's just a way of keeping the whole thing secure."

"What about taking star-sightings at the destination?" Ranma asked. "They could figure out where they were that way."

Hinako nodded. "True, but they probably had some sort of procedure whereby the observatory was locked down and guarded while they were in the Ryuugenzawa System."

Akane looked at the urgent requests from the decryption device. "So what do we have to do to take a look? Plug this thing into the _Dragonfly_'s Main Computer?"

"Essentially," Hinako confirmed. The cat bared her teeth at Ranma as she yawned, making him cringe just enought to be noticed. Ukyou caught the motion from him, and gave him a concerned look.

"That wouldn't make us Jump right away, would it?" Doctor Tofu asked. He had no desire to surrender control of the ship without knowing where they would end up.

"It shouldn't," Hinako replied. "All this will do is instruct the Astrogation System to calculate the Jumps necessary to bring the ship to the destination from wherever it happens to be at that time. The actual authority to Jump comes from the Captain, and is executed from the Helm."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Ryouga asked everyone. "Let's hook it up!"

_Dragonfly's_ Astrogator produced a length of optical line with the necessary fittings, and inserted it where Genma directed. The decryption device sensed immediately that it was connected to the starship's Main Computer, and set to work.

They watched as a display measuring the Main Computer's resource management system began to dance and jump with activity. The ship's telescopes began to move automatically as the Astrogation System prepared position fixes for the Jump calculations. Even the cat seemed transfixed by the computer's function, though it could have been drawn by the flashing colors on the display.

After twenty minutes of frantic computer activity, the unit went into a standby mode. The Astrogator confirmed that a Jump was calculated, and awaited execution. Attempts to review the data were denied by the Main Computer in spite of his highest level access.

"So all we really know," Ranma observed. "Is that the ship says it's ready to take us somewhere just as soon as we give the word, but that we don't know where we're going."

"Correct," Hinako replied, petting the cat as she spoke. "Even though the Jump calculated most likely won't take us to Ryuugenzawa, but to a system on the way, we still don't know where we're going until we get there."

"What did you say about looking directly at the memory banks for the coordinates?" Akane asked.

"We can do that," the Astrogator agreed. He looked to his Captain. "With your permission, of course, ma'am."

Hinako nodded. "Granted."

The Astrogator began to prod at the Main Computer's memory banks using several high-level diagnostic commands. The security around the Jump Coordinates wasn't impregnable, but as soon as he took the Main Computer to task, it shifted into a standby mode that sounded several audible alarms at the Captain's Station, the Helm, and the Astrogation station itself.

"You see," Hinako pointed out. "You can look, but you can't do it without alerting other people. The whole Bridge crew has to be in on whatever it is you're doing, and I'm sure old Kerensky made it known that a few spies on each ship with access to Ryuugenzawa would be among them."

It took the Astrogator half an hour of queries and calculations before he had an answer. He posted the coordinates on the holographic chart table. Hinako set the cat against the seatback of her Captain's Station chair, letting her sink her claws into the upholstery for purchase against free-fall. Ranma tensed at the sight of her talon-like claws, but kept it to himself sufficiently that no one else noticed.

Hinako and her Astrogator studied the haze of tiny stars and gas clouds in the chart display. Both seemed to frown as they realized where the famed Ryuugenzawa System was supposed to be.

"Check your data again," she ordered the Astrogator in a sultry voice that did little to disguise her unease.

"I agree," he replied, still frowning in puzzlement.

"What is it?" Akane asked them, concern in her voice.

"It's probably nothing," Hinako assured her. "Just a mistake in queueing up the data."

The Astrogator returned several minutes later with a shake of his head. "The data entered was correct," he declared. "The final Jump destination is noted as displayed."

Hinako looked again. "But that doesn't make any sense," she pouted. "There aren't any stars at those coordinates."

"Come again?" Ranma asked.

She whirled on him. "I said there aren't any stars where this damn system of yours is supposed to be!" She threw up her hands. "You can't go Jumping into empty space. You need a significant gravity well at both ends of the Jump or else you're in serious trouble! No star, no gravity well!"

Ranma looked at the tiny flashing point of green light in the holographic chart that was supposed to be the location of Ryuugenzawa. Sure enough, there was no star floating in the holotank anywhere near that smudge of color.

"Where is this supposed to be, anyway?" he asked. Aside from some glyphic astrogational abstracts that meant nothing to him, there was little in the way of locational references.

"Not that it makes much difference at this point," Hinako snorted, her disappointment obvious in her voice. "That's within the Magistracy of Canopus, on the Periphery rimward of the Confederation and the Federated Shiratori, about sixty-five parsecs from our current position, or about seven Jumps, more or less."

"Canopus?" Akane asked. She knew the Magistracy was one of the more populous and organized of the Periphery states. They claimed about thirty systems with settlements, though only six had significant populations, and of those, only three were considered to have terran-type planets. The Magistracy had made a point of keeping itself out of the affairs of the Successor States throughout much of its history.

"My first tour aboard the _Dragonfly_ was as the Astrogator," Hinako told her. "We did a Special Operation in the Magistracy at your father's behest. I can't talk about it, of course, but I have been to Canopus before. As countries go, it's not bad, but outside the six core worlds, there isn't much to it. There's very little JumpShip traffic out there."

"It's isolated enough to be the kind of place you'd put such a facility," Genma insisted.

"What facility?" Hinako retorted. "I just told you, there is no star system at those coordinates! No star system, no planets. No planets, no facility!" She looked away for a moment before fixing her gaze upon the elder Saotome. Her disappointment at the failure of their mission gave way to anger. "I don't know where you got that disc, but I do know that you were fooled into believing that it was real!"

A very quiet Akane Tendo was joined by an equally pensive Ranma Saotome at her stateroom door.

"What is it, Ranma?" she asked him quietly.

He looked down at the carpeted deck. "I wanted to come in and apologize."

"Apologize?"

He nodded. "For me and Pop getting your hopes up about Ryuugenzawa."

She drew him into the room with a gentle hand in his and began to hug him. As usual for him, he tensed up at first in her embrace before finally relaxing somewhat and letting her hold him. Displays of affection, even from Akane, were still something he was unaccustomed to. He still remembered with a blush how tightly she had squeezed him that night on Tiber when he had returned to the expedition.

"There's nothing to apologize about," she sniffed. "You and your father couldn't have known better."

Ranma raised his arms from his sides and placed them around her with nervous effort. She squeezed him a little harder as she felt him return her embrace.

"I still feel bad," he replied. "You know, like we let you down."

"You let yourself down too," she pointed out quietly. "Don't forget

that."

"I - I guess so," he admitted with a nod. "All this time I've been trying to deny that I believed in the place, and here I am wishing it was real."

"I know, Ranma," she whispered. "I know."

He closed his eyes and let himself actually hold Akane instead of merely draping his arms around her. She was warm in his embrace, her body trembling with tiny suppressed sobs. All he wanted was for her to be happy, but that wasn't the kind of thing he was good at doing. Fighting was what he was good at, and sneaking into places, and piloting a LAM. Making girls happy was out of his league.

"If it was just something I could fight..." he muttered angrily. "I'd do it. I wouldn't give up!"

He felt her head turn in his embrace. Her lips brushed against his cheek, warm and with great tenderness.

"I know you would, Ranma," she whispered to him. "It's one of the things I adore about you."

Her words made him flush hotter than her kiss.

"Y-You mean that?"

She drew back from him enough to look into his eyes. "Of course I do."She touched the tip of his nose with her finger. "You have to have _some_ good qualities about you, and I think that's one of them."

"N-No," he stammered. "I meant the 'adore' part... You really, um... well, you know..."

"Yes," she replied with a tiny nod. "I do."

He tensed once again. "Oh." It came out sounding far worse than he had intended, and the warmth she had been radiating was replaced with a chill between them that made him shiver.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing!" he insisted. "I mean... It's nothing you should get mad about."

"Really?" she asked with mock sweetness. "Perhaps I should be the judge of that, hmmmmm?"

"Aw, c'mon, Akane," he returned. "You're making a big deal out of nothing." He began to squeeze her tight in an effort to take her mind off the subject, but to no avail. She pushed him away angrily.

"If that's how you feel about me, Ranma, then keep your hands off!" she cried.

"Wait!" he begged her. "You got it all wrong!"

"Oh?" she eyed him warily. "So how _do_ you feel about me, huh, Ranma?"

"I thought we agreed not to talk about that anymore," he replied, knowing that even as he said the words, they were the absolute worst thing he could have said to her. "...Not 'til after we found Ryuugenzawa..." he finished meekly.

Her eyes lit up in rage. "We agreed not to talk about the engagement!" she countered. "How we happen to feel about each other is an entirely different matter! And as for not talking about the engagement until after Ryuugenzawa, I guess you're pretty safe there - considering that we'll never, ever find it!"

She lashed out her hand at his face. He could have blocked it a dozen ways, even dodged it outright, but she was blameless, maybe even justified, in striking him. The blow spun him around - no one could slap a man's face like his uncute fiancee...

He fell to the deck, brilliant stars swimming before his eyes. As they faded away, a look of puzzlement, then of stunning realization came upon him.

"...That's it..." he muttered in awe.

Akane looked down at him angrily.

"What are you talking about?"

He bolted to his feet and ran through the open door of her stateroom.

"I got an idea!" he cried over his shoulder, the pain and humiliation of her blow lost to the excitement of the moment. "Come on!"

He didn't check to see if she was behind him as he ran for the elevator to the 'D' Deck hub. He barely registered her voice when she asked him where the hell they were going, and why.

"The ship's observatory!" he replied, stabbing at the button for the elevator. It slid open, and he stepped inside.

"Why?" she asked him again, joining him in the elevator.

Ranma took her by the tops of her shoulders as the elevator doors slid closed, his eyes burning with great intensity. "Don't you get it?"

She shrugged him off. "No, I don't 'get' it."

"Who made all the damn charts?" he asked her, impatient that she wasn't on the same wavelength as himself.

"What charts? Ranma, what in the world are you talking about?"

"The star charts!" he practically shouted at her. "Who made all the computerized star charts that JumpShips navigate by?!"

Akane, clearly flustered with the intensity of his line of questioning, blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"The Star League Bureau of Astrography!"

"Right!" Ranma returned, holding up a finger in triumph. "So if there was a star system you wanted ships to stay the hell away from, what's the best way to do it?"

Akane's mouth dropped open as she realized where he was going with this.

"...You take it off the charts..." she whispered. "It's just like Nabiki said to my father the night we were engaged..."

"'There is no star system or planet called Ryuugenzawa on any charts,'" Ranma finished for her. "She was right. All this time my Pop was convinced that the reason there was no named system for Ryuugenzawa was because it was an informal name for some system that only had a catalogue number on the charts. He was wrong. The big blank spot on the _Dragonfly_'s star chart exists because the Star League Astrographers were ordered to remove the Ryuugenzawa System from all the databases.

"Ships got periodic revisions to their charts from the Star League, and because the old charts were useless, they got discarded. Pretty soon, there weren't any JumpShips left that had any data proving the Ryuugenzawa System ever existed, and the Star League Testing Facility there was secure.

"Since it's all but impossible to calculate a Jump without a computer, and since no astrogational computer will give you the option of plotting a course to a star system that doesn't exist according to its database, the only way to get to Ryuugenzawa is with one of Pop's data discs. As long as that decrypter with the disc is plugged into the Main Computer, the ship thinks it has a chart that includes the Ryuugenzawa System!"

Akane beamed with admiration for him.

"So," he continued. "I'm gonna go the ship's observatory, and point one of the ship's telescopes at the chunk of space where Ryuugenzawa is supposed to be. If I'm right, there should be a star there, about sixty-five parsecs away, that isn't on any charts."

"And you came up with this after I smacked you one?" she asked him. The elevator came to halt at the hub, putting them in free-fall.

He shrugged. "More or less."

"I need to slap you more often," she said huskily, and pushed off from the elevator doors to kiss him square on the lips.

He blinked in surprise at first as she kissed him, then, his pulse racing in his ears, he began to kiss her back. Akane made a soft cry of surprise and delight at his show of initiative, and then the two of them threw their arms around each other to begin a new round of kisses with reckless abandon.

In the middle of their almost frantic embrace, the elevator began to answer a call, and the abrupt lurch of the car broke them apart. Akane drew away from Ranma with a shy smile, the pig-tailed mechwarrior fell back breathless against the bulkhead, surprised and a little alarmed by what had just happened between them. The elevator doors opened on 'D' Deck once again, and Ryouga floated in.

A troubled look crossed his face as he saw the two looking flushed, wild-eyed, and a little disheveled.

"I'm not, uh, interrupting anything, am I?" There was a hopeful modulation in his voice that begged them to deny his unspoken fear.

"No!" Akane replied a little too loudly. "Of course not."

"Right. Right," Ranma managed. "What could you _possibly_ be interrupting?"

Ryouga blinked several times in silence. "Forget I asked," he said finally, his face falling.

"Hey, ah, Ryouga," Ranma continued, eager to steer any further conversation as far from the currently uncomfortable subject of almost getting caught passionately kissing a certain tomboy of his acquaintence. "Guess what? We think we might have found a way to prove the data disc was right."

This lit Ryouga up. "Really?"

"Uh-huh," Akane confirmed. "We're going to find Captain Ninomiya right now to test out the theory."

"That's great!" he enthused, feeling a little better.

Akane gave Ranma a smoldering look over her shoulder as the elevator returned to the hub, making him start. "Isn't it, though?"

Captain Hinako Ninomiya gazed into the ocular for the _Dragonfly_'s Number One Telescope. Shampoo, seated in her lap, mewled in protest as she was pushed against the cold metal of the unit in the process.

"I see lots of stars," she noted tersely. "Mister Davidge, do you have a red-shift analysis on any of them yet?"

The Astrogator punched a few keystrokes into the telescope monitor next to the unit. Genma peered over his shoulder as he worked, an act which was annoying to say the least, and mitigated only by the excitement of the possible confirmation of the Ryuugenzawa System's existence.

"We should have something in a few moments," he declared. The unit display began to scroll datapoints and spectral analysis results. He studied these intently for several agonizing minutes.

"Well?" Hinako pressed. Below her, in the Fo'c'sle, stood most of the expedition's crew. There simply wasn't room enough for them to all stand inside the little compartment near the very bow of the ship known as the Observatory. Tensions ran high in the wake of Ranma's theory. If there was a star where the decryption device indicated, then they had found the Ryuugenzawa System at long last. If not, then they were homeward bound - but returning in total failure.

There were other tensions present as well. Akane had maneuvered herself as close to Ranma as possible down in the Fo'c'sle, cutting off Ukyou before she could do the same. She was emboldened by her encounter with Ranma in the elevator, so much so that she felt no regret over capitulating to her rival's offer of renouncing her engagement - but apparently not her affection - to Ranma.

There was also the turmoil that raged once again within Ryouga, who, while having no actual proof that he had nearly stumbled onto a compromising situation between Ranma and Akane, was pretty sure that it had happened. As much as he felt for Akari, the realization that Akane was slipping further and further from him was like a jagged hole in his heart. He felt an intense jealousy towards Ranma, an emotion that threatened to boil over into violence at the slightest provocation.

Ukyou grimaced at the sight of Akane snuggling up close to Ranchan. She was laying it on thick, and that pig-tailed blockhead was just standing there like a dolt, letting her get away with it!

Pansuto Tarou, barred from attending the data disc's decryption on the Bridge, managed to worm his way through the airtight door enough to listen in on the conversation. He doubted that he would learn anything useful by merely listening, but perhaps when the Ryuugenzawa System's location was confirmed, he could quietly interrogate the telescope log later for the answers he sought.

Ranma, for his part, had absolutely no idea that any of this was going on. He had a lot of things on his mind, and Ryuugenzawa occupied only a small portion of his thoughts. The girl with the short blue-black hair whose soft, warm hand had slipped surreptitiously into his was naturally foremost in his mind.

He could not believe that he had kissed her like he did, and that she had responded so enthusiastically to it. It was an experience that went far beyond anything he had ever felt before. It was worrisome too, because his sum total of experience with girls spanned less than three months, and he didn't want to make a fool of himself. He needed advice, desperately, and he knew that it would be a waste of time - not to mention being totally embarrassing - going to his father.

Happousai was right out as well. Talking to Ryouga would not only be a waste of time, it could prove hazardous to his health. His eyes flicked about the Fo'c'sle, searching for someone he could trust with his questions.

He looked no further than Doctor Tofu, who stood placidly behind them, watching up through the hatch for word of the Ryuugenzawa System. The Doc was a pretty decent guy, and had done right by him in the past.

"Hey, Doc," he whispered to him.

"What is it, Ranma?" Tofu asked him.

"Could I talk to you later about something."

Tofu nodded. "Of course you can. What about?"

Ranma felt heat rising in his face. Akane was far too close to miss what he was saying. "It's kinda personal. I'll tell you later."

"Analysis shows one 'G' type main sequence star at a distance of 65.12 parsecs," Davidge declared solemnly. "That fits the indicated value for the Ryuugenzawa System, ma'am."

Hinako's reply was drowned out by the cheer from below.

"Quiet!" she finally screamed, making Shampoo wince in her lap. She punched at the intercom button.

"Bridge; Officer of the Deck," came the reply.

Hinako scratched Shampoo thoughtfully behind the ears as she spoke. "Officer of the Deck, this is the Captain. Commence preparations for Hyperspace Jump."

Wexford System Nadir Jump Point

Wexford System, the Federated Shiratori

10 May 3025

NCJS _Dragonfly_ materialized into realspace with a flash of hard radiation. The Wexford System was blessed with recharge stations for JumpShips, which dramatically cut the time necessary between Jumps. For a nominal fee, a station would beam power over to the _Dragonfly_'s batteries via microwave emitters.

Such was Hinako's intention. Wexford-Nadir-ONE also served as a waystation for the trade routes between Genevieve and the districts of the Federated Shiratori that shared a border with the Confederation, meaning that it had a functional HPG array and Comstar office, as well as facilities for Pansuto Tarou and his battlemech where they could comfortably await transport to wherever it was that he wanted to go. She didn't want to spend a week waiting at the Jump Point for the _Palomino_ to ferry him all the way to the nearest inhabited planet in the system and return.

"Captain, Wexford-Nadir-ONE reports that they are available for Jump recharge," Communications announced. "They have granted us permission to approach under normal drive to within ten kilometers."

"Very well," a diminutive Captain Hinako Ninomiya said while petting Shampoo. The cat had remained near her for most of the trip from Tiber, becoming a fixture on the Bridge. The crew loved her, and she was at least tolerant of them, if not affectionate. There was one curious exception to this, of course, and that exception was Ranma Saotome. "Astrogation, plot a course for Wexford-Nadir-ONE, with a CPA of ten kilometers, while I pet this pretty kitty."

"Plot course for Wexford-Nadir-ONE, Closest Point of Approach, one-zero kilometers, aye," Davidge replied. "Captain, I've completed the patch to our astrogation database that includes the Ryuugenzawa System. Once I upload it into the database, we won't need Commander Saotome's decrypt machine and the data disc to plot a Jump."

"It would certainly save a lot of trouble not having to rely on that thing," Hinako agreed. She munched on a cookie from her jacket pocket. "It's so old that if it failed, we'd be out of luck!"

"Uploading will eat into our Main Computer cycle time," Davidge added. "With your permission, I'd like to begin as soon as we are in a stable orbit near Wexford-Nadir-ONE. The process should take about twenty minutes to upload and verify."

Hinako nodded. "Very well, Mister Davidge. Do so when we are taking on power from the station." She nuzzled Shampoo, who eyed the Astrogator and the handheld data disc with the Ryuugenzawa patch as if her life depended on it. "You're such a good kitty," Hinako cooed.

Pansuto Tarou tucked the carefully compiled telescope data he had copied from the Observatory into his pocket. It was just enough information for a competent astrogator to determine the location of the Ryuugenzawa System with enough accuracy for a Jump. He was certain the Furinkan Combine would have someone who could do the job.

Though it was purely for the convenience of the ship, the Captain was doing him a favor by having him dropped off at the station. It would put him close to the merchant ship traffic, and he was confident that he would find a ship that would take him close enough to the border with the Furinkan Combine that he could get the rest of the way there by some other means. Time was his only enemy now.

He had to reach the Combine and convince them of his discovery in time for them to reach the system while there was still something left to plunder. The Confederation's operation was far too small to carry much off with just the _Dragonfly_. If they went directly there, and he was sure they would, it would be solely for the purpose of scouting the planet and determining what the real recovery mission would need to bring. That meant that a determined Combine force had a chance of reaching the system before the Confederation's transport fleet could haul everything away.

Tarou was confident that he could do it, but it would mean giving up the immediate satisfaction of killing Happousai for the ultimate satisfaction of bringing the Joketsuzoku and the Cult of Azusa to their knees.

He was willing to make that sacrifice. Happousai could wait at least that long.

A knock at his stateroom door shifted his attention from the future to the present. Akane Tendo was there, along with Genma Saotome and the _Dragonfly_'s Executive Officer.

"It's time to board the _Palomino_ for the trip over to the station," Akane said to him.

Tarou gave her a steely-eyed grin and patted his pocket. "I just finished packing."

They floated to the elevator that would take them to the hub, and from there, aft down the core of the ship to the docking ring where _Palomino_ awaited him.

"I want to apologize for the change in plans," Akane said to him as he prepared to enter the DropShip for the short transit over to the station. "I did say that you would be dropped off on a planet."

Tarou waved her off. "This is fine," he replied evenly.

Akane gestured to the Executive Officer. "Commander Malloy has something for you, as we agreed."

The X.O. presented Tarou with a thin attache. "Fifty-thousand C-bills," he declared. "Half of it is in marker notes, the other half on two certified drafts from the Bank of Sol."

Tarou had expected a sum of money from them as per their agreement, but not so much! It was hush-money, plain and simple, he realized. You never heard of Ryuugenzawa, or that a ship named _Dragonfly_ was carrying the Heir to the Confederation aboard...

Akane made this clear. "You understand of course, that we wish our activities to remain a secret," she said to him.

Tarou bowed low for her. "Naturally, Lady Akane," he soothed. "I have no intention of speaking of my adventures with you to anyone."

She handed him one final important item. His passport. "You understand that I can't give you it in writing at this time, but rest assured that you will be pardoned for any crimes you may have committed on Confederation territory."

"Thank you, Lady Akane," Tarou said, eager to get underway. "You are a woman of her word, let no one say otherwise."

He bowed once more, and then floated through the connector tunnel to the _Palomino_.

"I hope we're doing the right thing by letting him go," Genma intoned.

Akane turned to him. "Some of us live by our agreements, Mister Saotome, even if we really don't agree with them."

"So, Ranma," Doctor Tofu Ono said to him as the pig-tailed mechwarrior knocked on the open door. "What was it that you wanted to talk to me about?"

Ranma flushed red. "Well, ah, it's kinda personal, like I said."

"Come in and shut the door," Tofu told him. "As a doctor, you can count on strict confidentiality from me."

"Well, that's good, I guess," Ranma muttered. Even with the door shut, he felt exposed.

"So?"

"I was gonna ask you for some advice, actually," he began.

"Medical advice?" the doctor inquired. He cracked his knuckles. "Martial arts advice?"

"Girl advice," Ranma corrected him, while looking down at his feet.

Tofu made a low whistle, a grin spreading slowly across his face. He began to wipe the lenses of his glasses on his dougi.

"I think you'd better sit down."

Ranma did so, though he looked no less uncomfortable than before.

Tofu sat down on the corner of his desk next to Ranma. "Am I to assume that the girl advice you seek is in regards to Akane?"

The pig-tailed mechwarrior looked even more ill at ease.

"You could say that," he mumbled.

Tofu slapped his knee lightly. "So what's the trouble?"

Ranma pawed at the deck with his foot, but remained silent.

"Ranma, I can't help you if you won't tell me what the problem is," Tofu declared.

"I got so many questions, I don't even know where to begin," he finally lamented.

The doctor took this in stride. "Well, I guess we could start with the basic differences between men and women."

Ranma looked hopeful. "I guess so," he agreed.

Tofu leaned over and punched up some material from the medical archives, which were displayed upon the surface of the desk.

"Well, first things first," he began. "You, Ranma, have something we call the 'Y' chromosome, something which Akane and other females do not have. Now on the 'Y' chromosome we find genes that express certain specific proteins, hormones, and enzymes that are not found in the female biochemistry. Also, certain genetic traits are passed only along the 'Y' chromosome, and seem to predispose men to specific somatic conditions later in life..."

Ranma waved frantically at him.

"Hey, Doc, whoa! I mean, whoa... Maybe not _that_ basic."

Tofu shrugged. It was difficult to tell if he had launched into his spiel in all seriousness, or merely as a joke to lighten the mood. "Well, you've probably noticed by now that boys and girls aren't the same. If nothing else, your exposure to Jusenkyo has made that possible."

"I figured that one out the first time Pop made me watch one of his pornos," Ranma groused. "I didn't need a cursed body to teach me."

Tofu blanched. "I see..." He took another tack. "So why don't you tell me what happened between you and Akane that brought you in here so suddenly."

Ranma looked away, his face beet red and his feet tapping out a nervous samba beat on the deck.

"I, uh, I kissed Akane," he muttered, not looking directly at Tofu as he said it. "More like she kissed me first, and then I kissed her back, and then we both sorta met in the middle for awhile..."

Tofu nodded slowly, trying not to grin at Ranma's explanation.

"That's it?" he asked after a moment.

"Whaddya mean, 'that's it?'" Ranma growled defensively. "That ain't enough? I don't know what the hell I'm doing in the first place!"

"Take it easy, Ranma. I was just asking a simple question. Now I'm going to ask another simple question: you're here to ask me romantic advice, not a how-to on human reproduction, correct?"

Ranma nodded silently, though he was uncomfortable with the idea of getting 'romantic advice,' and he didn't want to even think of the implications of going down the twisted path known as the birds and the bees. Health classes in the few years of formal schooling he had received, plus Pop's pornos, had illustrated to him the mechanics and potential consequences of sex, but the whole process remained somewhat fuzzy and indistinct when applied to his own personal reality, and particularly where that reality included Akane.

"Great," Tofu remarked. "Now we're getting somewhere. Next question: do you like Akane?"

While the answer was never in doubt, Ranma thought long and hard about actually voicing it aloud. Tofu mused idly on whether or not the process of deciding would result in the triggering of the compartment's smoke alarms.

"I guess so."

Tofu pressed the issue. "Do you or don't you?"

"Okay... I-I like her," he replied. "Don't ask me why, cause she's a violent, hypersensitive tomboy chick who's always ragging on me about something."

Tofu smiled at Ranma's description of the girl he was so hung up over. "Great. I think we can assume by the fact that since she kissed you first, she likes you too."

"Really?" Ranma chirped. The thought that Akane actually _liked_ him had seemed so alien to him that he hadn't been able to come to that conclusion himself. He supposed that she had said as much in her stateroom shortly before their encounter in the elevator, but at the time, and with the idea for finding Ryuugenzawa, it had all been a blur of conflicting thoughts and emotions for him.

"Girls aren't in the habit of kissing guys they don't like," Tofu pointed out.

"I guess so," Ranma admitted. The revelation wasn't doing anything to ease his level of discomfort and confusion.

"Now then," Tofu continued. "You're wondering what you should do about it."

"I sure am," Ranma grunted.

"Just do what comes naturally," Tofu said with an easy smile. He reflected darkly upon the irony of this, since he had been unable to make the same commitment where Kasumi was involved. It was times like this that he wondered how the human race survived when so many of its men were weak or clueless.

"Like what?" Ranma asked. "I mean, that's what I'm here for, Doc: some details!"

"Well, I guess the most important thing for you to do would be to tell her how you feel about her."

Ranma feared that Tofu would say as much.

"What if I'm not exactly sure about that?" he hedged.

"You already told me that you liked her," Tofu returned. "Go with that for now. As the two of you become more comfortable with that, you might find that telling her other things will be a lot easier."

Ranma seemed dubious about that.

"Okay. Then what?"

"You should probably lay off the insults," Tofu counseled. "I know there isn't much to them, but all the same, do yourself a favor and watch what you say to her."

Ranma cringed. He had been conditioned his whole life by his father and by the troops in the various units they had signed with to trade fire - as it were - with those around him. That part would not be easy, but he saw the doctor's point.

"I'll try," he agreed. "What else?"

"I suppose it couldn't hurt if you did a few nice things for her every now and again," Tofu observed.

"Like?"

"Well... Girls like getting flowers. I know that Akane enjoyed spending time on the garden terrace back home on Nerima, so I think you're safe with that one."

Ranma considered the subject the way an Explosive Ordnance Disposal tech would contemplate his approach to a live thousand-kilogram bomb.

"Flowers," he said flatly.

"Flowers," Tofu confirmed.

Ranma looked up to the ceiling in frustration.

"Doc, we're millions of kilometers from the nearest florist," he pointed out. "So how exactly am I supposed to do that?"

Tofu smiled. "The _Dragonfly_ happens to be an Invader Class JumpShip," he replied. "It has two greenhouse domes, one on either side of the habitat, if you'll recall. You'll find an assortment of flowering plants there, and some of them are probably ideal to present to a girl you happen to like."

Ranma remembered his time in one of the greenhouses after the misjump and fire. He remembered lots of plants, but he never really paid all that much attention to what they were. He _supposed_ that there were flowers there. After all, the greenhouses on an Invader Class were largely recreational in purpose; the fresh food plants and their cleansing action on the atmosphere were considered secondary benefits by the ship's designers.

"Okay, flowers," he conceded. "I know nothing about flowers, or how to get them. I mean, is there a requisition form or something I gotta fill out first, or can I just go pick some?"

"You should probably ask one of the ship's cooks," Tofu offered. "They're usually the ones who tend the greenhouses as part of their collateral duties."

"Sure. What else?"

"Candy is another option," Tofu noted. "But unless you have something special tucked away somewhere, all we have at the moment is some stale chocolate from the Ship's Store."

Even Ranma figured that this was probably insufficient to the task. Tofu continued.

"You don't cook, do you?" the doctor asked.

Ranma looked at him as if he had grown another head.

"I can heat up a ration pack and boil water for rice."

"It was a thought," Tofu returned with shrug. "Women appreciate a man who knows his way around a kitchen."

"I think I'm pretty much screwed there."

"Don't worry about it," Tofu soothed. "The big thing to remember here, Ranma, is that the gifts aren't as important to a woman so much as the thought behind them." He tapped the desk to make a point. "For example, if you were to surprise Akane with flowers right now, she'd melt. It wouldn't matter if you didn't know her favorite flowers, or that you couldn't get them, or that your arrangement wasn't very neat. The fact that you of all people did something like this for her would be all the gift she could hope for."

Ranma pondered this. It was as if the clouds of uncertainty had parted somewhat, allowing a single ray of shining revelation into his head. "So basically, what you're saying is that because I don't do stuff like that for her now, there ain't no big expectations on me, so that anything I actually do for her, even if it sucks, will totally blow her away?"

"Essentially," Tofu agreed, trying not to laugh at Ranma's remarkably astute assessment of his situation with Akane. It was hard to screw up when

you were starting out from the bottom in the relationships department.

Ranma nodded solemnly. This wasn't going to be easy, but at least now he had something to go on.

"Thanks, Doc."

"One last thing, Ranma," Tofu said to him.

"What is it?"

"Be honest with yourself," he advised. "If you can't be honest with yourself about your feelings, then you can't be honest with her, and all it will cause is problems between the two of you."

Ranma bit down on his lip at the thought.

"Sure thing, Doc. Thanks again."

He hopped up from his seat, shook Tofu's hand vigorously, and bounded from the office like a man with a mission - which is what he considered the advice he had been given to be.

Doctor Tofu Ono watched him go with a rueful shake of his head. As much as he was pleased by the idea of Ranma and Akane warming to each other since his first encounter with them back at the castle - over a leather divan and the fact that it had been used as a bludgeon by the latter on the former's head, no less - he found himself gripped with an almost parental concern for the two.

He tapped at the touch sensitive keypad imbedded within the surface of his desk, calling up Akane's medical record and a log of the Ship's Pharmacy for the last quarter. He wasn't surprised by what he saw, but now he had justification for his concern. He would need to speak with her about a very important matter that she had been neglecting.

"Captain, the _Palomino_ reports a warning indication from their Reaction Control System," Communications announced.

Hinako looked up from her petting of Shampoo, who seemed tense and agitated to the diminutive starship captain.

"Is it serious?"

The Communications tech conferred with the DropShip before responding.

"They don't seem to think so, ma'am. Captain Grant says this happens from time to time. They'll check it out locally, but that it's probably just a bad position indicator on one of the thruster nozzles. They have a spare on board to replace it."

"How long will that take?"

The tech relayed her query. "No more than thirty minutes, ma'am. They'll let us know what they find before they detach from the docking ring."

"Very well," Hinako huffed. She had to allow for the occasional technical problem, she supposed.

Lieutenant Davidge approached her while she stewed in her chair. He held up the database patch disc.

"Captain, with your permission, I'd like to upload the patch to our astrogational database. It will take the higher functions of the Main Computer off-line for approximately twenty minutes, leaving us with only the automatic subsystems."

Hinako checked their orbital status at the Helm with a glance. They were stable, and preparing to receive power from Wexford-Nadir-ONE. "Very well, Mister Davidge. Begin the upload process."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

Shampoo watched as the Astrogator fed the database disc into a reader at the Main Computer workstation. She needed that disc, and with the JumpShip about to send its DropShip over to the space station, this might present her best opportunity to steal it and make her escape. Now that the Confederation knew the location of Ryuugenzawa, she didn't suppose they would have any need to stop at a planet along the way. They would Jump from system to system as fast as they could charge their batteries.

As expected, the Main Computer went dormant as it processed the data. The ship's functions during station keeping were largely autonomous, though in spite of this, there was plenty to keep the crew occupied. Shampoo waited with growing anxiety as she planned her next few moves.

Success was most likely if Mousse could reach the _Palomino_ before it repaired its technical glitch, but if push came to shove, he could always hijack one of the Ship's Boats and reach the Wexford recharge station that way. Once he was there, he could claim asylum, or, depending on the situation, disappear for awhile. She was confident that they would not be too eager to create much of a ruckus on the recharge station.

"The patch is uploaded into the Astrogational System," Davidge reported twenty minutes later. He punched in the coordinates, and proudly demonstrated the brand new yellow sun that floated within the chart table holotank where there had previously been a patch of emptiness.

"Excellent work, Lieutenant," Hinako commended him.

Davidge removed the data disc from the computer, causing Shampoo to tense in the Captain's lap. "I'll need to open the Ship's Safe, Captain, if I may."

Hinako rose, knowing that Davidge could not open it without her portion of the combination. As she did so, one of the oncoming watch section stepped through the airtight door. Shampoo chose that moment to strike. She leaped at Davidge with a hiss, and snatched the disc from his hand.

"What the -?" the Astrogator blurted, his hand bleeding from the scratches she had raised in leaping across him.

"Kitty!" Hinako screeched angrily.

Shampoo rebounded in free-fall off the Main Computer console, the database patch firmly set between her jaws, and twisted herself in midair to get a push from the Captain's chair. A daring leap out the airtight door as it slid shut cut off any immediate pursuit.

Hinako shook herself with the numbing realization that she had been tricked. Her precious kitty cat was some kind of spy, and possibly not even a real cat - only her recent exposure to the wonders of Jusenkyo could have prepared her for such a line of thought.

"If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes..." the Helmsman remarked.

"Never mind that," Hinako snapped. "Chief of the Watch, on the 1MC: All hands keep on the look-out for the Ship's Cat. Report her whereabouts at once to the Bridge. Catch and detain her if possible."

The Chief of the Watch acknowledged the order. "Shall I sound the General Alarm as well, Captain?"

Hinako folded her arms across her chest. It seemed absolutely ridiculous to call away a full-blown security violation over a runaway cat, and she was not entirely convinced that her kitty was anything other than what she seemed to be.

"Not at the moment," she replied. "Have the X.O., Lady Akane, and Commander Saotome come to the Bridge instead."

Shampoo darted for the elevator, waiting with dread for some kind of alarm to sound. In spite of her feline body, she still thought of herself as human, and considered the response of the ship's crew as one would consider any intrusion by an enemy agent.

The sound of the Chief of the Watch's voice over the 1MC made her blood freeze up.

"All hands be on the look-out for the Ship's Cat. Detain her if possible, and make reports to the Bridge on any sightings of her."

If she were human, she would have laughed. Given the Captain's childish nature, this was exactly the kind of order that was likely to be ignored by the crew. She'd stay out of sight all the same, but it certainly took some of the pressure off.

"Now what kind of lame-o announcement is that?" Ranma grouched to the overhead.

"Really," Ukyou agreed. She had run into him shortly after his visit to Doctor Tofu's office, and had been pleasant if somewhat cloying company ever since. "You have the weirdest Captain I've ever known."

They stepped into the Crew's Mess for drinks. From what they could tell, no one else on the ship was paying the 1MC announcement any mind. A few of the off-watch Engine Room gang were even cracking jokes about Hinako and her missing kitty.

Yuka and Sayuri were also there, and made no effort to speak to him, though it was clear that they did not approve of him hanging out with Ukyou. Not that he cared what they thought...

"Hey, Captain Saotome," one of the engine room crew, Petty Officer Fitch, called to him. "You gonna go look for the skipper's cat?" Those present around him began to chortle. It had become common knowledge among the crew that Ranma did not like cats.

"Bite me, Fitch," he returned curtly. "If Hinako wants her kitty, she can go get it her own damn self."

"I hear that," Fitch returned. He went back to his coffee.

Ukyou handed him a cup of red bug juice. The instant drink mix used by the ship didn't really have any distinguishable flavors, he supposed, only colors. "Why don't you like cats, Ranchan?" she asked him quietly enough that no one could overhear. She knew he was sensitive about the matter, but not the reasons why.

Ranma paled. "I'd rather not talk about it," he replied. "Let's just say that it was one of Pop's dumber training ideas..."

"Why doesn't THAT surprise me," she snorted.

Genma Saotome appeared on the Mess Decks a moment later, making Ranma wince at the man's timing.

"Come on, boy," he growled at Ranma.

"What's up?"

"We have to find that cat," he intoned.

Ranma gagged on his bug juice. "Excuse me?" he choked.

"It's no joke, Ranma. That cat stole the astrogational database patch for the Ryuugenzawa System."

"Huh?" he grunted. "That's totally bizarre."

"Hey," Ukyou interjected, coming to a sudden conclusion. "You don't suppose that cat was no ordinary cat... do you?"

"That's the idea," Genma confirmed. "Given the number of people on this ship alone who have been exposed to the pools at Jusenkyo, anything is possible."

"No way..." Ranma groaned.

"Look, boy," Genma returned. "I know how you feel about cats, but this is too important to let your irrational fear of them get in the way..."

"It ain't that!" he shot back. "I was thinking about who it could be."

Genma raised an eyebrow at him.

"Well?"

Ranma swallowed hard. If the cat was a human with exposure to Jusenkyo, then her personal animosity towards him pointed in only one direction.

"Shampoo."

Genma blanched. "Boy, you better pray we're both wrong." He left the Crew's Mess.

Ranma followed. "C'mon, Ucchan."

Ukyou nodded, wondering where the hell Konatsu was when she needed him.

Shampoo reached 'E' Deck with little difficulty. Her jaw ached from carrying the data disc, and she was eager to change back into her human form. She set the disc down in a safe place, and then fought with the spigot to one of the heated water tanks.

The cat noises and the sudden splashing caught someone's attention.

"Shampoo?"

Mousse was there in the darkness, looking haggard and miserable. She could see the wispy growth of stubble on his lip and chin. He looked drawn and weary from remaining in hiding for so long. She almost felt sorry for him.

The water was hot enough from the spigot now to affect her change. She sprang up in a cloud of steam, naked, and surprisingly sore - as if she really had been cooped up in a tiny cat body the whole time.

"Mousse," she returned, to set him at ease.

"I've been waiting for days," he said to her. It had been longer than simply 'days,' but she was in no mood to correct him on the matter. "What happened?"

She slipped lithely past him to their packs, where she withdrew her clothes and put them on.

"There isn't much time," she answered him. "I have the coordinates to the Ryuugenzawa System." She fetched the disc and put it in his hand. "This is an astrogational database patch. Load it into a Ship's Computer, and the ship will have access to the Ryuugenzawa System."

"Is that what the announcement over the intercom was about?"

"Exactly," she replied. "That's why we don't have much time. Now there's a DropShip on the Number Three docking collar getting ready to leave for a nearby recharging station. You need to get on board before they detach. Take the disc."

Mousse blinked in astonishment. "But what about you?"

Shampoo flexed her hands into fists. "I have a score to settle with the Saotomes, and I'm also sworn to kill them to atone for my mistake on Lightoller. Getting the Ryuugenzawa data was only half of my mission, Mousse. I won't run from a fight with them."

"You'll never be able to escape even if you do kill them!" Mousse protested.

Shampoo gave him a hard look. That possibility had indeed occurred to her, and she had dealt with the gnawing fear within her as best as she was able. "My life is MY business, Mousse," she hissed at him. "Do not presume to think for me!"

He turned away, his fears about her confirmed. She cared no more for him than she would any other tool.

"Farewell, Shampoo," he said to her, his voice as cold as his heart had become.

She almost kissed him good-bye, knowing in a moment of sudden clarity that this was indeed good-bye.

"Farewell, Mousse," she returned. Then she added, "until we meet again."

Mousse nodded solemnly, and then turned a spigot of water upon himself. Shampoo watched with a mixture of horror and fascination as he transformed into a white duck before her eyes.

"When did you...?" she asked him.

He was gone in a flash of white, leaving behind only a single feather as he soared in free-fall towards the elevator.

Pain lanced through Mousse as he stabbed at the 'call' button with his beak. Though he bore no injuries, the pain was no less real to him. He was leaving Shampoo forever, and even if she had never loved him, he had loved her all too much.

His decision to become a duck had come on the spur of the moment. The surprise value of a crewmen suddenly encountering a duck in the middle of deep space would probably be enough to enable at least one escape from danger. There was also the fact that he wanted to show Shampoo that she wasn't alone with her Jusenkyo curse, that he shared the experience with her, that they had something in common. It was a perverse pleasure at best, because he knew that she would not escape from the ship, and so they'd never have a chance to talk about their cursed bodies.

He didn't know why he hadn't shown her before. Shame perhaps. Or else the fear that she might consider his Jusenkyo body to be the perfect excuse for getting rid of him for good. After all, she could always plead ignorance when the Council confronted her on the fact that she had eaten her companion for supper...

It was a long ride down to the docking collars. The airtight door to the _Palomino_ was still open pending the repairs to the ship, and he watched as one of the _Dragonfly_'s engineering crew floated through the connecter tube with a tool belt, having assisted where he could. Mousse remained out of sight as the engineering type took the ladder well instead of the elevator, then made a soaring leap for the door.

He was through the connector tube and into the Cargo Bay without notice. Choosing a spot where he could remain hidden and still have easy access to the door, he buckled down to wait. The _Palomino_ Roving Watch appeared as he settled in, floating towards the connecter tube. One of the _Dragonfly_ crew drifted into view on the opposite end, carrying a frangible-flechette 'nailgun,' made especially for use aboard spaceships, at port arms.

"Seen anything unusual?" the sailor with the nailgun asked the rover.

"Like what?" the rover replied, eyeing the weapon uneasily.

"Like a pink and purple cat?"

The rover shook his head. "What'd she do," he asked, pointing to the weapon. "Piss in your rack or something?"

"Beats me," the sailor replied. "I got racked out to stand guard down here and look out for a pink and purple cat, or else a purple-haired Amazon girl. I'm to shoot either of them without hesitation if they try to get on board your ship."

"An Amazon girl?" the rover cackled. "Hell, I got something better than a nailgun round to poke her with!"

"Ain't that the truth," the sailor agreed. "I haven't been out boozing and whoring in months. While you and your fellow DropShip goombahs were out fuckin' around on Tiber, I was stuck on this piece of shit getting her back into shape."

"Them's the breaks," the rover returned with a grin. "I wouldn't sweat this duty. We're about to leave. I was just coming down to check the hatch shut after Cap'n Grant gives the word to shove off."

"It's a nice thought," the sailor remarked. "But as soon as you leave, they'll just send me to guard some other damn thing." He thumped the bulkhead with his fist. "What kinda bullshit alert is this, anyway?"

"Lotsa luck," the rover said cheerfully. "While you're stuck up here playing wanna-be Marine, me and my 'goombah' DropShip buddies are going to enjoy a brief shore leave on the station."

"Damn," the sailor grunted ruefully. "I'm puttin' in for a transfer to the DropShip Command. This months-in-the-middle-of-nowhere bullshit is really starting to suck ass."

"ALL HANDS STAND CLEAR OF THE DOCKING TUBE AIRTIGHT DOOR," the 1MC of the _Palomino_ announced.

"Later," the rover said with a wave. He eased away from the airtight as it slid slowly shut.

Mousse watched as the man checked the seals and made a brief phone call to the DropShip's Flight Deck to report. Several minutes passed as the ship was released by the _Dragonfly_'s docking apparatus. Several more passed before the ship jolted with spurts of thruster fire from the Reaction Control System. The brief roar of the Main Engines followed after, and then there was only silence and free-fall.

He was away.

"Let me get this straight," Ukyou began as she and Ranma floated down one of the 'B' Deck passages. Konatsu followed behind them at a discreet distance. "We're either looking for the Captain's pet Siamese cat, or else an Amazon girl from the Jusenkyo Commonwealth named after a hair-cleaning product."

"Pretty much," Ranma agreed. He was upset, and trying not to show it. Ukyou had latched onto him from the beginning of the search, and thinking nothing of it, he had not objected. This was apparently a mistake, for this in turn made Akane spin-up like a turbine with a broken overspeed-trip. She nearly dislocated Ryouga's shoulder latching onto him as a partner for the search, and Ranma actually pitied his mechwarrior rival for once.

"So who is this Shampoo girl?" she asked him as he thought about ways to mitigate the wrath of his overreacting fiancee. "You seem to know an awful lot about her." She gave him a disapproving look. "Don't tell me your father engaged you to her as well."

"It ain't like that," he replied. "If this really is Shampoo, then I guess you could say that Pop and I are the ones who are sorta responsible for her turning into a cat."

"Why am I not surprised," Ukyou remarked dryly. "Tell me, Ranchan, is there any place in the galaxy where you and your father have travelled where you _haven't_ ruined someone's life?"

Ranma thought about it.

"Take your time, sugar," Ukyou added in a saccharine voice.

"I'm thinking," he protested.

"Don't bother, honey. I think the fact that you can't come up with an answer without thinking about it is an answer in itself."

"Oh, ha ha," Ranma grumbled. It hurt because it was more or less true.He was still thinking about this when he rounded the corner, and nearly blundered into Shampoo.

Her eyes grew large as she recognized him, and her body trembled with a mixture of anxiety and anticipation. She raised her mace-like bonbori to the attack.

"RANMA SAOTOME!" she shouted at him.

"Sha-Shampoo?!" Ranma squeaked in return. The Amazon was hell-pissed, worse than anything he had ever seen from a woman.

She charged at him as he gaped.

"For what you do to Shampoo and Commonwealth, I kill!"

The first bonbori buried itself in the bulkhead as he ducked the blow. Ukyou blocked the second mace with her spatula before it could crush his head.

He recovered his wits as Ukyou shouldered the brunt of the Amazon's fury, warding off a flurry of blows with her spatula. He pushed off the bulkhead to spring at Shampoo, catching her in a flying tackle that slammed her against the opposite bulkhead.

An elbow from Shampoo drove down onto the crown of his head as they tumbled in free-fall. He hadn't hit her as hard as he had hoped, and she twisted free of his grapple with a grunt. Ukyou pressed the attack as the Amazon struggled free, and the sound of the bonbori striking the flat steel surface of the spatula rang in the tight quarters of the passageway.

"A little help, Konatsu!" Ukyou cried, just barely fending off Shampoo's furious combination of bonbori strikes and knife-edged kicks.

"Coming, sir!" he called.

The former kunoichi was already leaping to the attack, darting lithely over Ranma's shoulder as he regained his orientation in zero-gravity and looked for a way of overcoming Shampoo's defensive advantage. The narrow passageway negated their superior numbers against her.

Konatsu struck Shampoo across the chin as he zipped past, dazing her, but not before she swatted Ukyou down to the deck with one of her bonbori. The ex-brigadier yelped in pain as she rebounded off the deck, her left arm possibly broken, and the spatula floating from her hands.

Ranma got back into the fight as Ukyou went down, springing off the deck to barrel into Shampoo once more. Fighting in free-fall was effective only when you had something to push against, and combat was often an explosive series of leaps off of the scenery. He connected once more with Shampoo's midsection, drawing himself tight as he struck to maximize the effects of his hit. He didn't grapple this time, preferring to transfer all of his energy to her in one solid impact.

Shampoo reeled from the check, flying across the passageway to slam into an airtight door. Ranma could see that she was stunned by the double hit, and swam through the empty air for purchase against his next attack. Konatsu, hanging from the ceiling between them, was readying some kind of bola.

"Give it up, Shampoo," he called to her. "There's three of us, and one of you. You ain't goin' nowhere."

She caught her breath and flashed her violet eyes in anger at him. "Shampoo never give up!" she vowed. Her body tensed once again to move, the maces raised to catch Konatsu's bola before it could entangle her.

Ranma moved cautiously towards her, staying close to the bulkhead to minimize the effects of any charge from her. He realized that while her maces were nasty, her technique wasn't suited to free-fall combat. That was something going for them, at least.

She must have sensed this as well, he saw, for she tossed the heavy spherical bonbori aside and drew a long curved fighting knife instead. The heavily damask'd steel of the blade was brightly veined against the dark, cold blue base metal.

Konatsu took this as an invitation to loose his bola at her, but she anticipated this maneuver and sprang at him before he could wind it up to speed. The knife hissed through the air, cutting through his clothes and drawing forth a spurt of blood from his chest that glittered like tiny red jewels in free-fall. Konatsu did not make a sound as he threw himself away from the blade, minimizing the depth of its cut and saving his life.

He was flat-footed against her follow up attack, having lost his hold on the overhead. Shampoo sprang back from the paneled ceiling, intending to gut him with her next pass. Ranma knew he had to get back into the fight before the cross-dressing former adjutant got himself killed.

Ukyou screamed a warning as Konatsu grappled with the Amazon, the two of them falling towards the deck with the stored momentum of Shampoo's attack. Ranma saw that he had a good grip on her knife-hand wrist, keeping the questing blade from his throat by scant centimeters. He pushed off the bulkhead to kick her in the side of the head, not caring that the blow might kill her. The maces were bad enough, but she had upped the ante when she drew the knife, and the stakes were now too high for him to hold back.

She managed to wrest her other arm free to ward off his kick, deflecting him just enough in zero-gravity to send him flying into the opposite bulkhead. Konatsu responded to her distraction by landing a glancing strike with the heel of his palm under her chin. Shampoo's head rocked back, more surprised than hurt, and he was able to disengage.

Shampoo had enemies in front and behind her now, and she judged that the former kunoichi was the lesser of the two foes. She sprang past him as he tried to regain his equilibirum, sparing time for a parting kick that sent him against the bulkhead with a grunt, and pushing her in the direction she wanted to go.

"Damn it!" Ranma yelled, missing his opportunity to grapple her from behind. He watched helplessly as she pulled herself around the corner he and Ucchan had come from.

He looked to Ukyou, who was nursing her arm, her eyes a dull glaze of pain and anger. Konatsu was hurt as well, but his opinion of the weirdo cross-dresser went up a few notches. The guy had enough nerve and talent to keep from getting hacked to bits by a pissed-off Amazon from the Jusenkyo Commonwealth, and that counted for something in Ranma's book.

Reason finally took hold over the heat of the moment, and he clawed for a sound-powered telephone unit set into the bulkhead.

"Bridge, this is Ranma Saotome on 'B' Deck!" he said breathlesly into the receiver. "Shampoo's on 'B' Deck between the Electronics Shop and the Radar Equipment Room, and she's got a knife."

She was cornered, he knew, for the moment. The elevator and the through-deck hatch to the other levels were behind him, and the only way to reach them was via the passageway she had used to escape. She had to come back to the junction of the two passageways if she wanted to leave 'B' Deck.

Shampoo made certain that she had some distance between herself and Ranma before stopping. She had no intention of fleeing from him, this was only a strategic retreat to assess the situation and come up with a better plan of attack. It was only a matter of time before a full alert was sounded, and the crew responded with automatic weapons. She was fast, but charging a full-auto flechette gun in a tight passageway was begging to be reduced to a quivering pile of Amazon-hamburger, and she had no intention of going out like that.

The General Alarm klaxon galvanized her into action. She didn't have time for anything fancy. Ranma must die. Genma might live, and that was regrettable, but at least she'd destroy the person who had pitched her into the Jusenkyo Pool.

"Where the heck is the elevator? Akane? Akane, where'd you go?" a voice asked behind her. She whirled in surprise and alarm, the man hadn't made a sound in his approach until he spoke.

Her kick struck Ryouga Hibiki across the jaw, rocking his head to the side. He spun in a slow circle in midair, and she was convinced at first that she had cold-cocked him. Then, as he spun back around to face her, she saw to her horror and amazement that he was unfazed by her blow.

"You..." he said in a low, angry voice, catching himself with a hand to either side of the passageway.

She lunged with her knife, thrusting it into the empty gap between his armpit and his arm as he dodged. He grappled with her extended arm before she could withdraw, and she brought her foot up in a desperate high kick at him, catching him across the ear and drawing blood.

Ryouga shrugged off the blow, savagely headbutting her in response. Her eyes swam for a moment in shock before she wrenched free of his iron grip, cutting him across the forearm as she disengaged.

The noise brought Ranma bearing down on her as she put the bulkhead at her back. Her eyes flicked to the airtight door marked with red and white diagonal stripes just within arm's reach - one of the ship's lifepods. Angry with heself for even considering escape, she faced off against both men, ready to sell her life dearly.

"Leave her to me," Ryouga growled at Ranma.

"I owe her for what she did to Ucchan," Ranma growled back. He looked to Shampoo, who kept her knife pointed at his face. "How about it, Shampoo?" he asked her. "What say we settle this right now, just you and me?"

Shampoo eyed Ryouga warily. "He no interfere?" she asked archly. "Shampoo no believe that."

Ranma shot Ryouga a look. "You okay with this, Ryouga?"

"When she cuts your heart out, Ranma, I'll be the one to console Akane."

"As if," Ranma snorted in reply. He made a beckoning gesture to Shampoo. "Let's go, sweetheart."

Ryouga edged away from them as they positioned themselves on the bulkheads to spring into action. Konatsu and Ukyou appeared behind the fanged mechwarrior. Both were injured, but it was clear that they would jump in if the opportunity presented itself.

"Stay back," he warned them. "This is between Ranma and her."

Ukyou rolled her eyes.

"What do you think this is, Ranchan?" she groused. "Some kind of duel?"

Ranma didn't take his eyes off Shampoo.

"Yeah," he replied in a slow, easy drawl.

"Just hold her there until the guys with guns show up," she protested. "There's no need to get yourself killed over this."

"Jeez, Ucchan," he returned. "Have a little faith, willya?" He flexed his fingers as he maintained his stare-down of the Amazon. "I mean, she was a chump back at the Jusenkyo Labs, and she ain't looking much tougher now."

That wasn't true, of course. He had a lot of respect for her as a fighter, but her temper and her pride seemed to be her weak spots. She had come a long way for revenge, and he was pretty sure she wasn't planning on getting out of this alive. Suicidal people didn't always think straight.

"Shampoo make you eat false words!" she cried, taking the bait, and springing at him with the knife.

He held his position, gripping the handholds along the bulkhead and bringing his feet up to kick her in the knife-hand wrist as she lunged at him. She slammed into him an instant later as the blade flew out of her grip and embedded itself in the overhead. They rebounded off the bulkhead in a tangle of limbs, Shampoo cursing him in Chinese as she tried to escape.

He caught her by the ankle as she forced her way clear of him to scramble for the knife. Hooking one foot into the bulkhead handhold, he had her trapped in midair, with nothing to push off against, and her motion arrested by his grip. She screamed in protest, stomping futilely at his hand, but he had her by the outside of her ankle, which made it difficult for the Amazon to land a telling blow with her other foot.

"It's over, Shampoo," he said to her through clenched teeth. The exertion of holding her away from the surfaces of the passageway was nearly too much for him.

"It not over!" she protested. She squirmed and struggled against him, but with no leverage in free-fall, her efforts were in vain. Every impulse against him was checked.

"Face it," he returned. "It's over. You're dead in the water right now."

Akane, Genma, Happousai, and Doctor Tofu appeared as he spoke. Behind them was a detachment of _Dragonfly_ crew armed with nailguns.

"I say the word, Shampoo," Ranma continued. "And you get riddled with about a bazillion flechettes." He caught her eye as he said this. "Do you really want to die like that?"

"Put your hands behind your neck," Akane ordered the Amazon as she considered the prospect of a thousand ceramic darts bursting apart inside her body. "Lock your fingers together and turn so we can see it."

Shampoo could not believe that she had failed a third time. Mousse might have been able to escape with the Ryuugenzawa data, but the Saotomes lived. She had failed her great-grandmother again.

And yet, while she lived, there was still hope that she could kill Ranma Saotome and his father. Her only remaining options were to make one last futile attack and die in a fusilade of frangible ceramic darts, or surrender and bide her time for the opportunity to strike without warning.

"You're running out of time," Akane added in a menacing tone.

Shampoo ceased her struggles. Ranma pulled her down to the deck opposite him, gripping her by the wrists and holding her fast. She looked into his eyes, expecting to see her hatred mirrored there, and finding only a stern resolve that she cause no more harm. His look moved her more than she cared to admit.

"Shampoo surrender to Ranma," she said huskily. "No surrender to Tendo girl."

"It's all the same to me," Ranma replied before Akane could protest.

The Amazon looked him over once more.

"Man who defeat Amazon have certain privileges over her," she said quietly, her voice as taut as her body.

"News to me," he replied, somewhat nervously. The look she was giving him had made an abrupt shift from furious to, well, _hungry_. It was the same look Akane had given him after their recent encounter in the elevator, which began to worry him to no end when it came from Shampoo.

"You not know this?" she asked him.

"Like I said, it's news to me. Now are you gonna come quietly or what?"

"As Shampoo say, Shampoo surrender to Ranma alone."

Ranma remained wary of her nonetheless. "Right, I accept your surrender. Now if you'll just -"

She leaned over and kissed him hard on the mouth, apparently with no intention of coming up for air anytime soon.

"HEY!" both Akane and Ukyou chorused in protest.

"She won't talk," Ranma grunted to Captain Ninomiya and the others. His head was still smarting from the simultaneous blows he had received from Akane and Ukyou. He had expected as much from Akane, but getting smacked by Ucchan had really rattled him.

He had no idea why Shampoo had kissed him. Maybe it was some weird ritual for a defeated Amazon, but he had felt real heat in her embrace. He also felt a little guilty with himself for deciding to return it, and now he had Akane upset with him again.

It wasn't like he had started it or anything, he grumbled to himself. She kissed _me_!

Shampoo, her clothing torn and her body bruised from her fight with Ranma and company, stared defiantly at them through the reinforced window of her cell. The Ship's Brig had three cells, each large enough for one occupant. In the centermost cell, Shampoo resembled a caged tiger; hungry, sullen, and eager for a chance to strike back at her captors.

"She doesn't need to talk for what I'd like to do to her," Happousai cackled, and was roundly smashed into the deck by all present before Shampoo could even grimace.

"My question is," Ryouga remarked, nursing his sore jaw as he spoke. "How did she find us? I mean, we misjumped to the Palatine System, and that's almost two hundred light-years from Capra."

"We've all heard the rumors that the Commonwealth has agents within Comstar," Genma replied. "We spent almost a month there waiting on parts and affecting repairs. They must have intercepted our transmissions to Nerima through the Tiber Consulate, and obviously there had been enough time for Shampoo to catch up with us. She infiltrated aboard as a cat while the ship was in the yards."

Hinako seethed with anger at this. Shampoo's theft of the database patch was the worst kind of betrayal for her.

"See that's she's kept isolated," she said at length. "A few weeks of solitary confinement might loosen her tongue. In the meantime, we'll need to organize search parties out of the _Palomino_ detachment and the off-going watch sections to look for that disc."

"She couldn't have hidden it that well," Genma observed. "She didn't have time for that."

"We should start on 'B' Deck," Akane added. "That's where we found her after her escape."

"We should be looking for the other Amazon," Ranma put in. "Don't forget that extra pair of clothes the crew found lying around on 'E' deck, and there was food for at least two people in their gear."

"Agreed," Hinako said. "Until further notice, all hands will carry sidearms, and no one travels alone. We'll go Port and Starboard watches if necessary to make that happen."

"I hate to mention this," Genma muttered. "But it's conceivable that if Shampoo did have an accomplice, that she might have stowed away on board the _Palomino_ with the database patch when the DropShip transited over to the station. There wasn't much time - maybe fifteen minutes - between the theft of the disc and the departure of the DropShip, but it's a possibility."

"I didn't want to consider that," Hinako replied. "But it seems that I must. If her accomplice made it to the station, then there is nothing we can do."

"We can go over there and look for her," Ranma disagreed.

Hinako shook her head. "And start a riot on the station?" she countered. "End up getting the _Dragonfly_ seized, and all of us made prisoner? That's Federated Shiratori territory over there, and we're a long way from our home systems... It's a bad idea, Saotome. We're better off reaching Ryuugenzawa as quickly as possible, before anyone else does."

"In spite of the threat of interception, we need to communicate this to Nerima," Genma added. "We'll need to have a transport ship waiting near the border with the Magistracy that can rendezvous with us. If nothing else, they can deliver cargo DropShips with crews to the _Dragonfly_ so we can haul away as much material as possible before the Commonwealth or anyone else can get there."

"I concur," Hinako replied. "But first things first. We need to verify that the accomplice is no longer on board the _Dragonfly_."

Mousse paused before the main offices of the station's Comstar branch. Though he had left the _Dragonfly_ as a duck, being an adept in the School of Hidden Weapons meant that he was not without his resources, and the certified draft that drew upon a numbered account with the Bank of Sol would pay for his HPG communique to General Herb, and still leave plenty for food and lodging on the station until arrangements could be made for rendezvous. He had a hunch that the _Domingo_ was still within the Federated Shiratori, awaiting just such a mission.

Shampoo was lost to him, he knew with some regret in spite of their chilly farewell. Even if she had succeeded in killing the two Saotomes, her chances of escaping from the JumpShip were slim. She was dead by now, or a prisoner.

It made what he had to do somewhat easier knowing that Shampoo had no more hold over him. The Joketsuzoku as well, for he no longer considered himself one of them. He was part of the Musk Dynasty now, at least in his heart, and his information would see them to victory over the rest of the clan.

He was tired of being a loser, an object of ridicule by the women of the clan. Now it was time for a new order of things, and General Herb and the Musk Dynasty would make that happen. With the secrets of Ryuugenzawa behind them, how could they fail?

Chief Medical Officer's Dayroom

Nerima Confederation JumpShip _Dragonfly_

11 May 3025

Doctor Tofu looked up at the sound of his office door chime. He keyed the door's intercom from his desk.

"Akane, please come in and have a seat."

She entered, a little surprised that he had known who it was behind the closed door. Granted, he had been the one to summon her, but it was still unnerving.

"What is it that you wanted to talk to me about, Doctor?" she asked him.

He waited until she was seated before responding.

"This was something I wanted to bring up yesterday," he began. "But with the intruders and the theft of the database disc, the matter got sidetracked. Now that things have settled down a little bit, I want you to know that I've been going over your medical record."

"Is there a problem?" she asked, concerned.

"A small detail," he admitted. "I realize that I'm not your gynecologist, Akane, but I am your family doctor, and at the moment the expedition's Chief Medical Officer." He displayed a portion of her medical record for her. "Could you read that for me, please?"

She leaned over the desk and frowned at what she saw. It was a statement of acknowledgement in her medical record that she had signed when she had her physical exam to become a mechwarrior. She had been fourteen at the time.

"'I understand that due to my occupational exposure to ionizing radiation as a Mechwarrior of the Nerima Confederation, and because this occupation requires transport aboard nuclear powered spacecraft, that I must submit to a method of contraception approved by the Confederation Surgeon General, and to be administered by local medical authority as directed by OPMED 2.33.12-26 and by other regulations as appropriate.'"

Tofu nodded as she finished. "Is that your signature beneath all that verbage?"

"Yes, Doctor," she said sheepishly.

"I take it from your tone that you now understand what this is about," he said to her.

"Yes, Doctor," she confirmed.

"Now, Akane, up until now, I haven't been concerned by the fact that you haven't been taking your birth control pills. It's against the regulations for women of child-bearing age in your position, but as far as I know, you haven't been sexually active, either."

Akane began to splutter something in protest.

"I'm not interested in details about what you and Ranma may or may not being doing together in your spare time," Tofu continued. "It's none of my business, but since the two of you are starting to get along better, I thought it would be prudent for you to begin your required contraceptive regimen now, so you'll be in the habit of doing it should the time come when a certain Pig-Tailed Mechwarrior corrects his current Cranial-Rectal Inversion."

In spite of what he was proposing, she had to smile at his assessment of Ranma's condition.

"I think we might be waiting a long time for that to happen," she observed, somewhat ruefully.

"He's nineteen years old," Tofu pointed out, recalling his recent conversation with Ranma. "Between his hormones and your show of interest in him, he's going to figure it out - and probably sooner than you think."

She blushed at the thought.

"I've already taken the liberty of procuring your first month's set of pills from the Pharmacy," Tofu added, displaying a small pink box for her. "Do you remember having this talk with your gynecologist?"

She nodded, still blushing at having a conversation of this nature with a man she had suffered a crush over for so long. "It's been awhile," she admitted.

"Take one a day, at the same time every day, without fail," he began. "If you do miss one, take it as soon as you remember, and continue as normal. Miss more than one, and you have to start over after your next period. You've lost any reliable contraceptive function by that point, so if you DO end up getting a little too physical with a certain someone, use an alternate method of birth control."

Akane nodded shyly and accepted the pills.

"One last thing to remember about them," Tofu continued. "It takes a full week of use for this type of oral contraceptive to become effective, so don't go jumping into the sack with Ranma until then!"

"Doctor Tofu!" she cried in protest.

He laughed in reply. "Only a joke, Akane," he offered. "But really, I want you to take your reproductive health seriously from now on. Like I said, sooner or later Ranma's going to get a clue, and when he does, you had best be ready for him." He gave her a reassuring pat on the hand. "You're both very young, in spite of all the responsibility heaped upon you by this engagement. You're both _definitely_ too young to be having children of your own."

Akane nearly crashed into Akari as she floated down the passageway to the 'D' Deck elevator.

"I'm terribly sorry, milady," the young technician apologized.

"No, no," Akane returned. "It was my fault for not watching where I was going." She looked away for a beat. "I've got some things on my mind right now."

Akari inclined her head in acknowledgment. "Have you seen Lieutenant Hibiki?" she asked in return.

"No, I haven't."

"A shame," Akari sniffed. "He gets lost from time to time, especially on spaceships." She uttered a resigned sigh. "I hope he's all right."

Akane gave the technician a tiny smile. "You like him, don't you?"

Akari nodded happily. "I'm going to marry him if I can help it," she admitted proudly.

"Really?" the Tendo Heir gushed. This was a surprise! She knew that the two were often found together, but she never would have gone so far as to say that there were wedding bells in their future. The two of them did make an awfully cute couple, she supposed.

Akari began to blush as her head bobbed in the affirmative. "Someday," she said, sounding as if 'someday' was practically around the corner. "I know that in my heart, Ryouga and I were meant to be together."

"Ryouga's a great guy," Akane offered, remembering her own assessment of the man taken on the Mess Deck of the _Palomino_ shortly after their escape from Capra. "If you can catch him, you'll have quite a prize." She started past. "Well, good luck to you!"

"Thank you, milady," Akari returned. "Good luck to you as well," she added as they parted. "If it means anything to you, milady, I think Captain Saotome will make a good husband for you."

Akane nearly smashed into the far bulkhead before catching herself, and arresting her forward motion. That was assuming some bimbo Amazon or some long-lost fiancee didn't get him first, she thought angrily. She righted herself and turned for the elevator.

Amazingly, P-chan was there, squealing with relief at having narrowly avoided her impact with the bulkhead.

"P-chan?!" Akane cried. She scooped up the little black pig and nuzzled it. "It's been over a week, P-chan! Where have you been?"

Her pet pig was known to disappear for days on end, but he always turned up sooner or later. Though the crew rarely saw him, he seemed to never lack for the basic necessities, for he was as plump and healthy looking as always.

"I get so worried when I don't see you," she continued in a motherly tone. The pig grunted weakly in reply as she floated into the elevator.

Once they were safely within her stateroom, she set P-chan down on the bed and walked over to her fold-down desk. She set a small pink plastic box on the writing surface and browsed through the instructions, indications, and warnings.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," she said to P-chan. "I haven't been on the Pill since I was sixteen."

The pig nearly bowled over with embarrassment.

She popped the first pill free of its foil and plastic prison and held it for a moment in her hand. The little blue oval looked wholly unremarkable to her.

She filled a glass of water from the bathroom sink and used it to swallow the pill.

"It's probably just a waste of time anyway," she said to herself. "Ranma would never..." Her voice trailed off, thinking of their fleeting moment of passion in the elevator. It had come without warning, and if Ryouga hadn't been around to break them up, who knew how far they might have gone...

"Then again," she observed at length, sitting down on the bed next to her pet pig.

P-chan grunted questioningly at her. It was funny, but there seemed to be such intelligence and animation behind his various squeals and grunts at times. It was almost like he was talking to her.

"What's that, P-chan?" she asked him. "Have I ever thought about sleeping with Ranma before?"

This was definitely NOT the question he had asked her, and the very mention of sex between his rival and the girl who now sat on the bed with him was enough to make his head spin with dismay. He didn't want to hear her answer, but being a pig, could find no effective way to stop up his ears.

"Oh yeah," she said in a husky voice, her eyes becoming soft with longing. "Since we left Tiber? Oh hell yes...!"

P-chan made a whimpering noise. It was worse than he had thought. He begrudged them a kiss, however painful the idea was for him, but for Akane to be considering the Holy of Holys with Ranma...! Even preparing for it by taking birth-control pills...!

He made a choking noise, and swooned to the deck, with Akane catching him just before he hit.

"P-chan!" she cried worriedly. "What's the matter with you?" She cradled him close, and her warmth and affection restored him somewhat. "I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you, P-chan."

The pig grunted miserably, realizing that his dreams would remain forever just as they were - dreams.

Ranma Saotome hovered at the entrance to the Starboard Greenhouse, his eyes set with determination to complete his mission.

That mission: collect flowers to give to Akane.

He wasn't entirely certain why he was pressing ahead with Doctor Tofu's advice. His feelings for Akane were still very mixed up. On the one hand, he had to admit that he liked her, and that he wanted her to like him, too. On the other hand, he was still very opposed to the idea of marrying her just to please their folks - and then have the Grand Duke abdicate and dump the whole Confederation on him. That was a definite turn-off to the whole affair.

After some consideration, he decided that his gift of flowers was more to get back in Akane's good graces - and to ensure a measure of peace and goodwill between them - than any concession on his part to marry the bossy, overbearing, overheated, but definitely cute when she wanted to be, tomboy.

Having come to that conclusion, he had made a few oblique enquiries among the ship's cooks about the process of procuring said flowers. The replies he had received were not encouraging. While there were no specific prohibitions against collecting flowers, there was a general ship's regulation that forbade unqualified personnel from harvesting plant life of any kind from the Greenhouse. If you weren't on the Chief Cook's list as a gardener, you weren't allowed to pick flowers.

Ranma decided that it was a stupid regulation, and set out to collect what he needed as expeditiously and as covertly as possible.

The Greenhouse was currently deserted. The light of the Wexford primary glinted through the transparent dome and filtered down upon the wealth of free-fall hydroponics. The air was humid and warm, and filled with the earthy scent of growing things.

Lacking any sort of guide to tell what was what, Ranma decided to go by looks...

Eight Shining Pearls Fortress

Planet Jusenkyo, Jusenkyo System

The Jusenkyo Commonwealth

13 May 3025

Mechwarrior General Herb stamped her foot impatiently on the heated flagstones of her personal bathhouse, waiting for her henchmen to arrive with bathing sundries. She cursed the sudden cloudburst that had revealed her Jusenkyo Body to the inhabitants of the fortress, and she cursed Doctor Gaido for his monolithic incompetence by allowing her spill in the pool to happen in the first place.

"I'm WAITING," she growled breathlessly to Lime, who appeared from behind a painted screen with a robe, towels, and a selection of soaps and lotions.

Lime dropped to one knee and presented the goods to his general. Herb noticed with more than a little dissatisfaction that his imposing henchman was ogling her heaving bosom. It had been like this ever since Lightoller; at any time where she had succumbed to the Jusenkyo Effect, her henchmen couldn't take their eyes off her body. She had to admit that she was pretty stacked, but her pride ran no further than that.

"Stop staring," she growled at him. Lime averted his eyes.

She disrobed while keeping an imperious glower leveled at Lime - should the temptation to peek overcome his better judgement. The hefty Musk Dynasty officer refrained from any overt glances, but as she padded in the nude across the stones to the steamy grotto of the bath, she could feel his greasy eyes upon her. It was an unnerving experience, and she struggled to keep her dignity as she waded into the water.

The change came swiftly, and he heaved out a sigh of relief. He was a man once more. Lime retired behind the screen to await the call of his general. Herb was content to sit in thoughtful silence.

He had many things to consider, many plans in motion, and plans to be set in motion. He was constantly evaluating his situation for any signs of weakness or error. As he was plotting the ultimate downfall of the Elder Council, he could not afford to leave any openings or loose ends.

The hissing of whispered voices behind the screen roused him from inner contemplations. Mint had appeared, and he caught enough of the exchange between the small but fierce warrior and his giant companion to know that they were discussing his female body again. He rubbed his hand against his temple in response to the migraine headache the overheard conversation brought upon him.

Why couldn't those two idiots visit the comfort women like everyone else? he lamented. He had a mind to order them to do so, but knew that it would probably be a waste of time. They were trusted henchmen - if a bit dull - and powerful warriors, but in matters regarding women, they were clueless.

Mint appeared from behind the screen with a dispatch. Herb looked up through wifts of scented steam from the bath at the salmon-pink hardcopy of a Comstar Dispatch. The public never saw the pink copies, which were routing sheets for the HPG tech-priests who maintained the Inner Sphere's faster-than-light communications network. This was taken from one such station through a Commonwealth infiltrator.

"What is it?" he demanded.

"Your pardon, General," Mint demurred. "A communique from Mechwarrior Mousse has arrived through channels."

Herb sat up straight in the bath. Mousse had very specific instructions regarding communication. He was not to send anything unless he had succeeded in his mission - or that his mission had very obviously failed.

"Show it to me," he barked.

"Of course, General."

The message on the dispatch was encrypted with a basic two-step keyword substituton cypher - enough to keep honest men honest and within the limited resources Mousse had available to him. Herb noted the freehand ink decryption above the random characters of the message.

VITAL SYSTEM COORDINATES OBTAINED. FATE OF SAOTOMES UNKNOWN. FATE OF SHAMPOO UNKNOWN - PRESUMED DEAD OR CAPTURED. PRESENT LOCATION: WEXFORD SYSTEM, FEDERATED SHIRATORI. IMMEDIATE RENDEZVOUS REQUESTED TO TRANSFER NECESSARY DATA. ALSO: I CONCEDE THAT YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT SHAMPOO, GENERAL, AND I WISH TO SERVE AT YOUR SIDE.

MOUSSE

Herb smiled as he read the final sentence of the message. Mousse had turned, an unexpected if welcome bit of news. No doubt Shampoo had given him the final push away from Cologne and her Joketsuzoku harpies.

He would welcome Mousse personally, he decided. The man was an excellent mechwarrior, and his hate would make him a powerful ally in the days to come. They would be heady days indeed.

Peony continued to undermine Cologne's influence in the council, though it was clear now that she lacked the nerve and the resolve to depose her enemy until there was no hope of opposition, and she completely ignored the threat that the Musk Dynasty represented. Cologne was too busy fending off Peony and her cronies to keep more than half an eye on him. The Commonwealth was nearly ripe for the taking.

It would be five years or more before he would be ready to act openly against the Council - time he needed to add to his powerbase, and to exploit whatever technological advantages Ryuugenzawa would bring him. He had been prepared to act sooner than this, but the subject of the Star League's fabled testing grounds had been too compelling to ignore, and he had adjusted his timetable accordingly. Now he had the location of the system within his grasp. Now the countdown to the end of matriarchal rule could begin.

"Notify all my commanders to prepare for immediate departure from this system," he ordered Mint. "Have the _Domingo_ retrieve Mousse, and arrange for a rendezvous along the Commonwealth border."

"At once, General." Mint saluted, and dashed out of the bath to carry out his orders.

Herb made a fist and cupped it with his other hand.

"Very soon, Cologne, the Commonwealth will fall to me."

The City of Gondolin

Planet Nerima, Capella System

The Nerima Confederation

27 April 3025

"- the diplomatic implications of this shocking assassination are as yet unknown," the talking head on the television set declared, his facial expression suitably grave for the event. Nabiki had one of her bodyguards increase the volume as her limousine sped up the roadway from the starport to the city proper.

"There has been no official comment from Grand Duke Tendo," the news anchor continued. "But in a bizarre twist of events, your Forty-Four News Team has received information linking the assassin, Lord Rolf Thuringia of Tikonov, to the Duke's inner circle of advisors."

Nabiki smiled. The beauty of modern journalism for her was that it was so hungry for 'breaking news' that it would swallow just about anything to be the first to broadcast, and that meant little or no research of its own for independent verification.

"Again, this breaking development," the anchor intoned. "League of Five Nails Ambassador Tetsuo Gosunkugi was assassinated shortly before Sixteen O'Clock Gondolin Mean Time, on the Oyama Commerce Space Station. The Ambassador was rumored to be in the Capella System to broker an alliance against the Furinkan Combine with Grand Duke Tendo, and was murdered by a lone assassin in a station hotel conference room. The assassin was himself killed by the Ambassador's bodyguard immediately after the attack, leaving his motive for the brutal slaying unclear at this time."

"Go on," Nabiki urged the screen. She and her staff-in-exile had been working frantically for the last four hours since her return to the planet to set this in motion, and she had greased all the right wheels with the media to make it happen.

"There are, however, unconfirmed reports that the murder was not simply the act of a lone assassin, but a well-orchestrated execution sanctioned from within Azure Cloud Castle - again for motives that are unclear at this time."The anchor looked away from the camera for a moment as he received something important off the TelePrompter.

"We've just received word from the Castle. Grand Duke Tendo's Press Secretary has vigorously denied any involvement by His Grace in such an act."

Nabiki watched as her father's Press Secretary took the rostrum in a hastily prepared press conference called as the first of her carefully planted news leaks began to spill.

"His Grace, Grand Duke Soun Tendo, categorically denies any involvement in this terrible tragedy, and furthermore denounces the rumors that any of his advisors or staff were responsible. This is a grave moment in the history of the Nerima Confederation, and His Grace is even now ordering an official investigation into this incident to show his sincere goodwill towards the League of Five Nails."

Nabiki stifled a laugh. The personal DropShip of Tetsuo Gosunkugi was speeding back to the Jump Point that very moment - without Tetsuo's remains, thanks to her behind-the-scenes meddling. The gung-ho Navy had unwittingly helped her in her plot by threatening to destroy the ship if its crew made any unsanctioned attempts to take the Ambassador's body off the station. The League of Five Nails was going to get her version of the story first, and they would not be inclined to listen to any of her father's waffling rhetoric and apologies.

She felt confident about herself for the first time since the death of Tetsuo. It had taken an act of near-divine inspiration to turn Rolf's incomprehensible act of stupidity to her advantage, and she was rolling on the momentum of her decision to act. The nobles had fallen in line almost at once - though Count Baldur of Thuringia was understandably shaken by the death of his son, and of Rolf's culpablity in the murder of the Ambassador.

It was vital for her that they never know the true details of the murder. She was playing it up as another sign that her father was insane - that he was throwing away every opportunity for the Confederation to survive the war against the Combine - and even the nobles whose support was lukewarm and skeptical at best were lapping it up.

The Grand Duke's Personal Chambers

Azure Cloud Castle

28 April 3025

"I'm here," Nabiki announced, stepping through the doors of the Duke's chambers with her escort. Soun was there, along with Kasumi, some of his most loyal supporters, and an attractive woman of middle-age whom Nabiki did not know. It was just past midnight, and the atmosphere in the room was grim. Riots had started in Gondolin as her rumors and dark innuendo continued to grow - fueled by the seeming futility of the war in spite of their daring victory at Oni - and further implicating the Duke as a man insane, who had ruined the country's only chance at victory over the Combine by ordering the death of Tetsuo Gosunkugi. It was most certainly the act of a man who had lost his mind when the League was lending such dramatic support to the Confederation war effort these past few weeks.

"And I want to make something immediately clear, Daddy," she continued. "I'm here because I choose to appear before you, not because I've been commanded to come."

Soun was livid. He whirled on her, eyes flashing.

"What have you done, Nabiki!?" he demanded.

She brushed his accusation aside.

"From what I'm hearing, it's what _you've_ done, Daddy," she returned coolly.

Soun was having none of it. "You've murdered the League Ambassador!" he shouted. "Murdered! On Confederation territory, right before he could meet with me! Do you realize that he was here to propose highest level talks that would aid us in the war?"

She motioned for one of her bodyguards to fetch her a drink, ignoring most of his tirade.

"So why did you have him bumped off, then?" she accused in a dry, faintly mocking tone.

Soun reeled, speechless. Kasumi stood from the divan to approach the two of them.

"Look, Daddy," Nabiki said in a business-like tone. "Let's get down to brass tacks. I've been authorized to act for the Confederation's Peer Circle in this matter." She produced a crisp parchment document whose ink had barely dried, and showed him the menagerie of seals and signatures affixed to it. "By near-unanimous consent, it has been determined by the Peers of the Confederation that you, Grand Duke Tendo, are mentally unfit to rule, and that you are to abdicate immediately to me as Confederation Regent, pending a formal investiture of the Confederation Heir - assuming of course that my little sister ever returns from that misadventure you sent her on."

"Arrest her," Soun ordered his men. They took a hesistant step forward.

Nabiki waved them off. "Arrest yourself," she returned. "You should realize that it's all I can do to keep the people of the city below this castle from storming the gates," she said to him. "They want your head for this, Daddy. As far as they're concerned, you're a deranged lunatic who will sacrifice all of us for some foolish pride in your war against the Combine."

Her bodyguard brought her the drink as the household troops remained where they were. She sipped at it as her father seemed to fall back upon himself. After watching him writhe for a moment, Nabiki pressed home the attack.

"If you don't abdicate, you will only further convict yourself in the eyes of the people, and the Peers will be obligated to remove you forceably from the throne. You should also know that Count Thuringia's regiment has already moved to secure the castle and the starport against the mob, and Counts Stark and Tarrega have mobilized the reserves to declare and impose martial law."

Soun read the deeper implications behind her statement. Three of his senior nobles were already in position with their units to depose him, while on the surface appearing to act in the name of restoring order to the city. He had failed to take her seriously as a threat, and she had completely outmaneuvered him.

"You have one hour to make your decision," she added. "Naturally, you and Kasumi, as well as your senior advisors, will have to be removed to a secure location - for your own safety against the mobs, of course."

Kasumi gave her a bitter look, knowing exactly what her younger sister had in mind.

"I won't abdicate," Soun declared. "This is nothing short of High Treason against me."

Nabiki made a tsk-tsk sound. "Then you give me no choice but to remove you." She made a subtle sign with her hand, and her bodyguards produced submachine guns, keeping them visible, if not directing them at anyone. Soun's own personal guard reached for weapons of their own, and a standoff ensued.

"Call them off, Daddy, before someone gets hurt. You know that I wouldn't have come here if I hadn't already won."

The middle-aged woman rose from the divan where she had been sitting with Kasumi. Nabiki watched her coolly as she approached Kasumi and the Grand Duke. There was something about her appearance that was vaguely familiar.

"Soun," the woman said in a calm voice. "I don't think that this will solve anything."

He remained resolute. "Nodoka, I..." His voice tapered off. Finally, he directed his wounded eyes toward his middle daughter. "You'll have to murder me the way you murdered the Ambassador."

Nabiki shot Kasumi a penetrating look. "If you have any influence over him, sis, I suggest that you exercise it."

Kasumi also remained resolute. "No, Nabiki. What you are doing is wrong. I'll have no part of it."

Nabiki sighed wearily. "Kasumi, you will never understand the sacrifices I've made for this country. If I thought for a moment that we could actually defeat the Furinkan Combine, I would have been behind you a hundred percent.

"But the fact is that the country is about to be overrun in a matter of weeks - if not days - and the only one who seems to be willing to prevent even more bloodshed and destruction is me."

Kasumi bowed her head. She had wrestled with that very issue on Oni. "Do the Peers know that you intend to surrender the Confederation to Prince Kuno?" she asked her.

"Of course they do," Nabiki replied. "It's the only option that not only saves lives, but allows them to keep their titles and their wealth. Don't worry, I've thought about our family too. I intend to have us remain rulers of the Confederation - we'll just have a liege lord over us like any other noble."

"Tatewaki Kuno," Kasumi spat. Nabiki was unaccustomed the venom in her older sister's voice. "The one man responsible for so much of the Inner Sphere's violence and ruin. You want to make him our liege."

"He's the one person who can unite the Inner Sphere," Nabiki countered. "It's true that he'll do it by conquest, but was there ever any doubt that he would be the one to do what two centuries of Successor Lords couldn't?"

She looked to her father again. "Last chance, Daddy. Do the honorable thing, and abdicate."

Soun closed his eyes and silent tears began to spill down his cheeks.

"I will not abdicate," he declared. "But it seems that I am in no position to resist my removal." He made a dismissive wave to his troops, who lowered their weapons grudgingly.

"So be it," Nabiki replied. She snapped her fingers, and a covey of lawyers, minor nobles, and a High Justice of the Court appeared to act as witnesses. "As of this moment, I, Nabiki Tendo, acting under the authority of the Peers of the Confederation, and in the best interests of the Nerima Confederation, do hereby strip you of the title of Grand Duke of the Confederation." She paused. This was all theater, of course, the Peers having little real power over the Ducal Throne save outright revolt, but as long as the right people were willing to play along...

"Furthermore," she continued. "I, Nabiki Tendo, under warrant from the Peers of the Confederation, do hereby assume the title of Sole Regent of the Confederation, to execute the duties and responsibilities of the office pending the return and formal investiture of the Confederation Heir, Akane Tendo, as Grand Duchess."

She looked to the witnesses, who nodded their assent.

"My first act as Regent is to place the royal family in protective custody, pending the restoration of order and as their physical and psychological conditions dictate."

Which was to say that her father would be declared completely insane, and therefore unfit to be released from guarded psychiatric care, and that Kasumi would suffer an emotional collapse from the stress of her battles on Oni, and require extensive rest and therapy somewhere far removed from the seat of power, and somehow never quite recover. All nice and neat. She could almost see the mountains of sympathy mail from their loyal subjects rolling in...

She motioned for her men to take the former Grand Duke and his retinue away. The South Tower seemed appropriate for the moment, at least until she could reestablish order and consolidate her power. Removing her father had been the easy part. Now she had to face Tatewaki Kuno head on in a struggle for the fate of the Confederation.

There was never any doubt that the country would become a vassal state, the challenge for her would be to arrange the most favorable terms for its surrender. Shogun Kuno would be her most valuable weapon against Tatewaki taking the entire country by force. She would trade him for her concessions, as well as the hand of her sister, Akane, in marriage.

She could see why Tetsuo had been so eager to get rid of the Combine Shogun. He was a total nutcase. The lunatic father of Prince Tatewaki Kuno was currently on his way to a remote seaside estate on the other side of the planet, where he and his entourage would be looked after by her personal staff. They had been cashiered out of hand by her father, and they were only too willing to showcase their loyalty to her and her alone.

She eased herself down into a chair as her father and his people were taken away to exile in the South Tower. Count Tarrega assured her that he could have order restored by sunrise, and with minimal violence once it was announced that Grand Duke Tendo had abdicated. She wasn't due to appear on television for another hour, and she wanted to rest up to appear fresh for the people.

Nerima Confederation JumpShip _Dragonfly_

Wexford System Nadir Jump Point

Wexford System, the Federated Shiratori

11 May 3025

Ranma Saotome knew that he was no florist, but as far as he was concerned, the selection of flowers and flowering plants he had chosen looked pretty good. He had even thought far enough ahead to have a vase with water ready for them in the stateroom he shared with his father, though the vase was a bit of an improvisation on his part - it was the plastic shipping tube for an electromagnetic decoy countermeasure, cut down with a hacksaw borrowed from the ship's tool crib from its original one meter length. All in all, pretty impressive, he thought.

Getting the flowers was the easy part. Actually delivering them to their intended recipient was going to be the challenge. Was there some kind of strategy involved in the process, or did he simply go up to her, thrust out the vase, and say something along the lines of 'this is for you'?

He had a mind to pay a quick visit to Doctor Tofu and get a little more advice on the subject, and quickly cast it aside. The Doc was giving Shampoo an exam in the Ship's Brig, to make certain that their latest prisoner wasn't hurt worse than she appeared to be. He wasn't sure what to think of Shampoo, since she had wanted to kill him for close to five months now, and had nearly killed Ucchan and Konatsu in the process. That wasn't even considering the fact that she had stolen the database disc with the Ryuugenzawa System on it.

And then there was that kiss she had given him, the kiss that had him on this florist's errand to get back in Akane's good graces.

He was disturbed by the matter, especially given her homicidal intentions where he was concerned. Why a kiss? Was it some kinda kiss of death? And that weirdo remark about guys defeating Amazons having, er, 'privileges' with them? Part of him just didn't want to know. The other part was all fired up to find out.

The door to the stateroom opened as he put the finishing touches on the arrangement. Ranma turned guiltily to see his father stepping through the door in his panda body. The panda stopped short at the sight of his son arranging a bouquet of flowers, and fumbled for his signboard.

Good idea, boy, the sign read. The room could use a little a little color.

Ranma relaxed, realizing that there would be no interrogation forthcoming.

"What's up?" he asked his father. "Why don't you turn back into a human?"

Sometimes it's just easier this way, son, Genma replied. No one bothers me when I'm like this.

"Yeah, well, I can see why."

I'm going to take a nap for awhile. Wake me before dinner.

Ranma shook his head. "Whatever. Sleep 'til you're hungry, eat 'til you're tired, eh, Pop?"

The panda gave his son a penetrating look.

The path of a true mechwarrior is fraught with peril, boy. Ranma could almost hear his father's voice as he read the sign. You should understand better than most the importance of sleeping and eating whenever the opportunity arises.

"It still sounds like a dodge to me," Ranma threw back. He stepped out of the room, resolving to come back in twenty minutes to get Akane's flowers. His father would be asleep by then.

No sooner had the door closed behind him then he was accosted by his pint-sized nemesis, Happousai.

"You've been avoiding me, Ranma," he intoned ominously.

"Well, _DUH_," Ranma returned. "Who wouldn't?"

Happousai was not amused. "It's been weeks, months even, since the last time we trained. I'm concerned that the heir to my Anything Goes School of Martial Arts won't measure up to the challenges before him."

"It's more like you're lusting after my girl body, and you haven't had your grope fix since Azusa's wedding," Ranma countered, even less amused than his so-called 'master.'

"We could skip the preliminaries, and go right to the part where I splash you," Happousai wheedled, confirming Ranma's suspicions. He nudged the pig-tailed mechwarrior in the arm. "How about it, eh, Hot Stuff?"

"Howsabout I beat the living daylights out of you, stuff your shattered carcass in a TDU can, and shoot you with the rest of the trash tonight before we Jump?" Ranma counter-offered. The thought of stuffing Happousai into a sheetmetal Trash Disposal Unit can just thirty centimeters in diameter and a meter long, and then shooting that can out into deep space, made him feel warm and fuzzy with satisfaction.

Happousai looked him over.

"I don't know..." he replied in a speculative tone. "I don't think you've got what it takes. Frankly, Ranma, I'm not very impressed with you. Why, your father was a better martial artist at your age than you are now."

"Him?" Ranma snorted, casting a thumb to the door of the stateroom. His father was already asleep within, and snoring loud enough to be heard through the door. "Gimme a break."

Happousai tsk'ed. "It's true that he's gone to seed since then, but back in the day, he was quite a fighter. Soun Tendo, too, if you believe it."

"Which I don't," Ranma retorted. "Duke Tendo, maybe - at least he can still see his toes every morning, but Pop? Don't make me laugh. The only people he intimidates are the owners of all-you-can-eat buffets."

"I understand, Ranma," Happousai remarked casually. "You're just afraid of being proven wrong. I know how that goes - I was your age once - thinking that I had all the answers."

"Hey!" Ranma protested. "Who says I'm afraid?"

"If you aren't afraid, then meet me in the gym in half an hour, and prove to me that I'm wrong about you," Happousai returned.

"I'll be there, freako!" Ranma growled, stabbing a thumb at his chest.

Happousai nodded with some satisfaction, and then turned away.

"I couldn't lead him along any better if I dragged him by his nose," he observed quietly. "Sucker..."

Ranma watched him go, suddenly getting the feeling that he had been had.

He walked with flowers in hand along the curved race of 'D' Deck, resolving to give them to Akane in time to keep his appointment with Happousai in the ship's gym. In spite of his apprehensions at facing the perverted old goat in what was certainly a set-up to change him into a girl and then grope him, he wasn't going to back down from a fight. It was possible that he might even win.

Ukyou stepped out of her stateroom as he approached, her eyes lighting up. Ranma cringed in spite of himself, knowing that he was just two doors shy of Akane's room. He liked Ukyou, and thought that she was pretty darn cute, but her possessive attitude towards him since she had joined the expedition was really getting on his nerves. It was almost as if she was in love with him or something.

He decided that he would rather not think about that. His life was complicated enough.

"Hiya, Ranchan!" she called to him.

He thrust the flowers behind his back.

"Hiya, Ucchan," he returned in a friendly, if somewhat neutral, voice.

She stopped short of him, eyes flicking to his hip.

"What's that?" she asked, all smiles.

"What's what?" he returned uncomfortably.

She chuckled. "What are you holding behind your back?"

"Uh, nothing," he said lamely.

"It's a very pretty bouquet of nothing," she observed. "Is it for me?"

"...uh..."

She leaned in close. "It was very thoughtful of you."

Now Ranma was starting to turn red. She had backed him into a corner, because he could not bring himself to tell her that the flowers were meant for Akane.

"Uh, well..." he muttered. "Not, er, exactly."

She laughed. "So shy," she said warmly, sidling up to him uncomfortably close. It was uncomfortable in that she was in fact extremely cute, and even he noticed it.

"How's Konatsu doing?" he asked, desperate to change the subject.

She gave him a sidelong glance. "He'll be okay. He needed some stitches, but nothing serious." She cuddled up closer to him. "So, about that bouquet of flowers...?"

"How's the arm?"

She gave him an exasperated look. "Fine. A hairline fracture from that Chinese bimbo's mace. I've had a lot worse." She tried to sneak another look at the flowers. "So... Flowers for an injured friend?"

"Hey, um, aren't you making okonomiyaki tonight for the crew?" he asked, trying for a third time to steer the conversation away from his gift of flowers for Akane.

She huffed in frustration, but played along.

"Sure am, Ranchan," she replied. "I'll be sure to make a special batch of them, just for you." She fluttered her eyelashes at him. "You be sure to come into the galley tonight, and I'll whip them up right there. We can eat them together, just the two of us."

"Sounds great!" he enthused, a little too hastily. "Oh jeez, I'm supposed to be in the gym right now, getting my ass kicked by Happousai. I gotta go."

He started off in the opposite direction, cupping the bouquet close to his chest.

"Happousai?" Ukyou called after him. "That little satyr? Tell me those flowers aren't for _him_!"

"Of course not!" Ranma replied indignantly.

"Then who are they for?" she demanded.

He decided that it was better not to say anything. Worse, his hands were starting to itch.

The ship's gymnasium was a small affair, a compartment slightly larger than the average living room. Its purpose was to provide a place for the crew to work out, since their prolonged exposure to periods of free-fall and the meager artificial gravity provided by the Grav Deck meant waging a war against muscle atrophy and bone deossification that exercise helped forestall. The exercise machines folded out of the bulkheads for use, leaving the room empty when they were stowed. Padding along the walls, deck, and overhead made a decent, if small, dojo for martial artists to practice.

Happousai was there, standing in the far corner as he entered the room. Akane was there too, dressed in a shimmering white bodysuit, and peddling furiously on one of the exercycles. Ranma could tell by the look of irritation on her face, and by Happousai's greasy countenance, that he had been ogling her in silence the whole time.

"You're here early," Happousai said to him. "Hey, nice flowers," he added, cackling. Akane looked up, surprised to see Ranma holding a makeshift bouquet of them in his hands. "Not exactly what I'd select to put on your grave, but at least you were prepared," the tiny mechwarrior finished.

"Bite me," Ranma returned curtly. "You'll get these from me the hard way, I promise."

"You mean they're for me?" Happousai gushed, his eyes dewing. "Ranma! You shouldn't have!" He leaped over to the pig-tailed mechwarrior, reaching for them. "Why, no one's given me flowers in ages!"

"Back off, freak!" Ranma retorted, slamming Happousai to the deck. "They ain't for you!"

"Who _are_ they for?" Akane asked from the exercycle. Her hopeful look made him weak in the knees.

Happousai popped up in full recovery, catching the look that passed between the two young mechwarriors with a low whistle.

"Say..." he opined. "Do my eyes deceive me? Is my star pupil actually growing a pair of _cojones_?" He leaped at Ranma's chest, catching a handful of red mandarin blouse in his tiny hands and bawling. "Oh, happy day!" he wailed. "You really aren't gay! Oh, how I'd been worried about you, but you've vindicated my faith that one day you'd actually figure out what girls are for!"

Ranma, his face reaching a previously undocumented shade of red, stood trembling, his free hand clenching and unclenching furiously.

"Are those really for me, Ranma?" Akane asked him, her voice shy and cute, and... And he was about to lose it with Happousai standing there making wet kiss-kiss noises at him.

"Answer the lady, smart-guy," Happousai reproached.

"Shut up, you!" Ranma roared, lashing out with a kick that utterly failed to connect. Happousai bounded clear, cackling laughter at him.

"Ranma's in love with Akane!" Happousai taunted him in a schoolyard voice. "Ranma's in love with Akane!"

"Shut up!" Ranma howled. "Stop sayin' that!"

Happousai waggled his tongue at him as he bounded around the room with the pig-tailed mechwarrior in hot pursuit. "Get a load of this, Akane," he called to her. She was just as red-faced as Ranma in that moment. "Your mighty fiance, laid low by a school-boy's taunt!"

"Leave him alone," she admonished him.

Happousai grabbed the bouquet of flowers out of Ranma's hand in a flash, and dumped them on his foe's head. "You don't deserve a girl like her, Ranma!" he cried jealously. He then clouted Ranma on the head with the plastic vase for good measure, and bounded out of the gym, bawling miserably.

Ranma stood stock still, soaking wet, her face turning purple because she had decided not to breathe.

Akane stepped off the exercycle and padded quietly over to her. She knelt over the ruined flowers at Ranma's feet, eyeing them dispassionately.

"They _did_ look nice," she said to her.

Ranma said nothing in reply.

Akane picked up the plastic countermeasure tube and looked at it. In spite of herself, she smiled at his ingenuity. "They _were_ for me, right?"

"I was just trying to apologize for lettin' Shampoo kiss me," Ranma finally grumbled. She was really starting to itch now, and not just on her hands.

Akane gave her an appraising look. "What's to apologize for?" she asked her. "She caught us all by surprise with that one."

Ranma's face fell. "You mean that all this time you weren't angry?"

"Of course I was angry," she returned. "At first. Then I got over it."

_All this hell for nothing!_ Ranma cursed. She wiped at her eyes, which were starting to sting, and wondered if there wasn't something seriously wrong with her.

"Still," Akane added. "It's the thought that counts."

"That's what the Doc said," Ranma replied.

Akane grinned at him. "You went to Doctor Tofu about this?"

"Gimme a break," Ranma snorted. "I don't know the first thing when it comes to apologizing to girls!"

"I never would have guessed," she deadpanned. "Thank you, Ranma. It was a very nice thing for you to do for me."

"It was a disaster," Ranma countered. "Nothing turned out the way it was supposed to, and, ow, jeezus!"

"What is it, Ranma?" Akane asked her worriedly.

Ranma squirmed painfully in place.

"My face and neck, my hands... God, they itch!"

Akane looked him over closely. "Wow," she intoned. "You've got these tiny little welts all over your skin..." She looked at the flowers again. "Some of these aren't poisonous, are they?"

"How should I know!" Ranma barked. She began to itch in spite of herself.

"Yup," Doctor Tofu said gravely as he consulted the ship's greenhouse inventory. "They're poisonous. A genetic analogue of poison sumac; indigenous to St. Ives, actually."

Ranma, her face, throat, and hands smeared with pink dabs of ointment, made a choking sound. "What the hell is something like that doing on board a starship?!"

Tofu read the detailed description. "They counteract the tendency of one of the volatile organic atmosphere contaminant-fixing plants to turn the hydroponic solution acidic," he replied. "They secrete a tiny amount of a strong hydroxyl group into the solution, and the two plants strike a fairly neutral pH balance."

He gave the ointment-smeared mechwarrior a look of disapproval. "You didn't get the cooks' permission to do this, did you."

Ranma cast a brief look to Akane before answering.

"They wouldn't let me," she replied. "So I went ahead and did it."

"Well, I'd consider this a lesson learned the hard way," Tofu sighed.

"How long will he be like this?" Akane asked him.

"Two or three days," the doctor replied. "He'll need to take cool showers twice daily, with a mild soap that I'll provide out of the Pharmacy in a moment, and he'll need to keep using that ointment to stop the itching."

"Marvelous," Ranma groused.

Tofu shook his head sadly. "Trust me, Ranma. I can tell you that at least one person on this ship has a much bigger medical problem to deal with." He set a bar of the soap down on the examining table for her, and then started for the door. "Excuse me, please, I have some important news for the Captain."

Ranma eyed the soap, then Akane, as the doctor left Sick Bay. "What the heck was that about?"

"She's what?" Captain Hinako Ninomiya cried in disbelief.

"Shampoo is pregnant," Doctor Tofu repeated. First Ranma's mildly poisonous plant encounter, and then this!

"You're certain?"

He nodded. "I'm afraid so, Captain. Both the urine and blood specimens I took during the physical exam I administered following her capture seem to confirm this."

"How pregnant?" Hinako pressed.

Tofu shrugged. "Barring the results of a more detailed exam, and then allowing for the fact that I'm not exactly trained for obstetric medicine, I'd say not very, but 'not very' is still just enough."

"Terrific," Hinako spat in her sultry bedroom voice. "This makes her final disposition a bit more delicate."

"To say the least," Tofu agreed. "I haven't told her yet. It's so soon that it's possible that she doesn't even know."

Hinako thought about it for a moment. "I don't know. On the one hand, if Shampoo knows that she's pregnant, she might be more inclined to behave herself. On the other hand, she might use the fact that we'll be reluctant to get overly physical with her, against us."

"True," Tofu said, nodding. Both of them were enlightened enough to feel that while Shampoo was guilty of trespassing, attempted murder, and espionage, any unborn child of hers was an innocent, and deserved to be protected.

"I guess we can't execute her, either," she sniffed. She hadn't looked forward to spacing the Amazon, but after Tarou, she had learned her lesson when it came to potentially dangerous prisoners, and in this case, Shampoo was guilty of a crime - espionage - for which the death penalty was most certainly indicated.

"What are the chances that we can turn her over to someone?"

Hinako shook her head. "That's part of the problem. After Tarou, I have little faith that even one of our frontier worlds will want to take over the case, and her legal status is dubious. We aren't at war with the Jusenkyo Commonwealth, so she isn't technically a P.O.W., and this criminal matter would normally fall under my jurisdiction as Captain, since it happened aboard my ship. On the other hand, the crime of espionage is one that falls under the High Justice of the Confederation, and isn't a matter for a local planetary court."

She shrugged her shoulders absently.

"I guess the best thing we can do is hold her in the Brig until we return from the Ryuugenzawa System."

Tofu nodded. "I suppose that means that I'll be hitting up the medical library for some prenatal care procedures." He paused, his distaste for the subject clear. "There is one final option."

Hinako looked up from her review of the day's logs.

"I'm listening, Doctor."

"I hesitate to present this, but Shampoo could always opt to abort," he said. "The procedure for terminating a pregnancy this early is very simple, and we have the necessary drugs on board."

"This would have to be her choice," Hinako declared. "I won't sanction anything else, and I certainly won't order it."

"I understand, Captain," Tofu replied, wiping the lenses of his glasses uncomfortably. "I don't think that she'll be interested, considering that she has to be aware of the penalty for espionage, but it is an alternative that would make handling her more convenient."

Hinako gave him a surprisingly cold look. He realized that because of her unique metabolic condition, she could never have children of her own, and almost certainly envied someone who could.

"I'm repulsed by the thought, Doctor, that terminating the unborn should ever become a matter of convenience."

Shampoo lay face down and away from the clear polycarbonate door of her cell in the brig, her tattered clothing replaced with a simple shipsuit coverall that was bereft of the usual insignia and nametags. Doctor Tofu swallowed hard at the sight of her, for the Amazon looked good even in drab ship's blue. The off-watch crewman detailed to Brig Duty looked up from his book at him.

"She's been real quiet, Doc," he said to him.

"That's good," Tofu returned. "I'm going to speak with the prisoner, if that's okay with you."

The sailor shrugged. "As long as it's business, I suppose there's no problem. You wouldn't believe how many of the guys have been trying to get in here to talk to her."

"It's a medical matter," Tofu confirmed, understanding how the single, male, portion of the crew might feel about the exotic looking Amazon. "A _private_ medical matter."

The sailor lifted his book to his face. "So who's listening?"

Satisfied that the sailor would at least keep up the appearance of not eavesdropping, he stepped over to the cell, and tapped on the transparent door. Shampoo ignored him.

"Shampoo, it's Doctor Tofu Ono. Do you remember me?"

She continued to ignore him.

"Shampoo, I have something very important to discuss with you."

"Go away," she growled.

"I can't do that," he returned. "This is a medical matter, and at the moment, I'm your doctor."

"Doctors no matter," she said, staring at the blank wall opposite the door. "Not when Shampoo to be executed."

"That's not going to happen, Shampoo."

"Shampoo not believe you," she retorted. "Shampoo know what is penalty for spying."

Tofu sighed. "That might be true," he said at length. "But as you are currently pregnant, there is no chance of that happening."

She stiffened on the sleeping pallet.

"Yes, Shampoo," Tofu told her. "Pregnant."

She sat up, turning about to sit on the pallet, facing him.

"You lie," she said curtly. "Is not possible. Shampoo have implant. No can have babies unless removed."

Tofu pulled up an extra chair and sat down across from her, with only the centimeter thick wall of transparent polycarbonate separating them. He opened up the thin manilla file he had started on her, and showed her the results of the automated analysis unit on her blood and urine samples.

"The machine found traces of certain chemical breakdown products in your bloodstream," he said to her. "The breakdown products detected are related to a certain class of antibiotics. Have you been sick recently? Say, in the last two months? Did you take anything for it?"

Shampoo thought about it. She had contracted a nasty upper respiratory tract infection on the outbound trip from Tau Ceti - no doubt due to the less than savory conditions aboard the _Domingo_. But she had been over it by the time she and Mousse had sex!

"Shampoo have bad cough," she replied. "Take antibiotic for two weeks."

Tofu nodded. He had suspected as much. "Some antibiotics interfere with contraceptive function," he replied. "Even with contraceptive implants, there can be some complications."

She took this in. What had passed for a doctor aboard the _Domingo_ had said nothing about that when he prescribed her the medicine!

"Shampoo really pregnant?" she said in a tiny voice.

"I'm afraid so," Tofu confirmed.

She was speechless. This was simply not possible! To be carrying Mousse's child - the child of a man who had been removed from the Breeding Program - within her!

"I can tell that this was unexpected," he said lamely.

"Shampoo no wonder when she miss period," she said in a soft voice. "Sometime stress make period come few days late. No worries."

Tofu offered her a sympathetic look. "Shampoo, I want you to know that I'll be looking after you and the baby for the foreseeable future. If you have any problems, if you experience any pain or discomfort, a little morning sickness, whatever... I'm available to help. Just ask the guard to have me come down, and I'll be there."

She nodded numbly.

"I'm also going to start you on a prenatal care diet," he said. "That includes vitamin supplements. It's hard to provide everything you and the baby need with the food stores we have on board - even counting what we might have available in the Greenhouses - so I want you to take them without fail. The first trimester is critical to the baby's health."

Shampoo remained silent, eyes downcast in despair.

"What if Shampoo no want baby?" she asked at length. It was a painful thing to say, because her clan had always celebrated life, and considered children the Joketsuzoku's greatest asset. There was also a long-held Chinese objection to abortion - a holdover from the dark days of pre-Jump Earth, when the state had dictated how many children a woman could have.

"A-Are you saying that you want to terminate your pregnancy, Shampoo?" He had hoped that she wouldn't ask.

Her eyes closed. "Shampoo not know." Bear a worthless man's child, or throw away every personal and cultural value she held dear to get rid of it?

Tofu nodded, understanding the terrible choice she faced.

"You've got a little time to think about it," he said to her. "Three or four weeks maybe, before surgical intervention becomes necessary. I'm not trained or certified to do anything about it after that point; you'll have to wait until we reach civilization, if it comes to that."

Shampoo nodded ruefully.

"In the meantime," he said, trying to lighten the mood. "You're going to eat, and you're going to take your vitamins, because I'm willing to bet a year's pay that your baby will be one the most beautiful in the Inner Sphere."

She tried to smile for him, for he was treating her with far more compassion than she would have expected from an enemy, but the expression simply wouldn't come.

NCJS _Dragonfly_

Sagrada Familia System Nadir Jump Point

Sagrada Familia System, the Federated Shiratori

Near the Federated Shiratori - Confederation border

17 May 3025

Akane Tendo floated near the Captain's Station as the _Dragonfly_ completed sending its coded transmission to the MV _Eastern Star_, a Merchant Class JumpShip of the Confederation's Merchant Marine returning from a six month trade run throughout the Federated Shiratori.

The _Eastern Star_ was a ship Hinako and the rest of the crew of the _Dragonfly_ knew from encounters while they were undercover as merchants, and their Confederation Merchant Marine crew was trusted with and cleared

for vital dispatches to the Grand Duke.

"We're taking a chance with this," Hinako warned her.

"I'm aware of that," Akane countered. "But in all fairness, the country most likely to intercept this data through Comstar is the country most likely to already have it. We're in a race against time, and we need a transport fleet to rendezvous with us at Ryuugenzawa."

Hinako chewed on her lip. They had been over this several times, and every other alternative seemed inadequate to the necessity of getting ships to Ryuugenzawa quickly, before the Commonwealth could reach them.

"Captain Ninomiya," the Communications tech called to her. "_Eastern Star_ acknowledges receipt of our transmission, and will relay it to the Capella System via the Sian System HPG station as soon as they materialize from Jump."

"Very well," Hinako replied. She licked at a lollipop absently. "Send Captain Avgerinos my regards."

"Yes, ma'am." She did so.

They watched as the _Eastern Star_ glowed with brilliant light several minutes later, and then winked out of existence.

"Conn, Sensory; Contact Romeo Two has Jumped," the Sensory tech announced - unnecessarily, Akane thought, as they had all watched it leave with their own eyes.

"Our turn next!" Hinako said happily, flapping her arms with excitement, and lifting herself out of her seat in zero-gravity. "Helm, commence the countdown for Hyperspace Jump!"

"Commence countdown for Hyperspace Jump, Helm, aye. Captain, the Helm is slaved to the Astrogation Computer for Hyperspace Jump."

She licked at her lollipop contentedly.

"Very well, Helm."

"Jumpcore internal temperatures stable," the Acting Assistant Engineer informed them. "Inverters Alfa through India are green. Ship's Battery indicates sufficient charge for Jump." The lights shifted for a moment as the starship's powerplant adjusted loads for the Jump.

"Clock synchronization is green," Helm reported. "Helm remains slaved to Astrogation. Reaction Control System in automatic. T-minus twenty minutes to Jump, mark."

Akane watched the activity on the bridge. Counting this one, they had just three more Jumps to make before they reached Ryuugenzawa, a period of over two weeks allowing for recharge time, and yet there was a growing sense of anticipation within her. The crew was feeling it too, and morale was the highest it had been since the expedition left Nerima.

Azure Cloud Castle

19 May 3025

Nabiki Tendo pored over the morning reports as she had done evey day since she assumed the throne of the Nerima Confederation. The riots had been quelled as expected, but the public was still anxious about the outcome of the war. She had been obliged to tread lightly over the subject of outright surrender to the Furinkan Combine, instead warming the people gradually to the subject, and couching it in terms of an alliance.

In truth that was what she was after all along, but perception was all too often equated with reality - an axiom she had put to good use in deposing her father, and she had to be careful. There were indications that public opinion was in a state of flux regarding the subject, a volatile mixture of war-weariness and national pride. Few within the Confederation had any more illusions of outright victory, and she planned to capitalize on this in her latest address, knowing that Prince Kuno was nearing the planet with a small escort force to discuss the terms of surrender.

He had answered her call for another surrender summit with glee, and particularly when he had learned what she had available in trade. The daimyo were getting extremely restless back home in the Combine, and there were muttered rumors of replacing the Kuno family outright as the rulers of the Furinkan Combine for a family that inspired more confidence in the people. Recovering the Shogun and gaining the Confederation as a valuable ally would put Tatewaki beyond all reproach, and he knew that.

Kuno was also salivating over the prospect of having Akane Tendo for his bride, no doubt, she mused as she read a communique from a distant outpost near the Federated Shiratori marked MOST URGENT, and at the highest security classification.

She almost dropped the paper. It was a dispatch from the NCJS _Dragonfly_, the JumpShip detailed to carry her sister and the damned Saotomes on their fool's errand to find Ryuugenzawa. She read on, not believing her eyes.

"I'll be damned," she muttered, taking an absent sip of her coffee. "They actually think they've FOUND it?"

One of her aides cocked his head at her questioningly. She ignored him. The rest of the dispatch was a series of astronomical computations that supposedly revealed the location of the Ryuugenzawa System. According to them, the star system had been removed from the astrogational charts centuries ago, and with the computations provided, a database patch could be derived that would allow for a Jump to the system.

They were on their way there even as she read the dispatch, and they were requesting that JumpShips loaded with DropShips be sent immediately to the system to carry off whatever they could recover from the place.

"Son of a bitch," she added, taking another sip, and nearly spilling it in her distraction.

She had a mind to destroy the paper that very moment. She had a very personal prejudice against the idea of Ryuugenzawa, and to find that it might actually exist was infuriating. To say nothing of the fact that a fat fool like Genma Saotome might be right about something where she had been wrong.

"Your Grace," one of her staff called softly to her. Though she was not the Duchess - yet - she had not been adverse to such a form of address from the staff.

"What is it?" she asked him.

"General Prince Tatewaki Kuno has arrived in orbit."

She steeled herself. "Very well. Send his Highness my regards. I'll be adjourning to my quarters in preparation to receive him."

They had arranged to meet in orbit, ironically, at Oyama Station. It was the closest thing to neutral territory available in the Capella System that wouldn't put either party to much disadvantage. Kuno was close to his ships; Nabiki had the planet at her back. The fact that the last diplomat to arrive at Oyama had died with a stiletto in his chest was quietly put aside. The League was still raging about the death of Tetsuo, but Tatewaki Kuno's defeat of Hikaru Gosunkugi had rendered their military non-effective as a striking force for some time.

She wondered idly about what had become of Hikaru. His fate was unknown at the moment, even to the League of Five Nails. It was likely that he had been killed on Condorcet. Kuno was keeping mum on the subject.

Nabiki put it aside for the moment. She had other concerns, and the Confederation military was one of them. They were chafing under the general cease fire that had been arranged to allow this bit of diplomacy, a cease fire that extended to the guerrilla operations on the occupied worlds. The armed forces had paid a heavy price for their victory on Oni, and the fact that it was swiftly becoming public knowledge that the Confederation was due to submit to the Combine was salt in their wounds.

The nobles and the more tractable flag rank officers were keeping them in line, but it only took one over-zealous moron like Rolf with his finger on the button of a torpedo launcher to ruin everything.

"Greetings, your Highness," Nabiki offered Tatewaki Kuno. She did not bow or curtsy to him, making it clear to everyone present that she was treating with him as an equal. They were in much more luxurious settings than the furtive and tragic meeting with Tetsuo, and there were soldiers, functionaries, and diplomats of every rank present in the gilded grand salon of the Oyama Palace Hotel.

Tatewaki Kuno was resplendent in a formal kimono, his family swords tucked into his sash. He was flanked by Ambassador Domitian - apparently brought out of exile for this occasion - and curiously enough, a subdued and silent Hikaru Gosunkugi. Nabiki caught sight of the grisly wounds on his wrists as he adjusted his plain if expensively tailored attire, and shuddered at the thought of what had clearly happened to him in Kuno's custody.

"Nabiki Tendo," the Combine Prince returned curtly. "I am a man possessed of little time for pleasantries. Let us sit at table and discuss these matters, that we might settle once and for all the conflict that lies betwixt us."

Nabiki inclined her head in concession. "Agreed, Kuno-baby," she replied, determined not to let him control the summit. He flushed angrily at her in return, but said nothing. "I see that Domitian has returned to favor with you."

Tatewaki's jaw clenched. "Do you have my father, the Shogun, or do you not?" he demanded.

She smiled, amused by the ease with which she had set him off. This was going to be less of a challenge than she thought.

"Patience, Kuno-baby," she replied. "Yes, he is in my custody as Royal Hostage. We have a long way to go, I think, before you can have him returned, and as you have said, there is little time for pleasantries. Let us retire then to our respective positions at the table."

Angry and impatient, Tatewaki Kuno stormed past her with his entourage, and headed straight for the table prepared for the principal diplomats.

"Fine fine fine," Tatewaki snapped at the Confederation side of the table. "Methinks it is clear to all that we are in agreement with the forms and measures of this treaty. Let us then proceed!"

Nabiki pursed her lips in thought. They had been at the table for four hours, and Domitian had said very little, other than to parse the various phrases and clauses of the treaty with her phalanx of lawyers. Even that had been unnecessary, since the agreement was nearly a carbon copy of the one she and Domitian had worked out prior to the arrival of the Saotomes. In spite of this easy arrangement, the Combine Prince had taken a personal hand in the affair, and brooked no interference with the presentation of his demands. Most of the delay was in fact due to his boorish interruptions.

She wondered at the purpose of Hikaru's presence at the table, for the frail and beaten looking Heir to the League of Five Nails had hardly stirred in his seat, and had said nothing, even to the servants who offered them refreshments. Perhaps it was to demonstrate to her what Tatewaki Kuno did to people who crossed him. Perhaps he meant to carry the Gosunkugi Heir to Angbad, and bargain the surrender of the League the way he was bargaining the surrender of the Confederation. With the Commonwealth mustering for total war, he would need all the troops he could get if he wanted to conquer them.

"Agreed," she declared. "But first, let us recap our positions." Tatewaki nearly exploded with exasperation at this, and for a moment she expected him to leap across the table at her in a blind rage.

"The Nerima Confederation shall recognize the Furinkan Combine as its rightful and lawful overlord," she began. "Furthermore, the Tendo Family shall renounce all claim to the Star League throne as First Lord, and shall swear personal fealty to the Shogun of the Furinkan Combine, as shall all of the lords holding Confederation titles, and all commissioned officers of her Armed Forces; active duty, reserve, and retired. The ranks of Grand Duke and Duchess of the Confederation shall remain in perpetuity, to be held by a member of the Tendo Family by blood or by marriage, as shall the titles and grants of land established by the Confederation for their respective holders, provided that the oaths of fealty - to be renewed with each succession to the ducal or lesser seat - are upheld.

"All regular Armed Forces of the Nerima Confederation, to be defined as the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Guard, Merchant Marine, and their associated reserve components, shall revert to immediate control of the Furinkan Combine, known henceforth as the Furinkan Combine Mustered Soldiery. The rank and grade of all members of the above-named forces shall carry over to equivalent rank and grade within the FCMS hierarchy, as shall all benefits conferred by time in service, time in grade, disability, pension status, and grant of land.

"Levies and duties imposed upon the Nerima Confederation shall be not more than ten percent of the Gross Domestic Product, to be established annually by independent review of auditors with the Bank of Sol and confirmed by the fiduciary agents of Comstar. Levies of troops for the Furinkan Combine Mustered Soldiery shall not exceed those demanded per capita of marches within the Furinkan Combine proper.

Nabiki went on, her voice adopting a nasal singsong that was annoying to all but career attorneys, politicians, and diplomats. Essentially, the treaty established the continued autonomy of the Nerima Confederation so long as it paid its taxes and provided troops for the Furinkan Combine military. It was a very good deal for both parties, as it meant that very little changed in the lives of the ordinary people of the Confederation, the nobles not only had their titles, but had them guaranteed, and the Tendos remained as their rulers. For the Combine, it meant an increase of territory and tax base without having to wage a costly and tiresome campaign against any Confederation insurgents, and freed them to continue their prosecution of the war against the League of Five Nails and the Jusenkyo Commonwealth.

Nabiki was very proud of the document.

"We have heard this before, Nabiki Tendo," Tatewaki sniffed. "Let us then come to those recent measures which are of most interest to me."

"Of course, Kuno-baby," she grinned at him. "In exchange for the granting of the aforementioned terms by the Furinkan Combine, the Nerima Confederation shall release their Most Royal Hostage, the Shogun of the Furinkan Combine, and shall pledge the troth of its Most Sublime Daughter, Akane Tendo, to General Prince Tatewaki Kuno. Akane Tendo shall forfeit all claim to the Ducal Throne of the Nerima Confederation upon her marriage. The Ducal Throne of the Nerima Confederation shall then pass to Nabiki Tendo, and then through her to other heirs designated by future decree, and in keeping with the terms above - defining the rule of the Confederation."

Her arrangement as Regent was contingent upon the investiture of Akane Tendo, but if her sister was married off to Kuno before such could be arranged, the power of the Confederation would remain in her hands throughout the entire surrender process and beyond.

Tatewaki Kuno nodded imperiously. At last, he was getting what he most desired. Akane Tendo as his bride, and, quietly, the Pig-Tailed Girl as well once he was made Shogun.

"Now we come to the hard part, Kuno-baby," Nabiki said to him, breaking the spell of rapture that had come over him. "The turnover process."

"I do not see how such trivia would be cause for concern with thee, Nabiki Tendo," he returned.

Nabiki pushed a slip of paper over to him. He picked it up and looked it over, frowning as he did so.

"What manner of gibberish is this?" he demanded.

"The location of the greatest treasure in the Inner Sphere," she replied with a catlike grin. "Akane Tendo."

Tatewaki clearly did not understand.

"Refrain from such nonsense and riddle, Nabiki Tendo," he cautioned her. "I am not a man to be trifled with. Explain yourself."

"That's an astronomical abstract," she told him, having been briefed on the subject by one of her naval attaches. "It gives the location to a star system that you won't find on any of your charts. It's located, I believe, within the Magistracy of Canopus."

Tatewaki looked it over once again. "And what, pray tell, hath this to do with the arrangement of Akane Tendo as my bride?"

"You'll have to go there to get her," Nabiki replied. "You'll probably have to fight the Saotomes first, though," she added. "After all, they do seem to have a claim on her. This fair treaty might make your betrothal all nice and pretty, but I do seem to recall that possession is nine-tenths of the law."

"They are in this system, you say?" Tatewaki snapped, crinkling the paper in his fist as he clenched up in ire at the mention of the hated Saotomes.

"They're either already there, or else they're headed that way," Nabiki replied. This was one way to get rid of those two meddlers, and ensure that Akane did not escape to start some damned revolution once she got word that Daddy had been deposed. "Once you get my sister away from those two jerkoffs, my nobles and I will sign the treaty, and hand over your father as a wedding present." She looked over the table at him. "Not before."

"Outrageous!" Tatewaki thundered. "Thy assurances of a peaceful exchange of power are what brought me forth!"

"And you have them," Nabiki returned. "Once you eliminate the Saotomes and return Akane to Nerima, you'll get everything that's coming to you."

"Placing conditions upon the Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine?" he raged, spraying spittle upon the table in his fulminations. "Madness!"

Nabiki eyed him warily. "Look, Kuno-Baby, right now you are not in much of a position to dictate anything to me. One word from me turns your little escort fleet out there to ashes, and then the Combine is fresh out of rulers. Furthermore, as I continue to hold your father as my hostage, you are under an enormous amount of pressure to get him back." Her voice lowered an octave, and a chill spread through the room. "Do you think you can manage it by making threats to me?"

Tatewaki returned her glare, but said nothing.

"Now I'm not really making demands for anything that you wouldn't already want for yourself, Kuno-baby," she continued, her voice sweetening considerably. "After all, I know that you'd probably be happy to see those upstart Saotomes dead, and I know my sister won't come home quietly."

Tatewaki relaxed somewhat. "Perhaps, Nabiki Tendo." He offered a subtle glance towards the silent Hikaru Gosunkugi. "But perhaps I have yet found a way to break the sorcerous hold over her."

Huh? Nabiki wondered to herself. What the hell is he talking about? Sorcerous hold? Oh well, you knew he wasn't all there upstairs when you first tried to cut this deal with him...

He whirled away from the table with the astronomical abstract in his hand. "Come!" he barked to his retinue. "Make haste! We sail for yonder shores, and Akane Tendo!"

Nabiki watched him go as Domitian made apologies and scooped up the armloads of documents. She hadn't expected him to pull up stakes like this, but supposed that he was a man on a mission, after all.

Goodbye, Saotomes, she offered to the ceiling of the grand salon. Hello, peace and prosperity for the Nerima Confederation. And especially for me...

Provisional Headquarters

Black Rose Terror Regiment

Planet Mansveldt, Mansveldt System

The Federated Shiratori

24 May 3025

"Tell me, Sasuke," Kodachi purred absently. "What news of my brother?"

The diminutive ninja manservant bowed for his mistress.

"I have received reports that he has at last captured Hikaru Gosunkugi, and put the League Army to rout," he replied.

Kodachi admired her nails. "A pity," she sniffed. "I owe the little man much for the disaster he wreaked upon dear Tachi. No doubt he was put to a swift death."

"No, Mistress," Sasuke countered. "It is reported that your brother keeps him for some purpose related to Ranma Saotome."

Kodachi raised an eyebrow at this. "Oh?"

"I have no hard information at this time, Mistress," Sasuke apologized. "I regret that in the wake of your brother's purges following your escape, that my remaining agents are few and far between within Prince Kuno's fleet, and those that remain active are naturally being very cautious."

"Naturally," Kodachi returned, clearly bored with the direction the conversation was taking if Sasuke wasn't going to discuss Ranma. "And what is this I hear that Grand Duke Tendo was deposed?"

Sasuke brightened. He had more information in this regard to offer.

"The middle daughter, Nabiki, had her father declared mentally incompetent, and took the throne as regent. Most of the nobles backed her, as did the civilian population, apparently, but there is something about the whole affair that stinks of deception."

"That would be Nabiki Tendo's perfume, Sasuke," Kodachi observed dryly. "She's a snake in the grass after my own heart."

"It's believed in some loyalist circles that Nabiki was responsible for Tetsuo Gosunkugi's assassination," Sasuke added. "The League is certainly angry enough about it, but after the disaster at Condorcet, they aren't in much of a position to do anything about it."

"Murder doesn't seem like her style," Kodachi said thoughtfully. "But then, I could be mistaken." She cast a pointed look towards Sasuke.

"Never, Mistress," he replied on cue.

"You're right," she chuckled, and sipped from a tumbler of iced sangria through a gilt-edged straw. "Enough gossip, Sasuke. What is the status of our deployment preparations?"

Sasuke consulted a small digital notepad that he kept secreted on his person.

"Mistress, the regiment is currently in the final stages of outfitting for our first assignment. We should be ready to depart within two days. Our battlemech strength is at sixty-five percent, and we've organized into three rump battalions of two companies apiece."

"That will change as we continue to recruit," Kodachi declared. They were receiving new mechwarriors almost every day as adventurers and freelance mercenaries from the Furinkan Combine and the Federated Shiratori flocked to her banner. Though her Black Rose regiment was now a renegade unit of deserters from the Combine, her fearsome reputation remained untarnished, and many of her recruits were eager to get a piece of glory and wealth under her command.

"We do have another mechwarrior to interview, Mistress," Sasuke said to her. "I can send for him if you wish."

"Dispossessed?" Kodachi asked. Lacking spare battlemechs, she was very choosy about bringing on board mechwarriors from the ranks of the Dispossessed. They had their uses, however, and most of them were willing to take foolish risks to distinguish themselves enough to earn a captured 'mech.

"Mounted," Sasuke replied. "Hunchback. Very good condition, if I may be so bold, Mistress. I had scheduled him for an interview tomorrow morning."

Kodachi nibbled on her finger. "Hmmmm... We are rather short on close-in firepower, and a 'mech is a 'mech." She took another sip from her sangria. "Yes, Sasuke, send him in. I've nothing better to do today."

Pansuto Tarou was a man who was running out of options. He had been unable to find passage to a system close to the Furinkan Combine border, and as the days ticked away, he knew that the information he possesed was becoming less and less valuable as a bargaining chip. When he heard that the Black Rose regiment had surfaced on Mansveldt, he spent the last of the cash the Confederation had given him to reach the planet.

It was true that the Black Rose regiment had gone renegade, but at the very least its commander would have a personal interest in finding the whereabouts of her rival, Akane Tendo. If Kodachi Kuno showed no interest in Ryuugenzawa, his chances of realizing the destruction of the Joketsuzoku and the Cult of Azusa dwindled away to nothing. He had to play on her hatred of the Tendo girl if he was to succeed.

One of the regiment's soldiers showed him to a luxurious pavillion that Kodachi used during the day. As he was led past the open flap, he noted the expensive rugs at his feet, the fine antique furniture for guests, and the sweet smell of incense burning near the chair where Kodachi sat.

He was breathless for a moment as he looked at the Combine Princess. She was dressed in a black leotard with embroidered roses of the deepest purple upon her breast. Her long pale legs were crossed at the knee, and she affected a look of detached ennui for him from beneath bangs of dark brown hair.

"You didn't tell me that he was handsome, Sasuke," she purred to her ninja manservant, while keeping her coal-black eyes fixed upon Tarou. Sasuke, knowing better than to respond, remained silent.

Tarou came to a halt at what he felt was a respectful distance, and stood at self-conscious attention. Kodachi rose from her velvet upholstered chair, taking up a riding crop from its place by her side. Tarou kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, determined to put on his usual haughty expression of disdain for her.

She stopped before him at a distance just inside what might be considered his 'personal space.' Her eyes flicked over him appraisingly, lingering here and there as she assessed him. Then, satisfied for the moment, she turned and began to walk behind him for a more extensive inspection.

The sensation of her riding crop touching him just above his tailbone made him start, and his face burned red with humiliation as she gave an amused chuckle at his expense.

The riding crop began to tickle along his hip as she completed her circle. She drew it up along his lean flank, then over and across his chest to play gently with the sweep of his collarbone.

"Tall," she remarked with a smile that was regal and aloof. She brought the riding crop down his sternum. "Handsome." The crop dipped down to his belly. "Mysterious." She caught a length of the pantyhose sash he kept tied at his waist with her riding crop, and lifted it up to eye level for him to see.

"What's your name?" she asked him.

He cleared his throat. "Tarou."

She gave him a toothy grin.

"Just Tarou?"

The intensity of her look was confounding to him, and he found himself answering her.

"Pansuto Tarou."

Her approving smile was both immediate and striking. "Pantyhose?" she asked him teasingly, leaning in close to whisper the word in his ear. "I _like_ pantyhose..."

He did not reply, a little unnerved by her obvious come-on, and the fact that he was finding the Black Rose of the Furinkan Combine to be more desirable than he had ever imagined her to be. Certainly not after his last encounter with her on the streets of Capra.

Kodachi stepped close to him, so that as much of her lithe body as possible was in contact with his. He fixed her with a look of crushing arrogance, his trademark weapon in battles of will. She seemed to eat it up like candy, flushing visibly at her bosom and throat as she returned his glare with one of equal disdain.

"Sasuke!" she barked, keeping her eyes upon Tarou.

"Yes, Mistress?" the ninja replied. Tarou caught a hint of weary resignation in the manservant's voice.

"That will be all," she said, dismissing him. "I won't be receiving any more visitors today."

"Yes, Mistress."

Sasuke bowed and scuttled out of the pavillion, muttering something that Kodachi chose to ignore - having found a source of distraction and amusement for at least a few hours.

She took up the pantyhose sash in her hands, remaining close to him as she did so, and displayed it once again for him.

"There are so many things you can do with pantyhose," she remarked to him, giving him an incendiary look. "But I'm certain that you're well aware of that."

Tarou nodded for her, the corners of his mouth turning up in what passed for a sly smile with him. Ryuugenzawa could wait just a little longer, he supposed.

"Tell me how you came by your name," Kodachi whispered in Tarou's ear.

She watched as the muscles of his bare chest tensed and rippled in agitation.

"I'd prefer not to talk about it," he replied.

"A shame," she sighed, laying her head upon his shoulder once more. She traced her finger absently along the washboard lines of his stomach. "I find your name to be quite intriguing." She sat up, kissing his throat. "Not as intriguing as you are when you're naked, mind you," she added, kissing him once more on the throat - this time close to his ear. "But very intriguing."

Tarou remained silent, his eyes falling upon the thin neat scar that ran from the base of her sternum and down the hard, flat stomach to a point just above her navel. He found the scar's silvery white tracery against the cool ivory of her belly to be surprisingly attractive.

"So you wish to join the Black Rose regiment," she said at length, amused by the distance he wrapped himself in.

"Such was my intention," he returned.

"I think I could find a place for you," she replied. Her hand drifted down his torso to his groin. "The headquarters detachment, I think." She found something down there that interested her, and chuckled. "I feel the need to keep you close at hand."

Somewhat distracted by her attentions, he cleared his throat to speak. "I can be of much more use to you than as a bodyguard," he said to her.

"You already have," she returned dryly.

"I'm serious. I know the location of the Ryuugenzawa System."

Kodachi laughed softly. "And I know every position in the Kama Sutra, my dearest Pantyhose. Why should I care about the mechwarrior's myth when I have my own legend close at hand?"

"It's not a myth," Tarou retorted, growing annoyed now instead of aroused. "I was recently aboard the Confederation JumpShip carrying Akane Tendo and the Saotomes."

Kodachi's grip tightened reflexively, eliciting a hiss of pain from him.

"What was that, did you say?" she said through clenched teeth.

"I know where the Tendo girl is going," Tarou said, biting back the pain. "The Saotomes found the Ryuugenzawa System, and they are all on their way there. If we leave immediately, we can catch them before they finish their search, and the secrets of the place will be ours."

"That harridan," Kodachi hissed, thinking black thoughts about the Tendo Heir. She reined in her fury with an act of will. "You came here specifically to tell me this, didn't you. You aren't simply looking for employment."

"Correct," he said tersely, his look of disdain returning.

She leaned over him to reach for her riding crop, her temper cooling though her breaths came in pants, and her bare breasts flattening against his chest.

"Have I mentioned that I find your arrogance terribly erotic?" she said to him, tracing the riding crop down the inside of his thigh.

Musk Dynasty JumpShip _Invictus_

Eta Carinae System Nadir Jump Point

Eta Carinae System, the League of Five Nails,

near the Nerima Confederation border

29 May 3025

Mechwarrior General Herb looked up from his desk as Mousse entered his stateroom. Mousse was dressed in flowing indigo robes which swallowed the sound of his passing and concealed the movements of his limbs. Combined with his luxuriant mane of straight black hair which fell to his waist, his appearance mirrored his dark mood. He stopped short of Herb's desk, and presented himself with a crisp salute.

Herb approved of the new Mousse. The man had changed considerably from the fawning, lovesick fool he had been on Tau Ceti. He had grown, in hatred and in presence, since then. Herb valued both qualities in his officers.

"Welcome aboard," he offered him. Mousse had only just arrived from the JumpShip _Domingo_, the spy ship having journeyed across much of the Inner Sphere for the rendezvous. Herb had taken the chance of discovery by ordering Mousse to transmit the database patch via Comstar through the guise of a mercantile report of the dummy company the _Domingo_ operated under, and having the location of Ryuugenzawa, he decided to press ahead - and meet Mousse on the way. There was no telling how much time he had before the Confederation looted the place - and especially with a greedy opportunist like Nabiki Tendo ruling the beleaguered country.

He was now well away from the Jusenkyo Commonwealth, leaving Peony and Cologne to scratch their heads and wonder. He had claimed to be carrying out a campaign in the Periphery, but it didn't matter to him if they believed him or not. If they became paranoid at his absence, so much the better.

Mousse inclined his head towards the general.

"The Star League was most clever," Herb continued. "Not only did they put the Proving Grounds out in the Periphery, but they even removed the star's location from the charts." He steepled his fingers together. "Even back then, few would have thought to check every star against an astrogational database."

He motioned for Mousse to sit. The nearsighted mechwarrior did so silently.

"You've done tremendously well, Mousse," he said to him. "Mechwarrior _Colonel_ Mousse," he amended.

Mousse reacted immediately to his abrupt promotion.

"_Colonel_, sir?" he asked, surprised.

Herb made a absent gesture with his hand. "I have a very important place for you within the Musk Dynasty, Mousse. Rank commensurate with your value to me, and for what will be expected of you. A Crusader in mint condition also awaits you aboard my personal DropShip."

Mousse nodded quietly. He was no longer one of the Dispossessed.

Herb then fixed him with a basilisk stare. "So tell me, Mousse, at what point did you finally come to your senses? I'm very curious."

The mechwarrior looked away.

"When she fucked me, sir."

Herb raised an eyebrow in amusement. "I presume by your remark that you mean literally as well as figuratively."

Mousse looked back at him, the blue of his eyes growing colder.

"I realized then that everything you had said to me about her was true. Shampoo never loved me. I had hoped that someday she might warm to me, but even as we made love together, she was only using me." His jaw set against his anger. "I'm tired of her, General. I'm sick of her."

In spite of himself, Herb felt a pang of jealousy towards his new subordinate. Shampoo had been the object of his own personal desire for many years, and while he was intelligent enough to realize that there would never be romance between them, he was content to settle for lust.

But now, Shampoo was likely no more.

"What can you tell me about her end?" he asked Mousse.

"I don't know, sir. She gave me the database patch, but by then she had already been exposed. She intended to find the Saotomes and kill them before she could be killed or captured by the crew, but I don't know if she was successful, or what has become of her."

"Of course," Herb replied. Mousse's communique had said as much, but he had been hoping for more details than the mechwarrior was willing to provide over an HPG dispatch. He made a dismissive gesture with his hand, then reached over to pour brandy into two glasses prepared for the moment.

"Enough of her," he said to Mousse. He handed him a glass. "To our success at Ryuugenzawa," he toasted.

"To the end of the Joketsuzoku," Mousse added, his voice tremulous with hate.

Herb gave his subordinate a smile of approval. He would drink to that indeed!

Nerima Confederation JumpShip _Dragonfly_

Ryuugenzawa System Zenith Jump Point

Ryuugenzawa System, the Magistracy of Canopus

3 June 3025

The NCJS _Dragonfly_ materialized into realspace at the Ryuugenzawa System Jump Point with a shudder and a flash of light.

"What was that all about?" Hinako asked, referring to their shaky reentry.

"Engineering reports no damage," the Acting Assistant Engineer responded. "Jumpcore powering down as normal. No apparent malfunctions detected."

"Main Computer operational. Star-finding position trackers are aligning normally."

"Helm is green. Reaction Control System responding normally."

"Sensors operational. Scanning for close contacts."

"Communications operational. No transmissions or hails detected."

Hinako took the reports from the various stations. Everything seemed all right. Perhaps it was just an anomaly.

"Make a full sensor sweep," she ordered. "Go active on the main radar."

"Sensory, aye."

The _Dragonfly_ continued its adjustment burns as it aligned itself into a stable orbit above the Ryuugenzawa primary. No further malfunctions were noted.

"Conn, Sensory; Contact designated Romeo One, bearing zero-four-eight, minus four-nine. Range, four-two thousand kilometers. Contact Romeo One appears to be a recharge station."

Hinako consulted the main holotank, which projected a representation of local space around the Jump Point based on sensory data.

"A bit out of position, don't you think?" she asked the sensor techs aloud. Recharge stations were supposed to be out on the edges of the Jump Points to prevent an accidental collision. 42,000 kilometers was considered close range in deep space.

"We're starting a track on Romeo One now, ma'am. We should be able to calculate an orbit within a few minutes, but yes, it does appear that they've drifted some from their expected position."

"And that's all that you've found?"

"Yes, ma'am. Romeo One remains the only contact at this time."

Odd, she thought absently. No defensive emplacements?

"I guess they were counting on secrecy," she said to herself. Several minutes passed as the _Dragonfly_ completed its maneuvers with no other difficulty.

Still, she had expected more than this.

"Conn, Sensory; we've detected a bit of an anomaly."

Hinako floated over to the Sensory station, almost relieved to find something else out of the ordinary.

"What is it?" she asked.

"We're detecting some unusual sunspot activity on the Ryuugenzawa primary," the operator replied. "In addition, it seems as if this star has a companion."

"We'd have spotted it in the telescope surveys before we jumped here, I think," Hinako sniffed her disbelief.

"It's not a very luminous object," the operator countered. "Given the way it's drawing off plasma from the star's surface, though, I'd almost say it was a neutron star, or possibly even a small black hole."

"That might explain our bumpy reentry," Lieutenant Davidge said, approaching them. "An unaccounted for gravity vector from a dense, massive object like a neutron star or a black hole would certainly shake up the space around the Jump Point."

"How close is this object?"

The sensor operator fiddled with his instruments, taking sightings, and comparing them against his Target Motion Analysis system for an answer.

"Approximately fifteen million kilometers," he replied.

"I don't like the idea of being even that close to a black hole," Hinako declared.

"It's probably a neutron star," Davidge soothed, observing it through the passive EMS scope, which offered data on the object throughout the electromagnetic spectrum. "I'm not detecting enough x-rays from it to be a black hole, even a small one."

"All the same," Hinako said, uneasy about something she did not fully understand. "What other effects could this neutron star, or whatever, have on us?"

"Well," Davidge opined. "We'll probably be better off keeping the JumpSail stowed. High energy particle flux and other radiation is a lot higher here than for most G-type star systems. There's also a greater potential for a damaging solar flare with that neutron star shaking things up."

"Wonderful," Hinako snapped. "I can see why so few ships ever came here. Would you say that we might be better served by taking the _Dragonfly_ deeper into the system rather than keeping it here?"

Davidge shrugged. "We have the fuel for a transit. I can't think of any reason why we should tempt fate by staying here."

"I'm convinced," Hinako declared. "Plot a course for the planet Ryuugenzawa. We can detach the _Palomino_ for a landing when we approach within a half-million kilometers."

"So what do we really know about this place?" Captain Ninomiya asked Genma. The elder Saotome was seated at the wardroom table with the other principal members of the expedition.

Genma thumbed through his notes.

"Very little," he replied. "From what Chance King was able to dig up about the Proving Grounds, there should be a space station in orbit above the planet, with drydock facilities and a recharging station. There is some mention of an extensive system of satellites - probably for global position indication, weather monitoring, and communications. On the planet, the main area was supposed to be a primary facility with a starport, and a handful of outlying test areas."

He set down his notes. "That's all I know."

"In other words, we don't really have a clue," Ranma remarked.

"I'm all for continuing on as quickly as possible," Akane added. "We really should get an idea of what is there before the transport fleet shows up."

"Agreed," Genma grunted. He looked to Hinako. "How long will it take us to reach the planet if we use the _Dragonfly_ for transit?"

"Four days," she replied.

"It's do-able," Genma nodded. "Any time we lose getting there will be made up when the transport fleet has to do the same. I don't think they'll want to stay at the Jump Point either."

"The fact that they had a recharge station in orbit above the planet is telling," Hinako concurred. "No Star League ship probably ever spent much time at the Jump Point. The recharge station we found there looked through our telescopes like it had spent the last two hundred years getting blasted apart by solar flares."

She put her hands on her hips.

"From what I've seen so far, Commander Saotome, the Ryuugenzawa System isn't very friendly."

Nerima Confederation DropShip _Palomino_

In low orbit above Planet Ryuugenzawa

Ryuugenzawa System, the Magistracy of Canopus

7 June 3025

Sensor Technician Third Class Thaddeus Howard chewed absently on his lip as a flicker of color appeared on his passive EMS scope. He observed it for a moment, deciding if it was something worth pursuing or just a random anomaly to be ignored. He tapped a few controls on the touchpad by his hand out of boredom, activating several automated analysis routines.

What he saw surprised him. He punched at the flight deck intercom controls as he trained the _Palomino_'s main telescope over to the contact.

"Conn, Sensory; possible contact bearing three-five-one plus two-eight."

Captain Grant turned around in his chair to face Howard directly.

"What are we talking about, Tad?" he asked his Sensor Operator.

Tad studied the data as it streamed in.

"I'm detecting an energy source at that bearing, sir," he began. "Infrared and visible spectrum emissions are consistant with an active maneuver drive, but whatever it is, it's..." He frowned as some new data posted itself.

"It's what?" Grant asked, growing concerned. There wasn't supposed to be anyone here.

"Well, sir," Tad replied. "Pardon my French, but whatever it is, it's fucking BIG."

A strident tone sounded at his station. Lines of red and amber colors and alphanumerics popped into the corner of his display.

"Active radar sweeps," Tad announced. "Point of origin along contact bearing track. X and S-Band track-while-search and range-while-scan arrays; very high power output."

Grant consulted the repeater display at his command station.

"Orbital detection satellite?" he asked himself aloud.

"Not with a maneuver drive," the DropShip's Pilot corrected ominously. "Coming up on final burn for atmospheric entry in two minutes, mark."

"Contact fading," Tad replied. "The curvature of the planet as we descend is obscuring us from whatever it is."

"Any ideas?" Grant asked him.

"Warbook's chewing on it, sir," Tad replied. The DropShip's Warbook was a database of Inner Sphere technology dating back to the end of the Terran Hegemony. If there was sufficient sensor data available, the DropShip's computer could eventually identify the contact's classification.

Grant reached over his panel to tap the Co-Pilot on the shoulder.

"Contact _Dragonfly_ and tell them to turn their sensors towards the direction of the contact. They're farther out; they might have a better angle to look at it than us."

"Yes sir," the Co-Pilot replied. He tapped at the commo panel to open a channel with the starship.

"Goddamn," Tad spat in distress.

Grant whipped his head around. "What?"

"Sir, the Warbook says it's a Yamato-no-Orochi Class Automated Orbital Battlestation!"

"Sweet Baby Jesus Cookies on Christmas!" Grant cried, his colorful reply getting the better of his sense of command decorum. The dreaded Orochi Class Automated Battlestations represented the very acme of the Star League's technological achievement. They were a cluster of fully automated, mobile, orbital defense satellites. The primary unit was the size of a battleship, and the seven autonomous auxillaries it directed were light cruiser class. The automation system was the closest thing the scientists of the Star League could create to approach true AI, and while the Orochi was not by any means intelligent, it was programmed to be very clever in its tactics and very aggressive in their execution.

It was believed that the last remaining examples had been destroyed in orbit above the planet Earth by General Kerensky's loyal Star League Defense Force fleet during the Reunification War against Stephan Amaris, although Comstar currently had several smaller defense systems of a similar nature in place to maintain the Sol System's neutrality during the Succession Wars.

"The Warbook's gotta be wrong," Grant said hopefully. "Run it through again."

Tad nodded and began to scrutinize the data for signs that pointed away from such a frightening conclusion. "No dice, sir. It still says the contact is an Orochi."

"Let's get the hell out of here," Grant advised his pilot. "Adjust our descent course to a full Combat Drop."

"I heard that," the Pilot replied. He began tapping at his computer to calculate the maneuver change from a liesurely descent to a full-bore battle insertion.

"Signal the _Dragonfly_," Grant ordered the Co-Pilot. "Tell them what our Warbook says about the contact, and see if their computers concur."

"Course adjustment calculated and the clock is running," the Pilot announced. "Manuever burn in nine-zero seconds, mark."

Grant checked over the _Palomino_'s engineering status. The ship was rigged for a combat drop, and the powerplant indicated that it was ready to give its all.

"Execute course adjustment," he ordered. He thumbed the 1MC intercom, and spoke into the microphone. "All Hands prepare for Combat Drop!" He then set the microphone down and stabbed at the General Alarm switch.

Akane Tendo's voice echoed over the 'white rat' intercom speaker on the Flight Deck. She was mounted within her Warhammer pending their arrival on the planet Ryuugenzawa.

"What's going on, Captain Grant?" she asked.

"Ma'am, we may have spotted some kind of orbital defense system," he hedged. He did not want to cry wolf and tell her they had possibly detected something like an Orochi Battlestation before his fears were absolutely confirmed. "I judged it prudent to avoid any possible confrontations, so we're making for the surface in an expeditious manner."

"Very well," she replied. "Lance Commander!"

"Yo!" Ranma's voice crackled over the speaker.

"Deploy your fighters for an escort drop," she ordered.

"Sure thing," Ranma replied. "You heard the lady," he continued to Yuka and Sayuri over the tac-net. "Launch when ready and maintain a standard screening separation."

"Aye aye," Sayuri acknowledged him. Yuka made a noncommittal grunt.

The _Palomino_ continued its descent towards the planet, all signs of the contact lost.

"Fighter Bay Doors One and Two indicate intermediate," the _Palomino_'s Co-Pilot announced as the two Air Lance pilots prepared for launch. "Fighter Bay Doors One and Two indicate open."

The _Palomino_ trembled as the two aerospace fighters launched from the DropShip on either side of the bow.

"Commencing maneuver burn in one-zero seconds," the Pilot called out. Grant watched as his two Gunner's Mates finished strapping in to their stations within the 'gunnery pits' set below deck level on either side of his command station. Fire Control panels came to life as the two ran preliminary status checks.

"Set lasers fore and aft to 'preheat,'" the first gunner commanded his partner.

"Fire Control boards indicate ready. Target Motion Analysis system online and receiving feed from Sensory. Lasers fore and aft set to 'preheat'; autocannons and missile launchers indicate loaded."

"Burn in five," the Pilot announced. "Four...Three...Two...One...Mark!"

The _Palomino_ lurched as its Main Engines fired, increasing their velocity and putting them into a much steeper angle of descent.

"Stow all nonessential detection and commo gear arrays," Grant ordered the Co-Pilot. They would be coming up on Ryuugenzawa's atmosphere within minutes, and at their steep angle of descent, their entry into the atmosphere was going to be a hot one - hot enough to burn away anything not protected by a few centimeters of aligned crystal steel armor plate.

"I'd like to keep the Passive EMS array extended for as long as possible, sir," Tad called out.

"All right," Grant agreed. He was all in favor of keeping an eye on that contact - should it reappear.

"Captain Ninomiya," Communications called to her. "_Palomino_ reports detecting a contact in orbit above the planet." He paused. "It's tentatively identified as an Orochi Class Automated Battlestation. They want us to confirm their observations."

"They must be kidding," Hinako said to herself. "Sensory, go active with our radar. I want some answers."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

Hinako watched the sensory holotank as it projected yellow points of light against the blue sphere of the planet. The space station was there, as expected, as were a constellation of small satellites in varying orbits.

"I don't see anything," she protested.

She spoke too soon, as a large object resolved itself near the curvature of the planet.

"There's something there," Sensory declared.

"Run it through the Warbook."

"Running now."

"Where the hell is it, Tad?" Grant asked tersely.

"I've lost it, sir," Tad replied. The _Palomino_ bucked as it began to make contact with the planet's atmosphere.

"I see nothing on my scopes," Yuka added over the tac-net from her fighter.

Akane chimed in from her Warhammer in Mech Bay #3. "Captain Grant, what exactly are we expecting to find?"

"I'm still not certain," Grant replied.

The DropShip made deeper contact with the atmosphere, slowing down as friction forces converted kinetic energy to heat. They had to stow the passive EMS array, leaving them blind on sensors and communications until they had slowed down sufficiently in the atmosphere to redeploy their antennae.

The DropShip began to shake with a steady vibration as they bit deeper into the atmosphere, a wash of bright plasma from the superheated air engulfing them. The Pilot kept a steady hand at his station, letting the computer handle the drop, but ready to assume control at a second's notice. _Palomino_ fell further into Ryuugenzawa's embrace.

Minutes passed before they lost sufficient velocity to end their fiery pass through the dark Ryuugenzawa sky. Grant checked his displays, noting that were still moving at twelve times the speed of sound, fifty kilometers above the surface of the planet.

"Commencing first braking S-turn," the Pilot announced.

Gee-forces pulled at them as the _Palomino_ went into a wide slaloming turn intended to bleed even more speed from the ship. The altimeter ticked away the meters as they fell to thirty-five kilometers. Their speed was still hypersonic, at eight times that of sound.

"Commencing second braking S-turn."

Again, the crew of _Palomino_ felt the tug of gravity pulling them towards the bulkhead.

"The hull's cool enough to deploy the sensors and antennae," the Co-Pilot declared. "Velocity: one point five klicks per second."

"Do it," Grant ordered him. He turned back to Howard. "Okay, Tad, tell me what you see."

Tad scanned his scopes, searching for a sign of the contact. There was nothing that he could see with his passive instruments. His radar's efficiency was too limited in the atmosphere to reach very far - perhaps five hundred kilometers at best for their altitude.

"I've got nothing so far," he replied.

"What about below us?" Grant asked tersely.

He scanned.

"No radar, no beacons, no overt signs of civilization," he replied. "A big zero."

"Commencing final braking S-turn."

Tad's radar warning board lit up like christmas morning.

"GUN-DIRECTING RADAR!" he shouted. "BEARING: ONE-SEVEN-SIX, PLUS EIGHT-NINE!"

"That's right above us!" Grant cried. "Evasive man-"

A particle beam of incredible power lanced through the side of the _Palomino_, striking from the darkness in front of them like the wrath of God. The bolt blasted through the starboard side of the DropShip, hitting them amidships in a cloud of plasma and flying shrapnel.

The DropShip slewed across the sky, streaming smoke and fire from its wound. Alarms screamed on the Flight Deck as the crew fought to keep their hold on the ship.

"Fire in Starboard-Aft Main Engine!" the Pilot cried. "Losing power!"

"Main Reactor coolant breach!" the Co-Pilot added. "Starboard Heat Exchange Loop indicates isolated."

"Sensors down!" Tad called out. The particle beam hit had ionized the surface of the hull, blinding his radar and his passive instruments.

"Can you keep us in the air?" Grant yelled above the din.

"I think so," the Pilot replied, his hands full with the controls. "Another hit like that last one though, and we're well and truly fucked."

"Get us the hell down," Grant ordered. "We're a sitting duck up here."

"Aye!"

Grant turned to his Co-Pilot as the alarms continued to wail. Damaged systems were still reporting in as he watched the boards. The particle beam's radiance glowed before them in the sky where it had ionized the thin air.

"How bad?" he asked.

"Major hit on the starboard side, amidships to aft," the Co-Pilot threw back. "We've lost some power output when part of the cooling system ruptured, and the starboard side atmospheric maneuvering engine is off-line."

"I can manage on one maneuver engine," the Pilot assured him.

"What the hell was that?" Ranma asked over the tac-net.

Grant didn't have an answer. The radar beam that had fixed them for the particle bolt had come from above and just behind them, but the bolt itself had come from in front of them, striking them along almost half the length of the ship. One satellite spotting for the other?

"Break!" Sayuri's voice cried out over the tac-net. "Emergency!"

"What is it?" Grant demanded, having no time for this. The _Palomino_ continued to zig-zag across the sky, but thus far, no finishing bolt of charged particle fury had come.

"Akane's Warhammer has fallen overboard!" Sayuri cried, her voice strangled with desperation. "She's falling!"

Grant's eyes flicked back to the Damage Control boards. There was a depressurization alert for Mech Bay #3 - which hadn't concerned him at first as the Warhammer within was sealed against vacuum. His blood now ran cold.

"Open Mech Bay #2 Door!" Ranma demanded, hearing this over the tac-net.

Ranma was fighting his seat straps in his agitation to get the Mech Bay Door open. He didn't know what had happened, and at that point he didn't care. He just wanted out.

The Bay was pumping down to equalize pressure, and he slammed a fist from his Phoenix Hawk LAM against the door in frustration. The hard metal door yielded slightly to his blow, a feat considering its thickness.

Ukyou's Hatchetman occupied the bay with him, the slender battlemech braced in the close-quarters of the bay on the inboard side of him. At least he wouldn't have to squeeze past her to get out.

"What are you doing, Ranchan?" she asked him.

"I'm going after her!" he replied angrily. "Come on, goddammit!" he yelled to the bozos on the Flight Deck. "Open the door, already!"

The Mech Bay Door began to roll up even as he said it. The sky outside was black and starless at an altitude of thirty kilometers, and his viewport frosted over with the sudden biting cold. The curvature of the planet was starkly beautiful this high up, though Ranma was in no mood to appreciate this.

He dove out of the open Mech Bay Door, engines firing as he cleared the ship, and fell out of sight.

"Ranchan, be careful!" Ukyou called after him, her Hatchetman gripping the edges of the open door and watching the LAM spiral down, transforming to Fighter Mode as it fell.

Ryouga Hibiki had never felt so utterly helpless in his life. Here he was trapped within the confines of his mighty BattleMaster, while Akane was in mortal danger. He could do nothing, lacking jump jets of his own to control his fall, let alone hers.

"Save her, Ranma," he intoned, over and over again, like a mantra.

Phoenix Hawk LAM #T-507

Thirty km above Ryuugenzawa

She was a tiny smudge of computer-generated light boxed in green on his HUD.

Range counters ticked off the intercept time as he poured on the speed. She was falling at close to three times the speed of sound, and he was closing at the upper limit of his velocity envelope, main engines raging behind him with blue-on-blue shock diamonds lighting the dark heavens. He had to reach her before aerodynamic forces in the lower atmosphere ripped her battlemech apart.

Without jump jets or a special high altitude Drop Kit, her Warhammer was a seventy ton falling rock. She was too high up to eject; the air was so thin and so cold up here that it was more of a statistic than a warm, comforting envelope of life, and unlike himself, she had no pressure suit. Even if she were down in the troposphere, she was falling too fast for an unprotected human to survive the experience.

He shoved the throttles forward, past the stops, trying to squeeze out just one more newton of thrust from his engines.

A glint of reflected sunlight caught his eye far below. It was Yuka's Corsair, circling helplessly around the falling Warhammer. He noted the distress setting on her transponder, and thanked her for having the sense to do something to mark their position. Sayuri's Sparrowhawk wheeled farther below.

He made a hypersonic diving pass to assess the situation. The battlemech was scorched black in places, but apparently intact, tumbling as it fell. He eased off on the throttle and pulled up into a climb, rolling out into a Cuban-Eight maneuver, and racing back to reengage the falling battlemech.

"She won't answer me!" Yuka cried over the tac-net.

If she was still alive within the cockpit, the acceleration forces from her tumble had probably rendered her unconscious, a part of him was saying. The other part was trying not to panic at her lack of response.

He matched velocity with her, still in Fighter Mode, and eased as close to her Warhammer as he could. Saying a prayer, he tugged on the transformation lever, knowing that he was well above rated speed for such a maneuver, and not having any other choice.

Phoenix Hawk LAM T-507 screamed in protest as it pinwheeled through the black sky, its arms and legs clearing the protective aerodynamic fuselage as it took on its armored Battlemech Mode. If the air had been thicker, the effect would have sheared all four limbs off. He was fighting for stability as it was, his LAM's thrusters flaring wildly as he maneuvered in free fall at three times the speed of sound to reach the tumbling Warhammer.

He finally caught her in his mech's arms, the added aerodynamic drag altering their tumble into a sickening end over end somersault that pulled at him in his ejector seat, and threatened to submerge his own consciousness. He rallied against the gee-forces as his pressure suit inflated with an angry hiss around his abdomen and thighs. He forced the LAM with his will to fire its thrusters and stabilize their fall. The Phoenix Hawk's gyro groaned in protest as automated systems tried to cope.

"Find it yet?"

"No sir," Tad lamented, forcing himself not to think about Akane falling through the empty sky to her certain death. "It's throwing up some hard core jamming." He pointed to the radar display, which was awash with multicolored static. "I can't see a damn thing up there."

"Jamming on the radio bands too," the Co-Pilot added. "I lost line-of-sight track with the _Dragonfly_ when we got hit, so nothing on the tightbeam lasercomm, either."

A second bolt of particle beam fire punctuated his statement, narrowly missing the _Palomino_, but coming close enough to make her instruments squawk in protest.

"Goddamn!" Grant swore. "It's shooting at us again! Put us on the deck!"

The Pilot forced the control column forward, and the DropShip went into a steep dive. A third beam lanced into them in a glancing blow that careened off their dorsal armor and threw up a cloud of blinding motes.

"Whatever it is, it's shooting from the other side of the planet at us!" Tad yelled. "The atmosphere is refracting the beams just randomly enough to keep it from drawing a good bead on us."

Captain Grant did not want to think about the kind of particle beams that could travel hundreds of kilometers through the upper atmosphere and still hit them as hard as they were hitting. There was no longer any doubt in his mind that their assailant was an Orochi Battlestation.

Ranma's Phoenix Hawk LAM was in Battlemech Mode, clutching Akane's red Warhammer from below at the waist. His main engines streamed fiery blasts of white hot plasma in an attempt to slow their fall. He could not hope to lift her battlemech - not seventy tons of it in addition to his own fifty. He was barely making a dent in their velocity as it was, and they were quickly running out of sky.

The battlemech's limbs groaned in protest under the load as aerodynamic forces increased. He was stressing the myomer bundles close to their limits to keep the Warhammer stable and upright. Tiny flashes of thruster fire from his verniers added to the glow from his engines, illuminating the Warhammer, and allowing him a better look at it.

The cockpit appeared to be intact. That was all he cared about. The cockpit visor was tinted against the glare of his engines, so he could not look inside to see if she was okay.

"Akane!" he called to her over the tac-net. There was some radio jamming present, but not enough to affect them when they were so close. "Akane, answer me!"

There was no reply. If he had a free hand available, he would have slammed his console in frustration at her silence. He had to wake her up, because no matter what he was doing for her benefit as they fell, only she could pull the ejection lever. They were dipping into the troposphere now; at twenty kilometers the air was getting thicker, and they were running out of time.

"Dammit, Tomboy!" he yelled. "Wake up!" He squinted away tears. "PLEASE!"

The two battlemechs continued to fall at almost twice the speed of sound.

Yuka watched the two falling below her. Ranma was trying everything he could to save her, but if she didn't wake up...

Particle beam fire raged around her as she contemplated the inevitable. It was the same hellfire from out of nowhere that had struck the _Palomino_, and was now directed at her and Sayuri.

"It's shooting at us!" she screamed, throwing her fighter into an evasive snap-roll. One hit, even a near miss, from one of those beams, would utterly incinerate her.

"Get out of here!" Ranma answered suddenly.

"What about -?"

"We'll be all right!" he shot back over the harsh static caused by the proximity of the weapon fire. "Get out of here before you both get fried!"

"Yuka!" Sayuri called to her.

"Dammit!" she yelled back hopelessly. "Let's go!" She dove for the planet's surface, and, she hoped, safety.

_Whoever it is that's attacking the girls, it don't seem to care about us_, Ranma thought as he fought to keep his hold on Akane's 'mech in the wildly bucking atmosphere. I guess that's something to be thankful for...

"Ranma...?"

The voice lifted him up out of his despair.

"Akane...!?"

"Ranma... What's... What's going on?"

He could barely hear her over the rush of atmosphere and the howling dirge of his engines.

"Are you all right?" he asked her, keeping an eye on his engine status displays. He was running out of reaction mass for the plasma drive, and soon he would have to shift over to his less powerful turbojets.

"I don't know," she replied. "I hit my head or something, and -" She screamed in terror, realizing at last that they were falling through the air from almost fifteen kilometers up.

"We're falling!" she wailed.

"I was gonna tell you about that part," he managed tersely.

"How...?"

"No time for that!" he barked. "Akane, you gotta get ready to eject. I can't do much more right now than slow down your fall."

"But -?"

"No arguments! Your Warhammer is about to make a hole in the ground big enough to park a DropShip in. You _don't_ want to be there when that happens!"

An alarm warbled in his cockpit as his reaction mass tanks ran dry. The plasma engines sputtered out and were replaced by the rush of superheated air from his fusion turbojets.

"What was that?" Akane asked him.

"Nothing!" he snapped. "Are you ready to punch out?"

Another alarm wailed, and the two mechs suddenly whipped through the air in a tumble. Ranma wrenched at the controls as Akane yelped in fright. The left arm elbow actuator was starting to fail under the load, and had slipped enough to disrupt the stability of their fall. He fought back with compensating blasts of thrust, and barely managed to arrest their tumble.

"Ten klicks!" he called out their altitude. "Too high for you to punch out. We'll try for three, but if I tell you to go, you go, okay!?"

"Okay," she replied in a whisper.

His engines shrieked in protest behind him, trying to put out a level of thrust they had not been designed for. More red lights winked on in his cockpit as the rest of the LAM's myomer bundles began to overheat. They were still travelling just above the speed of sound in spite of his efforts to slow their fall.

He closed his eyes, reaching out through his neurohelmet as he had done so many times before. He needed to know his LAM on an intimate level of control if he was to estimate how much longer he could hold her steady. The muscle bundles were straining into the red, overheating, and stretching beyond the snap-back tolerances. His airframe shook with a subsonic bass tremor, rattling the stress-gauges and loosening connections. The engines howled miserably in the pit of his stomach against their load.

"Five thousand meters!" he called out. She could probably survive an ejection from that altitude, though they were still moving too damn fast.

The left arm elbow actuator failed, making the arm flop uselessly at his LAM's side. He wrenched up with the right arm to compensate, but it was too late.

"NO!" he screamed as they tumbled once again. His thrusters sputtered ineffectually without reaction mass, making him unable to correct their fall."I can't stop it!"

"Ranma," Akane cried to him. "Don't kill yourself because of me! Let go!"

"I ain't lettin' go!" he retorted. "How can you even say somethin' like that!?"

"One of us has to live, you moron!" she begged. "Let go!"

The right arm actuator began to fail. He could feel the myomer bundles singing in protest like piano wire about to snap. An ominous vibration from the engines rattled him in the base of his ejector seat. More warning lights flicked on as the main engines started to overheat.

"I AIN'T LETTIN' GO OF YOU, AKANE! NOT NOW! NOT EVER! GOT IT!?"

The vibration from the engines grew louder, drowning out her reply.

Desperate for an idea to stabilize their fall, he fully extended the wings of his LAM. The shock of their extension wrenched him in his seat straps, but did little to stop their tumble at first. He flexed the control surfaces in response, hoping that they had enough bite against the air to do some good, and was rewarded with a sudden cessation of their reckless somersaults.

He had his hands full trying to keep them stable by using the wing's control surfaces, and still the engines' vibrations grew louder, their pitch suddenly increasing to a banshee keen.

"The turbine bearings...!" he said to himself, realizing what was about to happen, and powerless in that instant to act.

The fusion turbojet bearings flashed, upsetting the micrometer-fine tolerances that balanced the high-speed ceramic turbine rotors within the engine mounts. Turbine blades spinning at ten-thousand RPM contacted the edge of the induction venturi and disintegrated, throwing hypervelocity shrapnel from the engines with two dull, rapid-succession _booms_.

Phoenix Hawk LAM T-507 began to explode; bits of armor plate, myomer bundle, and structure flying out in brilliant fiery clouds. The useless left arm sailed clear of the falling battlemechs. The wings splintered and snapped like balsawood.

"AKANE - PUNCH OUT!" he yelled as his LAM came apart around him.

He watched the cockpit roof of the Warhammer separate, as his controls failed and his instrumentation crashed to static, and then saw the flash of an ejector seat launching from within, before part of his cockpit structure came loose and struck him on his helmeted head.

Nerima Confederation WarShip _Tarpon_

Capella System Zenith Jump Point

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

24 May 3025

The Balao Class corvette _Tarpon_ glided silently through the void, passing undetected within five hundred meters of the flagship of the Furinkan Combine fleet - the formidable _Imperator_. They were so close that they could make out the individual lights of the battleship's viewports against the blue hull. The corvette's sensors and signal detection gear were fully deployed as the ship carried out its mission of monitoring the cease-fire. Any hostile act against the Confederation's defensive battlestations anchored at the Jump Points would result in an immediate and point-blank launch of the six Barracuda antiship missiles loaded in _Tarpon_'s tubes. Not even the mighty _Imperator_ could weather such a salvo and escape drydock.

The Bridge was abuzz with muted voices as the crew monitored the ships of the Combine fleet. They were technically in violation of the cease-fire for their proximity to the _Imperator_, but this was a game they were used to playing, and it did not concern them. The _Tarpon_, and her sister ship in the 777th Squadron, _Trepang_, had seen extensive use during the Third Succession War as spy ships carried to distant star systems aboard larger JumpShips for the purpose of signal intelligence and reconnaisance.

"Conn, Communications," a tech called to the Conn over the intercom. "We're picking up some radio traffic from the _Imperator_. They're using an omnidirectional antennae, so we presume this is a general message to the fleet."

"So why are you bothering me with it?" Captain Okuda grouched. He was hunched over the Fire Control station, keeping an eye on the _Imperator_ through the station's data feed with Sensory.

The tech stood his ground. "It's mostly computer code from the look of it, Captain," he returned. "And the transmission itself is rather lengthy. Unless it's Prince Kuno giving a speech to the fleet, I hazard the opinion that this is something important."

Okuda considered this. His crew were first rate, and he trusted their opinions, but the decision to act on this bit of informaton was still his to make.

"Are we recording?" he asked.

"Yes, Captain," the tech replied.

"Once you've got it all, send a copy to Squadron - mark it Priority."

'Priority' wasn't the highest level of precedence for communications, but at least it would receive attention before those marked as 'Routine.'

Corvette Tender NCJS _Mare Island_

in orbit above the planet Nerima, Capella System

The Nerima Confederation

25 May 3025

Captain Hauptmann waited impatiently outside the office of the 777th Squadron's Commodore. He was furious, and though he was doing his best to keep his temper, it was showing through enough to keep the Commodore's secretary visibly nervous around him. The reason for his anger was no secret about the administrative spaces of the corvette tender.

They were taking his ship from him.

The repairs planned for the _Tang_ had been cancelled. As its usefulness as a stealth ship was over, the _Tang_ was to be scrapped for repair parts for the remainder of the squadron to use. He and his crew were now Dispossessed. Their ship had been a part of their families for centuries, and now they had nothing.

The order had come from someone much higher on the food chain than the Commodore. Hauptmann knew that, and he also knew that he had to start with the man directly over his head if he was going to protest. He could do nothing less for the sake of his crew.

The secretary approached him nervously as he stewed on the sofa.

"The Commodore will see you now," she said to him.

Hauptmann stood and marched forcefully past the girl and into Commodore Tanaka's office.

"Ah, Johann," Tanaka said as he stomped through the door. The Commodore was a short man, squarish and possessed of a wiry strength. He could see the look on Hauptmann's face as he entered, and his expression shifted to match his subordinate's mood.

"I'll spare you the tea and crumpets B.S., Johann, and come to the point," he added. He produced a bottle of scotch and two large tumblers. "Wanna drink?"

"Go on, sir," Hauptmann replied, stopping short of the desk. "And yes, thanks."

"The order to scrap the _Tang_ came from Admiral Darland," Tanaka said evenly as he poured four fingers neat of the honey-colored imported Terran scotch. "I fought it as best I could."

"What about Barber?" Hauptmann asked tersely, taking a sip of the scotch and grimacing appreciatively. Admiral Barber was Tanaka's boss, and oversaw all of the Confederation's special warfare spacecraft, from tiny stealth shuttles to the Balao Class. His opinion technically carried a lot of weight with Darland, who was Deputy Chief of Naval Operations - the number two man in the Confederation Navy, and in light of his boss's unfortunate loyalty to the deposed Grand Duke, the defacto Head Honcho.

Tanaka shook his head. "Barber rolled over, of course."

"Seems like most of the brass hats have been rolling over lately," Hauptmann snorted. Nabiki's treaty with the Combine assured the flag-rank officers of their positions - an assurance they welcomed, as they would have been the first to be replaced after the Confederation military shifted over to the Furinkan Combine Mustered Soldiery. No one wearing starbursts on his collar was too eager to rock the boat in light of that guarantee.

Tanaka took a deep gulp from his tumbler that made Hauptmann wince, and further confirmed the Commodore's reputation as a hard core drinker. In a peacetime navy, he would have been cashiered for his alcoholism, but he was simply too valuable to the Confederation in wartime. Hauptmann knew the FCMS would have no place for him in their future, however, and that treaty or no treaty, this would be Tanaka's last command.

"The official explanation is that given the _Tang_'s extensive hull damage, it no longer has any viability as a stealth warship."

"No stealthing? So what?" Hauptmann protested. "Throw some more armor on her and she'll be a Superheavy GunShip! Isn't that what those Regular Navy jackoffs have wanted from us all along?"

Tanaka sat down in his chair and took another gulp.

"You know as well as I do that Darland is just the hatchetman," he said evenly. "This is coming straight from the Regent. Nabiki doesn't want to spend money to repair the _Tang_. All the repair money went to reinstall the _Tautog_'s Jump Core."

Hauptmann tried to contain his surprise. He had known that _Tautog_ went into drydock shortly after the Grand Duke was deposed, but the whole affair was kept hush-hush. Not even her skipper, Captain Olivera, had mentioned anything to Hauptmann in the few times they had run into each other since then.

"The _Tautog_ can Jump again?" he asked.

Tanaka nodded. "You didn't hear it from me. Nabiki wants an escape hatch in case Prince Kuno decides to break the terms of the treaty after he gets what he wants from her. The Tautog has been detailed to carry her out of the system in that event."

Hauptmann nodded. It sounded like something she would do. How had the Confederation come to this, laid low by a daughter of the Grand Duke who was only looking after the self-interests of an elite few?

"I want you to understand something, Johann," Tanaka said to him at length. "The reason we're having this conversation is not to allow you a chance to vent your frustration over losing the _Tang_. I've got something for you, a mission so important that it could change everything in one bold stroke."

Hauptmann looked up from his drink. The look on Tanaka's face was grave.

"Sir?" he asked.

Tanaka rose from his desk, walking over to a side door in his office that led to a private conference room. He rapped twice on the door and opened it, saying something to someone inside that Hauptmann couldn't make out.

"His Excellency will see you now," Tanaka said, turning to face Hauptmann. "Listen to what he has to say, Johann. If you're in, great. If you want to pass, fine, but you don't breathe a word of this afterwards."

Tanaka then stepped aside for him as he entered the conference room. Count Baldur Thuringia of Tikonov was waiting for him, along with a covey of mid-grade officers, army, navy, and even a Marine.

In spite of himself, he broke out into a sweat. This had the uneasy feel of a counter-coup in the making. He had no love for Nabiki and what she had done to the Confederation, but no desire to start a revolt, either.

"Sit down, Captain Hauptmann," the Count said to him. "I can see by the look on your face that you think we're here to discuss a coup d'etat against the Regent." He levelled a penetrating look at Hauptmann. "Far from it."

"What exactly do you have in mind, then?"

The Count wiped at his red-rimmed eyes. "We mean to set things right, Captain. To put the Heir on the throne before Prince Kuno can get his hands on her. We need your help, and the help of your crew to make that possible."

"I'm not in if it means an insurrection," Hauptmann replied tersely. "Otherwise, I'm listening."

Baldur inclined his head in acknowlegement of Hauptmann's sentiment.

"The Regent rules the Confederation with the understanding from the nobles and the military that she does so in Akane Tendo's absence. We accept that as legally binding in principal, if not precisely valid within the accepted jurisprudence. By returning Akane Tendo to Nerima as quickly as possible, we force Nabiki to step down as Regent, and perhaps end this sham of a treaty with the Combine."

Hauptmann gave him a guarded look.

"Pardon me for saying so, your Excellency, but weren't you one of Nabiki's main allies in deposing the Grand Duke? Don't you stand to lose your county if the Combine takes the Tikonov System by force?"

"Those are fair questions," Baldur replied. His voice took on a bitter tone. "Would it appease you to know that I have discovered a few things about Nabiki Tendo that have forever estranged me to her?"

Nerima Confederation Intelligence Agency Safehouse

27 May 3025

Kasumi Tendo stared out into the dark night sky, wondering where Akane was, and if she was getting along with Ranma. The silhouette of the roving security agent moving below her second story window distracted her for a moment, and served as yet another reminder that she was a prisoner of her sister, Nabiki. They had been here for two weeks now, after having spent a miserable time in the South Tower of Azure Cloud Castle.

The safehouse was somewhere near the equator, she knew, judging by the warm and balmy climate at a time when Gondolin was starting to feel the first chills of autumn. She had been blindfolded at the time of her transfer from the tower, along with her father and Nodoka Saotome. Given her sister's contempt for the Saotomes, she could only imagine how Nabiki must have felt upon discovering who the Grand Duke's guest was. In any event, they were a long way from the capitol, and completely cut off from help.

They had received absolutely no news of what was going on in the Inner Sphere, a precaution taken by Nabiki to keep them passive and subservient. Fortunately, she had not felt it necessary to keep them under sedation for long. About the only thing they had received was sympathy mail from the people of the planet, each carefully examined and censored where necessary. They were not allowed to reply - that was being taken care of by the newly reinstated NCIA. Apparently, Nabiki was playing up the removal of Father in the most positive light, not seeking to demonize him, but to portray him as a man who had given his all for the Confederation, and had been broken by his struggle. Kasumi had to admit that it was a wise strategy.

She withdrew from the window, turning to see Nodoka offer a supportive smile from the sofa. One of the security agents had brought them tea while she was wool-gathering before the window.

"You're thinking of Akane again, dear?" Nodoka asked her.

Kasumi smiled wanly. Mrs. Saotome was something of an enigma to her even after their month of confinement together. She was a woman of great patience and understanding, and yet she was married to a man like Genma Saotome. Perhaps those qualities were necessary to tolerate him, she supposed, but then, Genma Saotome hadn't exactly been around much to test Nodoka. She couldn't imagine how painful it had been for her to live most of her life having never seen her son grow to manhood.

Somehow, Nodoka endured it, though she revealed her emotional scars from time to time. In spite of this, Kasumi admired her a great deal. She had been something of a spiritual anchor for them, keeping them together and sane through their bitter confinement.

"I worry about her," Kasumi admitted. "I always have."

Nodoka sipped daintily at her teacup. "I remain hopeful that she and my son are all right."

"I admire that optimism," Kasumi returned. "Of late, I find that I've lost some of mine."

"You're still feeling guilty about letting Nabiki get the best of you," Nodoka pointed out. "Don't torture yourself over it, dear."

Kasumi frowned. "I _do_ feel guilty," she admitted. "I knew that she was plotting against Father, and I didn't do more to stop her."

Nodoka nodded. They had been through this many times without final resolution since their imprisonment.

"And what, I ask for not the first time, could you really have done?"

"I should have had her arrested," Kasumi snapped. She blushed in shame at having lost control over herself, and looked away from Nodoka.

"That is what Nabiki would have done," Nodoka pointed out quietly. "What you need to ask of yourself is whether or not arresting her before she had the chance to betray you would have been lawful and just."

"I know the answer to that, Mrs. Saotome," Kasumi returned. "But it doesn't change how I feel right now."

Nodoka offered her a cup of tea, which she accepted absently.

"I understand, dear. The heavens know what I might do differently in my own life if given a second chance." Her eyes fell upon the tiny wisps of steam from the teapot's spout. "For one thing, I would never have let my husband take Ranma away from me for so long - an oath to make him a man among men or not."

A tear welled in her eye, which she brushed away with as much grace and dignity as she could muster.

"Seventeen years," she sighed sadly. "I'd give anything to have them back."

Gunnery Sergeant Tran Minh Ky watched through his nightglasses as one of his men neutralized the perimeter rover. As the Intelligence Agency thug went down, he trained his nightglasses over to the kitchen door. Two more commandos appeared from the hedgerow that screened the house from the distant paved road that led to the seaside resort town of Paraiso Aqui.

They were all survivors of the Fifth Brigade. The unit was shattered after the battle of Oni, and faced imminent deactivation. Like so many of the other participants in this desperate operation, they were men and women who had little to lose.

Gunny Ky watched as the commandos entered the kitchen, the signal that the remainder of the team was to proceed. He clutched his autoloading shotgun in hand as he and the others scrambled into the open. A flashbang grenade went off as he drew close to the house, followed by a brief crack of a medium caliber handgun that could only belong to one of the security agents, as all of his men inside the house carried nearly silent laser weapons. The handgun did not fire a second time.

"First floor clear," a voice hissed over the commo net.

Ky shook his head. If the snipers didn't get the two agents on the second floor, things could get ugly. He hoped like hell the team assigned to kidnap the Combine Shogun was doing a better job.

"Second floor clear," a second voice added. One of the snipers.

"Move in, you apes," Ky growled into the radio. As long as their dustoff appeared on schedule, things just might work out.

"What was that?" Nodoka cried fearfully.

"It sounded like a grenade," Kasumi replied. She pulled Nodoka down to the floor, keeping the sofa between them and the door.

A pistol shot rang out, followed by the sizzling crackle of a laser weapon, and a wet shriek cut short before it had hardly begun.

"A counter-coup?" Kasumi said aloud, trying to puzzle out what was happening. A ray of hope began to well up within her.

The sound of breaking glass nearby caught her attention, followed by a wet thumping noise against the door. She watched as the doorknob turned, and one of Nabiki's NCIA agents fell through the opening door, a large portion of his forehead splattered down his face and the front of his clothes to his knees. In the moment before he toppled over, Kasumi could see right through the hole in his head to the wall opposite the door.

The sounds of footsteps stomping up the stairs made her duck back behind the sofa, where Nodoka trembled silently and waited for the end.

"Lady Kasumi," a voice called to her. "I'm with what's left of the Fifth Marines. We're here to evacuate you and the Grand Duke."

She considered this for only a moment. If Nabiki decided to liquidate them, she would not have resorted to such heavy-handed theater.

"I'm here," she replied, standing slowly. A Confederation Marine in blackout camouflage clutched a blazer in both hands, the narrow beam of a barrel-mounted flashlight playing across her as he swept the room. "My father is in the next room," she added.

"We've got that covered, ma'am," he replied.

She watched as a pair of Marines helped her groggy father past the fallen yet still twitching corpse of the NCIA agent as he said it.

"Are you hurt?" the Marine asked her.

"No."

The Marine said something into a commo headset. "We don't have much time," he told her. "If you and Mrs. Saotome would please come with me."

Kasumi looked down at Nodoka, who nodded and stood slowly. She cupped a hand to her mouth in horror at the sight of the pool of blood slowly spreading from the twitching body of the dead agent.

"He's still alive," Nodoka gasped, pointing to the dead man. "Aren't you going to help him?"

"No, ma'am," the Marine replied. "Trust me, he's dead. Folks twitch like that sometimes when you shoot 'em in the head."

Another Marine appeared as Nodoka gasped in disgust at his comrade's frank reply, clutching two heavy body armor vests in his free hand. "You'll need to put these on," the Marine told them. "For your safety until we can get you into orbit."

Kasumi led Nodoka gently past the dead agent, brushing aside the Marine offering them the body armor and trying to keep from losing her lunch. She had seen the horrible aftermath of violence before, but the casual way in which these men killed and handled death was unnerving to her.

There was a second corpse on the stairs, his body nearly cut in half along a diagonal wound trench from a laser that stretched from his shoulder to the opposite hip. Nodoka made a retching sound, but managed to keep herself together. Kasumi kept a tight grip on Nodoka's arm as they went down the stairs, ignoring the hasty salutes from the commandos who had come to rescue them.

Once they were downstairs, a short and stocky man of Vietnamese descent presented himself and saluted. Kasumi could see by the subdued insignia on his collar that he was a Gunnery Sergeant. More Marines from the Fifth Brigade were stacking up the bodies of NCIA agents in one corner of the living room. Most of them had been thoroughly lasered, several were dismembered in various places, and the air stank of ozone and burnt flesh.

"Ma'am, I'm Gunny Ky," the Marine announced. "And I'm gonna have to insist that you and your companion wear the body armor my men offered to you. There aren't any guarantees that one of your sister's agents won't attempt to kill you rather than let you escape."

The Marine with the vests followed them down the stairs. Kasumi reluctantly allowed him to dress her in the body armor, while another Marine assisted Nodoka.

"Gunny Ky," she said to the stocky Marine. "May I ask what is going on the capitol right now?"

"Nothing, I hope," was his curt reply. His attention was taken by something he heard over the commo. "Dustoff in two minutes, people!" he called to his troops.

Kasumi turned to see her father standing near the kitchen, dressed in a body armor vest and listening intently to what a Marine major in blackout gear had to say. In spite of the horror of what she had witnessed, she had to smile at the sight of her father regaining some of the stature and dignity he had lost with his capitulation to Nabiki.

The distant sound of jet engines rumbled in the sky above the house.

"Stay in the house until you're told otherwise, please," Ky advised them.

Kasumi waited in silence with Nodoka, though she had a thousand questions to ask. Her father was too busy it seemed to approach at the moment, which only made her wonder even more about what was going on. Was this a counter-coup against Nabiki, or was this simply a rescue mission that would see them living out their lives in exile somewhere?

The sound of the jet engines grew louder, until it was a piercing scream from outside the kitchen. Kasumi watched through a window as a black shuttle craft touched down forty meters from the house. Flares burned red on the grass outside, and the draft from the engines kicked up clouds of white smoke that obscured the ship from view for a moment.

"Your ride's here," Ky declared. "Awright, you apes!" he said to his men. "Let's pack 'em up and move 'em out. We've gotta be back in the barracks in two hours!"

"You aren't coming with us?" Kasumi asked him.

Gunny Ky smiled. "Ma'am, as far as the official record is concerned, me and the boys spent a quiet night restricted under guard to the base for drunk and disorderly conduct." He thumped one of the Marines upside the helmet and reproached him for his sluggish performance before turning back to Kasumi. "That's my story, ma'am, and I'm stickin' to it."

"Kasumi!" Grand Duke Tendo called to her. "Nodoka! We must be going now."

"Coming, Father," she replied. She and Nodoka were led by a small contingent of Marines to the shuttle as Gunny Ky and the rest of the commandos filtered into the darkness of the hedgerows. A man in a drab blue shipsuit was waiting for them at the ramp, along with several sailors. She recognized him even without the braid-encrusted ballcap on his head which read 'NCWS TANG SVT-721.' The sailors also wore _Tang_ ballcaps, though the shuttle itself was clearly from the NCWS _Tautog_.

"Captain Hauptmann!" she cried.

"Your Grace, Lady Kasumi," he said to them as he welcomed them up the ramp. "There isn't much time for explanations at the moment, but once we rendezvous with the _Tautog_, I assure you that I will tell you everything I know about what we hope to accomplish."

NCWS _Tautog_

in low orbit above the planet Nerima

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

28 May 3025

Grand Duke Soun Tendo nodded slowly at what Captain Hauptmann had to say.

"I see," he said at length. "So this isn't a counter-coup after all."

"No, your Grace," Hauptmann confirmed. "The remaining Loyalists in positions of authority feel that a rebellion against your daughter would be counterproductive. We wish to avoid a civil war by removing Nabiki in as lawful a manner as possible. Once Akane returns to Nerima, Nabiki will have to step down as Regent. Her support among the nobles is based largely on that premise, and as you have seen, Count Thuringia has set himself completely against her now."

"Would that I could have counted on him a month ago," Soun sniffed."This nightmare wouldn't have happened."

"I understand your feelings, your Grace," Hauptmann demurred. "But the truth is that he has sacrificed most of his fortune and possibly his seat to free you. We couldn't have located you in time to put together a rescue without hefty bribes to some of Nabiki's NCIA mercenaries." He shrugged. "Now I'm just a corvette skipper, your Grace, and I don't pretend to understand half of the politics involved in this mess, but I do know what the Count has done to set things right."

Soun was silent a moment. "I see... What about taking the Shogun from my daughter's custody?"

Hauptmann made an absent gesture with his hands. "Call it insurance against Prince Kuno, and it also weakens your daughter's position with the other nobles to be without him."

Soun nodded silently in agreement with the captain's estimation. "I think I should like to speak with his Eminence. Perhaps we could reach a mutual understanding where we've failed to do so with his son."

"I take it then, Captain Hauptmann, that you know where Akane is?" Kasumi asked him, returning the conversation to its original topic.

"Several days ago we intercepted a transmission from the Furinkan Combine fleet prior to their Jump from the Capella System. The transmission was a database patch for their astrogational systems that included the Ryuugenzawa System. We already had the abstract in our possession, but the fact that the Combine has been given the data by your daughter is the reason we were forced to act quickly to free you."

"They found it?!" Soun blurted. "Saotome, you genius!"

Nodoka blushed with pride at this revelation.

"They apparently did, your Grace," Hauptmann agreed. "Unfortunately, as I said, your daughter gave the data to Tatewaki Kuno, and told him that he could find Akane there. Kuno is on his way to Ryuugenzawa to seize Akane for his bride, as per the treaty Nabiki arranged with the Furinkan Combine."

"Are we too late then?" Kasumi asked.

"We don't think so, ma'am," Hauptmann replied. "A ship as small as the _Tautog_ doesn't need nearly as much time to recharge her Jump Batteries as does a battleship like the _Imperator_. We should actually be able to beat them to the Ryuugenzawa System in spite of their lead."

The 1MC crackled for attention above their heads.

"All hands prepare for acceleration."

Several moments passed in silence before the distant rumble of the corvette's drive signalled their departure from orbit.

"Assuming we can escape the system," Hauptmann said to them. "We'll be home free."

"What are our odds?" Soun asked.

"Chances are that Nabiki hasn't realized your escape yet. The _Tautog_ leaving orbit unannounced will cause a stir, but the only ships who can hope to find us are the other ships of the 777th Squadron." He smiled and brushed back his thinning hair. "I can reasonably assure you that according to Commodore Tanaka, they'll have a very difficult time of it."

Furinkan Combine WarShip _Imperator_

Betelgeuse System Zenith Jump Point

Betelgeuse System, the Nerima Confederation

5 June 3025

Weeks after the fact, Hikaru Gosunkugi could hardly accept that Tetsuo was dead.

The news had come with their arrival in orbit around Nerima. His cousin had been murdered by a man acting under orders from the Grand Duke. At least, that was the official story. Though he took anything from Nabiki Tendo with a grain of salt, the pain within him at the loss of his friend and confidant made a thorough examination of the evidence impossible at the moment.

For now, he would accept her story, and vowed to make the Grand Duke pay, and pay dearly for his treachery. If the nagging suspicion within him that she was lying about Tetsuo's death for her own reasons was proven correct, he would add her to the list. There were other matters that required his attention now, and he could ill afford to be distracted if he wished to have his revenge upon all of the parties who had wronged him.

He studied the wound scars on his wrists where iron spikes had fixed him upon Kuno's cross. Though advanced medicine had been able to close the holes, the damage done to his tissues and bones had left him with very little strength in his hands. Physical therapy had helped some, but the prognosis of the _Imperator_'s medical staff was that he might be better off opting for cybernetic replacement of both arms below the elbow.

He did not like that idea in the least, and in any event, there was no guarantee that Kuno would authorize the expense for his hostage, even if Hikaru was acting in the capacity of the prince's retainer.

He had to laugh at that, though the sound that spilled from his lips was bitter and despondent. Prince Kuno had spared his life in order to procure his occult services in severing whatever bond had formed between the nonpareil Akane Tendo, and the hated upstart, Ranma Saotome. He had reviewed the sketchy battlemech flight recorder video logs from Capra at Kuno's behest, and it did indeed seem that she had feelings for the cursed Saotome.

That wasn't all that he noticed. He had watched, stunned, as Ranma transformed from a man into a busty red-haired girl with a dousing of water from an unknown source above the cliffs where Kuno had captured him. Kuno was convinced that the buxom redhead that he refered to reverently as The Pig-Tailed Girl was a different entity from Ranma. Hikaru wasn't so sure of that.

He wished that he had access to his library, for an answer to the mystery might be found within the many dusty tomes of forbidden lore in his possession. That was impossible, however, as his personal JumpShip had been forced to flee the system when he was captured, and Kuno had no intention of returning him to Angbad to secure his research materials. The best the Combine prince could come up with was a handful of material, hastily gathered, and most of it popular tripe from ancient charlatans such as Aleister Crowley and Anton LaVey, a book of fraudulant mystical formulae that owed much to Lovecraft's obviously fictitious Mad Arab, and most surprisingly, Sir James Douglas Frazier's magnum opus of anthropology-cum-the-White-Man's-Burden, 'The Golden Bough,' a work that touched upon so many fundamental aspects of magic and yet missed their significance out of staggering Victorian arrogance.

Despite these dubious works, there were a few gems to be had in Kuno's collection. There were scrolls from the Chinese esoterics that had scholarly occult value. In particular there was a translation - with a commentary by Carl Jung - of an essay by Confucius regarding the study of the Book of Changes. There were the dabblings of a few famous 2nd Century Kabbalists, including Rabbi ben Akiva. Not to mention a stunning treatise on Astrology compiled by an islamic mystic from 11th Century Baghdad that Hikaru had been searching out for years without success. Nothing, however interesting these works were, that shed light on this particular enigma.

If the redhead in the flight recorder logs really was Ranma Saotome, he would have to be careful in executing any kind of magical attack against him. There was the possibility that Saotome was in fact a sorceror, as Kuno had claimed. Hikaru practiced a form of sympathetic magic that did not call upon the Dark Powers, and the last thing he needed was some demon breathing down his neck and no useful way to deal with it.

Of course, the shortcoming of his preferred system of magic was that lacking anything personal from Saotome, he could not do anything harmful to him either. Kuno didn't seem to grasp that crucial fact no matter how many times he had explained it to the numbskull, and had refused to press Nabiki for hairs, articles of clothing, or personal effects belonging to Saotome while they were in orbit around Nerima. He could not work with nothing and expect results, and yet Kuno was pressing him daily for progress.

Naturally, he had lied through his teeth about the matter to his jailor. Tatewaki Kuno was not the kind of man who countenanced failure, and the alternative to glowing reports of his magical attacks on Ranma Saotome was an assuredly grisly death. He shuddered at the thought of being nailed to that cross once again.

If there was one thing his captivity aboard the _Imperator_ allowed him, it was access to his mortal enemy. If he had nothing with which to use against Ranma Saotome, he had plenty to use against Tatewaki Kuno. His spare time had

been spent preparing a host of straw effigies of his erstwhile host, and he had yet to miss an opportunity to procure hairs, clothing fibers, even a few flakes of Kuno's dandruff for raw material in his spells.

He would have his revenge on the Combine prince. Somehow, someway, he would see him cast down from on high. He would destroy Saotome in time, the Grand Duke as well for the death of Tetsuo, and perhaps even Nabiki to boot, but first he must concentrate on bringing down Tatewaki Kuno.

Black Rose Terror Regiment Flagship

New Syrtis System Zenith Jump Point

New Syrtis System, the Federated Shiratori

6 June 3025

Sasuke waited until the bestial grunting and groaning subsided before sounding the door chimes to his mistress' bed chamber. He did not want to see the two of them together - was disgusted in fact by the way that Pansuto Tarou had seduced his mistress - but as they were never far from each other's company, he resigned himself to the inevitable.

"Yes?" Kodachi's voice trilled sweetly over the intercom.

"Mistress, I have urgent news," he said wearily, hoping that she would demand that he speak from the other side of the door and not enter.

"Enter," she commanded, and he hung his head in exasperation.

The door slid open, and the heavy, musky scent of rut washed over him, making him wince. Fortunately, the lighting was dim, and so his mistress did not see his expression of dismay. He could not stand to be mocked again by her so soon.

There were pairs of pantyhose strewn everywhere; draped over chairs, the settee, hanging from the lighting fixtures on the walls, and especially the bed. His mistress maintained a four-poster bed aboard her personal JumpShip, and from the look of things, she had put its stout construction to the test. Again, he winced. They were like crazed weasels in heat!

Kodachi lay upon the bed, her head and shoulders propped up by a red satin pillow against the carved cherrywood headboard, with one long bare leg crooked decadently at the knee in a pose that some would argue provocative, and others - like Sasuke in that moment - mildly obscene. The matching red satin sheets were twisted and mussed, and covered the rest of her body with only the barest deference to modesty. Her skin glowed with the sheen of pleasant exertion, and her eyes burned with their usual coal black intensity, though her sly smile hinted at her enormous satisfaction.

Tarou had his head in her lap, his perpetual look of disdain directed now at Sasuke. He was naked as well, lying in a supine pose like a sleeping David carved by some Florentine Renaissance master, covered only at the waist by an almost accidental placement of a corner of the sheet. A pair of beige pantyhose was wrapped loosely around his neck, the ends of which were gripped lightly in Kodachi's left hand.

"Yes, Sasuke?" Kodachi purred to him. "What news do you bring me that is so urgent?"

"I bring news of your brother's dealings with the Confederation Regent," he began.

Her expression darkened at the mention of her brother.

"Go on."

Sasuke collected himself and plunged on. "It seems that Nabiki has given him the coordinates to the Ryuugenzawa System as part of their surrender deal, Mistress, and he is making for the system at best speed."

"Dammit," Tarou cursed. "This so-called secret is spilling out all over the place."

Kodachi stroked his temple. "Pay it no mind, my lover," she told him.

How quickly her ardor for Ranma Saotome has faded in light of her passionate exchanges with her current bedmate, Sasuke noted dryly.

She yawned fetchingly to show them how little concern she felt over the matter. "It seems that once again I must reach a star system ahead of my brother if I wish to kill that horrid Tendo girl."

She stroked again at Tarou's temple.

"Leave us," she commanded her ninja manservant.

Sasuke bowed low for her, though his displeasure with her was clearly evident, and retreated quickly and silently from the room.

"I'm going to have to have him killed," Kodachi remarked dryly. "Alas, sooner than later, I should think."

Tarou turned to face her.

"I don't understand why you even bother to keep him in the first place."

She gave him a taut smile. "He amuses me," she replied. "And he does have his uses as a source of intelligence. In the many games I play with my brother, it pays handsomely to have someone of Sasuke's resourcefulness available."

"Are you certain that Sasuke wouldn't try to do the same to you?" Tarou asked.

She chuckled, full of mirth at the notion. "Assassinate me? Of course not! My lover, there is one thing you must understand about Sasuke. No matter how much he becomes upset with me over my choice of bedmates, he is still utterly devoted to me." She ran one finger along the side of Tarou's jaw, tracing down his neck and across the sweep of his collarbone. "If I commanded him to commit suicide, he would do so without hesitating."

Tarou thought about this. "Then why all the fuss about having him killed?" he asked. "If you want him dead, just order him to slit his throat and be done with it."

She laughed at this. "My dear Pantyhose," she purred. "So simple and direct in your ways. Though you are without a doubt the most exquisite lover, there is much that you do not understand about me, nor could you hope to know in the brief time we have shared together."

She arched a leg over him, caressing his flank with her toes. "I play games with Sasuke as well, my dear. One of my favorites is keeping him guessing about which of my hands is holding the knife. No, he would not raise a finger against me, dear Pantyhose. There are other ways in which he seeks to destroy me."

Tarou snorted. "Is everyone in your life just a source of amusement to you?"

Kodachi ran her fingers down his arm.

"Yes," she whispered, leaning close to him. "I particularly enjoy the games I play with you."

He kissed her hard on the mouth, surprising both of them with his sponteneity. He did not understand the nature of the spell she held over him, but he knew that he belonged body and soul to her. It was more than just the sex. Kodachi Kuno's attraction to him lay deep within the folds and recesses of his being, arousing him on a primal level that he could not name.

Perhaps it was because she reveled in who he really was as a person, that he did not have to be anything other than himself around her; amoral, arrogant, even a little hedonistic. It was more than refreshing to live free of the restraints and mores imposed by society, it was invigorating, and in her, he had found a woman who filled him with a passion that he had never known before. He was hungry for life and all its pleasures with her, and she understood that revenge was one of the sweetest of all.

Nerima Confederation DropShip _Palomino_

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

7 June 3025

"Tell me you can set us down in one piece," Captain Grant asked his Pilot.

"I can set us down in one piece," the Pilot assured him in spite of the many red alarm lights on his control panels. "Just as long as nothing else goes wrong," he added, rapping on the main console so as not to jinx them.

The _Palomino_ sank through a layer of clouds, revealing a rolling expanse of woodlands below. The treetops were textured black against the lighter color of exposed hilltops and scattered meadows at night.

"Anything on radar?" Grant asked Tad.

"Two aircraft at high altitude bearing one-nine-nine, range two-zero klicks. IFF says they're the Air Lance. I hold no other contacts at this time."

Grant frowned deeply.

"How about word from Captain Saotome or Lady Akane?" he asked the Co-Pilot.

"All frequencies are silent," he replied. "I can't even raise the _Dragonfly_."

"Silent? You mean the jamming has stopped?"

The Co-Pilot nodded. "The radio bands are deader than a politician's conscience right now. Same with the microwave bands. Lasercomm has so far failed to reestablish the link with _Dragonfly_. The array is searching, but it isn't finding their signal."

Grant didn't want to think about the implications of that. Nothing from the _Dragonfly_, and no word from either Ranma or Akane spelled total disaster.

"I'm getting a metallic return on radar," Tad chirped. "Bearing three-zero-zero, at ground level. Looks like a structure of some sort."

Grant studied the data on his repeater display. "Mark it on our INS board. It might bear checking out once we find a place to land."

"I just passed a clearing on our starboard side that looks big enough for us to set down in," the Pilot noted. "Want me to try for it?"

"The sooner we land, the sooner we can examine the damage we took," Grant returned. "Take us in."

The Pilot was as good as his word, setting them down with as much care as his lack of a maneuvering engine could provide. The _Palomino_ settled down in a meadow clearing, surrounded on three sides by forest, and the fourth side bounded them with a low windswept hill that was bare of trees.

The Mech Bay doors began to roll open as Yuka and Sayuri made low passes overhead to observe the area. Happousai's Locust was the first to touch down, having been nearly shoved out of the bay by Ryouga's massive BattleMaster.

"Where did Akane fall?" Ryouga demanded over the tac-net. "I'm going out to look for her."

"It's about a hundred klicks from here, at least," Yuka replied from the sky above. "We were going to go back and take a look once you landed safely."

"Did you see what happened?" Ukyou asked, her Hatchetman stepping down onto the grassy meadow and walking towards the BattleMaster.

"No," Sayuri replied. "Whatever it was that zapped the _Palomino_ the first time started taking pot-shots at us. We couldn't stick around."

"So you left Ranma to die?" Ukyou asked her hotly.

"We didn't have a choice!" Yuka snarled back. "Besides, it was your sweetheart, Ranma, who told us to go!"

"Enough of this bickering!" Genma yelled. His Griffin stomped around the bow of the DropShip to confront Ukyou. "Since neither Ranma or Akane is here to give orders, I'm assuming command of the Lance. Yuka and Sayuri will alternate searches over the area where we lost Akane. One looks while the other stays here to protect the LZ."

His battlemech made a sweeping gesture with its arm. "The first thing we need to do is secure this area. Ryouga and Ukyou, you two take opposite sides of the DropShip and spiral out from there to a distance of one klick, then spiral back in. The Master and I will stay here as the rearguard, and as reinforcements in case one of you is attacked.

"We don't know what exactly happened to us up there, and there are no guarantees that we won't be attacked on the ground as well. I know that you all care about what happened to Akane and my boy, but we aren't doing them any good by setting ourselves up to be attacked while we search."

"Fair enough," Yuka said in reply. "I'll make the first search effort. How long do you want me out before I switch with Sayuri?"

"No more than an hour," Genma replied. "After that, you come back and land. We shouldn't push the fighters too hard."

"Copy that."

Yuka waggled her wings and screamed off in the direction of Ranma and Akane's last known position.

The mechwarriors watched the Corsair go. Ryouga marked the direction on his battlemech's INS computer. Air searches were fine, but in darkness, he didn't count on them having much success. The best they could hope for was to receive a rescue radio transmission from Akane.

"We should set up a radio beacon for Ranma, in case he returns," he pointed out over the tac-net.

"Good idea," Genma agreed. "For all we know, the boy has already picked up Akane safe and sound."

"I'm hesistant to go transmitting any long range signals until we get a better idea about this place's defenses," Captain Grant jumped in over the tac-net. "But I don't see any other way of letting Captain Saotome know of our position."

"What about word from the _Dragonfly_?"

"Nothing," Grant said dully. "We've lost all communications with them."

"That isn't good," Genma growled worriedly. He had not expected such a hostile welcome from the planet. Other Star League depots weren't this well protected. "Where exactly are we on the planet?"

"From our observations in orbit, Ryuugenzawa has only one major continent. We're on the northeastern end of that land mass, about forty degrees north latitude from the equator, and about two-hundred klicks from the sea."

"Did you spot any structures?" Genma asked hopefully. Thoughts of exploring the famed Proving Grounds were already taking precedence over concern for his son and future daughter-in-law. Besides, the boy knew what he was doing. They'd be okay...

"We spotted something on radar not too far from here, a structure, but there was no sign of any life."

Genma nodded slowly. "Perhaps we should investigate."

"I'm all for it, but in daylight if you would please, sir," Grant demurred. "We've got a lot of work to do tonight, starting with a damage assessment of the _Palomino_."

"I'd like to take down our reactor plant, seeing as how it suffered the loss of half it's cooling system, but without a source of shore power, I don't know how feasible that will be. We've only got a few hours on our batteries, and if we can't restart the reactor, we're dead in the water."

Genma thought about the problem. The _Palomino_ was currently the only source of civilization they could count on at the moment. If they lost power for good, their stay on Ryuugenzawa was going to take a decided turn for the primitive.

"Would it be possible to run your hotel loads through the shore power feeds from one of the battlemech reactors?" he asked finally.

Grant shrugged on the display. "I'll ask my Engineer. It'll probably have to be either yours or Lieutenant Hibiki's mechs that does it, though. I don't think a Locust powerplant could provide enough juice, and the Hatchetman is iffy."

"If it's all the same to you, Genma," Happousai broke in. "I'll take Hibiki's place so he can come back and get hooked up to the DropShip."

"I don't know about that, Master, I -"

"Good," he cackled. "I knew you wouldn't mind."

The Locust stomped off in the direction of Ryouga's BattleMaster.

Genma watched his master go, taking comfort at least in the idea that he would be out of his hair for awhile. Captain Grant was right. One look at the scarred and blackened starboard side of the DropShip was enough to realize that they had a lot of work ahead of them.

Nerima Confederation JumpShip _Dragonfly_

Approaching the planet Ryuugenzawa

Ryuugenzawa System, the Magistracy of Canopus

7 June 3025

"Captain Ninomiya," Communications called to her. "_Palomino_ reports detecting a contact in orbit above the planet." He paused. "It's tentatively identified as an Orochi Class Automated Battlestation. They want us to confirm their observations."

"They must be kidding," Hinako said to herself. "Sensory, go active with our radar. I want some answers."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

Hinako watched the sensory holotank as it projected yellow points of light against the blue sphere of the planet. The space station was there, as expected, as were a constellation of small satellites in varying orbits.

"I don't see anything," she protested.

She spoke too soon, as a large object resolved itself near the curvature of the planet.

"There's something there," Sensory declared.

"Run it through the Warbook."

"Running now."

Hinako waited for the data to come through, worried that Grant's estimation of the unknown contact was correct.

"Conn, Sensory; the Warbook confirms contact Romeo Two-Five as an Orochi Class Battlestation."

"Sound General Quarters!" Hinako ordered. What had Genma Saotome gotten them into?

The ship's General Alarm klaxon rang throughout the ship. She watched the contact begin to slide behind the planet's curvature, and hoped that it had not noticed them.

"Conn, Sensory; detecting search and acquisition radar from contact Romeo Two-Five."

Hinako ordered the ship to alter course to remain in distant support of the _Palomino_. Given the starship's meager armament of two PPCs, there wasn't much else that they could do except observe.

"Conn, Sensory; detecting energy weapon fire from contact Romeo Two-Five!"

"Conn, Communications, we've lost radio and lasercomm contact with the _Palomino_."

Hinako paled. Were they destroyed?

"Astrogation, plot an escape course back to the Jump Point," she ordered. "Helm, be prepared to execute course change. Sensory, locate the _Palomino_."

"I've got them, ma'am," Sensory reported. "The ship appears to be intact on my radar. They are descending in a controlled fashion."

"What about that Orochi?"

"It's sinking behind the planet. The shot was a massive particle beam that passed through the upper atmosphere to hit the DropShip."

Such power! Hinako thought with dread.

"Course change plotted," Lieutenant Davidge reported.

"Helm standing by."

Hinako was gripped with indecision. What could she really do? The _Dragonfly_ was no match for a GunShip, let alone an orbital battlestation with technology dating back to the height of the Star League! They were too far away for a rendezvous, and in any event, the _Palomino_ was trying to reach the surface of the planet to escape the beams.

A bolt of blinding power ripped through the _Dragonfly_ as she pondered this, shaking them in their acceleration chairs.

"Damage report!" she cried. "Sensory, where did that come from!?"

"Conn, Sensory; new contact Echo Two-Six bearing zero-five-nine, plus zero-two. Range, indeterminate but distant!"

Hinako watched as the holotank updated. Another Orochi satellite was above and to their starboard beam, hanging in high lunar orbit!

"Another one!" she lamented.

"Engineering reports heavy damage to the Jump Core," the Acting Assistant Engineer declared. "No possibility of repair at this time."

Hinako shook her head in disbelief. _My ship! I just got finished putting it back together again!_ "Helm, execute course change! All-Ahead Flank!"

A second bolt blasted through the ship. The lights flickered off for a moment and displays crashed to static.

"Port Greenhouse destroyed! Emergency airtight seals deployed and holding!" the Acting Assistant Engineer cried. A third bolt slammed into them, rocking the ship violently and causing small fires to break out on the Bridge. "Engineering reports heavy damage to the Main Engines and the Main Reactor!"

"Loss of Helm Control!" the Helmsman added. "Main Engines and Reaction Control System not responding."

Power failed completely for a moment, leaving the Bridge Crew in darkness. A fourth bolt blasted apart the lower docking compartment, nearly severing the habitat from the shattered Drive Section.

"Loss of all primary power! Depressurization alerts on 'C' Deck port side and 'F' Deck starboard! Fire in Engineering on 'H' Deck!"

Hinako pulled herself upright in her chair as the emergency lights came on. Tears were in her eyes as her beloved ship was being blasted apart around her. One more hit on the habitat, and they were done for.

"Pass the word to abandon ship!" she ordered. She looked to Davidge. "Make certain a copy of the Log makes it to the _Nymph_."

A fifth annihilation bolt vaporized the aft section of the Jump Core, severing the Main Engines and the JumpSail completely from the ship. _Dragonfly_ began to tumble slowly, end over end, as its hull glowed a dull orange from the heat of the particle beam strikes.

"Assuming that we live to abandon ship," Davidge observed gravely.

Shampoo heard the General Alarm sound and wondered what was going on. There was no provision for a guard during Battlestations, and she watched as her current jailor leapt up from his seat to respond. She was alone after that, just her and the tiny baby growing within her.

Her time was running out if she wanted to terminate her pregnancy. Doctor Tofu hadn't mentioned it ever since he broke the news to her, in fact he had been more focused on ensuring that she ate right and took her vitamins. She humored him in this regard, glad at least for his compassion and his humanity. To the rest of the crew, she was at best a sex object, and at worst, an enemy of the state, deserving only of a swift trial followed by a swifter execution.

Ranma had never once come to see her, even to gloat. She felt a little disappointed by that. Her kiss was meant to seduce him, or at least to sway him to her advantage.

Her train of thought was interrupted by the sudden hammering of the ship by a distant orbital battlestation. Shampoo could only brace herself against the walls of her cell, and await the moment when the compartment was blasted to atoms or vented to space.

She counted five bolts against the hull, and then silence. The lights were out, leaving her only a single battle lantern to see by, and the fans had stopped. The centrifuge that was 'D' Deck was slowly winding down, and the ship was tumbling slowly end over end.

Shampoo did not know what had happened, but whatever it was, the ship was in serious trouble, if not crippled beyond all repair.

"All hands abandon ship!" the 1MC ordered the crew. "All hands abandon ship!"

She watched the airtight door to the passageway beyond the Brig. After what seemed like fifteen minutes had passed, she realized that no one was coming for her. Everyone was too busy trying to save their own lives. She didn't blame them, but she didn't want to die like this, trapped in a tiny cell while the air grew slowly foul around her and the light from the single battle lantern faded and left her in total darkness.

The light from the battery powered lamp failed abruptly, confirming her worst fears.

Shampoo sat on her sleeping pallet, drawing her knees up to her chest, and prepared herself for death.

The airtight door opened as she considered this, and a flashlight beam played across the clear polycarbonate wall of her cell.

"Shampoo?" Doctor Tofu asked to the darkness.

She stood up. "I here!" she cried.

"I'm here to let you out," he said. "The crew is abandoning the ship."

"What happen?" she asked.

"I don't know," Tofu said, thrusting the key into the cell door's lock. "I don't want to stick around and find out. Captain Ninomiya is only giving us ten minutes to make it to the Boat Bay before they leave, and if we start getting hit again, I don't think she'll wait even that long."

The door opened, and Shampoo bounded out to glomp Tofu in a fierce embrace, her lips pressed against his for what seemed an eternity to him.

"I no forget this!" she assured him. "You no have to come rescue Shampoo, but you do anyway."

"Well, ah," Tofu stammered, his face blazing with heat. "We should, er, be, ah, going."

Shampoo smiled prettily.

"Lead way."

Captain Hinako Ninomiya scowled in the dimly lit Ship's Boat, _Nymph_.

"Where is that crazy sawbones?" she complained from the Boat's flight deck. The ship was starting to fail structurally, its creaks and groans becoming more torturous with each passing moment. Fires raged in Engineering, which had been abandoned even before her order, as the surviving crew down there remembered vividly the horrors of the last inferno to hit those spaces, and knew by the pounding they were taking that the ship was beyond help.

Tofu appeared with Shampoo as she said this. The two pulled themselves aboard the _Nymph_, while one of the Bridge crew sealed the airlock door.

"You almost missed the boat," Hinako groused. "All the other lifeboats left."

Tofu strapped himself into a seat as the _Dragonfly_ trembled, its main bulkheads near collapse.

"I came as fast as I could."

"You and your altruism," Hinako snorted as the Boat Bay was evacuated with an emergency vent valve. The Bay door would not open without power, and they were forced to blow the explosive bolts. "You risk your neck and everyone else's on the _Nymph_ just to save the life of a prisoner we'll probably end up executing anyway."

"I'm a doctor," Tofu protested. "My job is to preserve life. If you had a problem with it, why did you give me permission to go? Why did you wait?"

"Forget I said it, Doctor," Hinako snapped. The _Nymph_ pulsed its reaction control jets, scooting free of the Boat Bay. "In case you hadn't noticed, I've just lost the most important thing in my life!"

She gestured out the viewports to the blackened and rent hull of the _Dragonfly_, and knew that she had been correct in giving her order to abandon ship. There was no saving a starship so badly damaged. To attempt it would have been throwing lives away. As it was, they were extremely fortunate that most of the hits had been to unmanned portions of the ship, such as the Jump Core, Greenhouse, and the Drive Section. They had suffered no fatalities - all hands had escaped.

She glared at the distant moon of Ryuugenzawa, knowing that her ship's destroyer was out there, and vowed to get even.

"Captain," her Helmsman reported. "I'm detecting a low power radio signal from the _Palomino_. It's their emergency beacon, I believe."

Hinako observed the tiny cluster of life pods and the other Ship's Boat, _Sylph_, that hovered in empty space a safe distance from the dying starship. "Tell the others to home on the _Palomino_'s beacon. We'll make planetfall there and link up with any survivors." She huffed in resignation for the disaster that had befallen them. "After that, I don't know what we're going to do."

Without the _Dragonfly_, they were marooned in the Ryuugenzawa System.

The discontinuity in Akane Tendo's consciousness between the moment she yanked desperately on her ejection handle, and the moment seconds later, when she was kicked loose from her ejector seat was jarring enough for her, but the fierce cold that bit into her limbs and the horror of watching Ranma's Phoenix Hawk LAM disintegrate in midair before her eyes was absolutely numbing. She rotated in her parachute straps as her eyes scanned the skies. Her falling Warhammer was lost against the darkness of the ground far below her, and only dull fingers of smoke and fire spread into oblivion from Ranma's LAM.

"...Ranma...!" she choked out into the freezing air. She could not see a parachute that would confirm his escape from the falling machine.

_Please, no!_ she begged.

The high-altitude wind whipped into her in a powerful gust, swaying her from side to side in her straps, which dug into her bare legs and made her shiver with cold. She was almost four kilometers high, an altitude far above anything she had ever considered before as a mechwarrior.

When she finally landed - assuming that she didn't die of exposure first - it would be a long way from the final impact point of her Warhammer. If Ranma had been able to escape, and she wasn't willing to admit yet that he hadn't, he too would scatter with the wind. Hopefully they would land close enough together that she could find him quickly. She didn't want to spend any more time alone on this miserable planet than she had to.

As she descended she put away fears of Ranma's death and thought about what had happened. She could hardly remember their descent through the upper atmosphere, and had no recollection of the explosion that had thrown her battlemech clear of the _Palomino_. Her first distinct memory was of Ranma, struggling against nigh-impossible odds to save her life.

"Idiot!" she spat to the dark and silent skies around her. "Ranma, you... You... Idiot!" She began to sob. "I told you to save yourself...!"

But against her protestations, he hadn't let go of her, had even screamed back in defiance of the idea that he should save himself and let her die. The stupid jerk didn't even realize that she couldn't bear to live a life without him!

She hung in her straps, shivering with cold and shaking with sobs of grief as she fell at an agonizing pace through the night sky. She almost missed the rapid approach of the ground at the end of her fall, and hit hard, rolling into soft muddy soil and tangling up in her shroud lines.

When she got her breath back, she was covered in freezing cold mud. She began to pull at the shroud lines of her parachute, trying to free herself before collapsing into exhaustion. Her last act before she passed out was to draw the remains of her parachute canopy over herself for warmth.

Akane awoke to the stark fingers of dawn low in the eastern sky. She was still bitterly cold beneath the thin nylon of the parachute canopy, though the mud seemed to have dried itself to her skin. She pulled herself painfully into a sitting position. With a little daylight to aid her, she was able to untangle herself from the shroud lines, and took her first halting steps on the alien world of Ryuugenzawa.

She saw that she had landed in some swampy mire, and that a thick grove of trees a hundred meters away represented the only appreciable shelter from the elements. She shrugged off some of the disorientation she felt, and rummaged about for her survival kit. A clean pair of coveralls was there, to be donned once she had scraped off most of the mud. There was food as well; compressed rations and two liters of water. The most important items were the flare gun and its three starshells, and the short-range rescue radio. If the _Palomino_ had survived the attack, they would be looking for her and Ranma.

She switched the radio on. Ranma would have his radio as well, and if they were within ten kilometers of each other, they could communicate!

"Ranma?" she called to the ether. "Are you there?"

The radio sputtered static in response. It was possible, she conceded, that they had touched down too far apart to be within the relatively short range of their radios. The alternative was unthinkable.

She tried again, this time hoping to reach someone, anyone, who could help her.

"_Palomino_, this is Akane Tendo. Do you read me?"

Again there was nothing.

She set the radio to standby to conserve battery power. Yuka and Sayuri would come looking for them, and she would be able to hear their radio calls when they came near. They could also home on her rescue beacon, but until she knew they were close by, she did not want to transmit more than she had to. Whoever had attacked the _Palomino_ might be listening.

Standard ejection procedure dictated that a mechwarrior in hostile territory bury her parachute, but Akane was unwilling to do so right away. There didn't seem to be anyone around that could threaten her, and she was reluctant to do away with something that would make her easier to spot from the air.

The afternoon was growing long, and still there was no sign of any help. They must have been looking in the wrong place for her, she realized. Even worse, her rescue radio had conked out, and she could not get it to work again. Any radio transmissions being sent to her could not be received.

Akane didn't know what to do. Her best chance for rescue meant staying close to where she had landed, but if they hadn't found her yet, did that mean that no one was left alive to look? Whatever had blasted a hole big enough in the DropShip to make her Warhammer fall out of the bay could have easily destroyed the Palomino.

If that was true, and Ranma... hadn't made it... then she was the only one left alive out of the expedition. Her heart clenched at the thought of it. Hope might remain with the _Dragonfly_, but they were probably still a hundred thousand kilometers out in space, and whatever had attacked the _Palomino_ would annihilate any shuttle launched by Captain Ninomiya in a rescue effort.

If she was truly on her own, then she couldn't stay here in this swampy mire. She had to find dry ground, locate a reliable source of water, then food. Her rations wouldn't hold her for more than three days, six if she stretched them, but she might need every calorie right away if she was going to exert herself with a survival trek.

She packed up her meager belongings into the survival kit. She could see a hill in the distance, and figured that she could use it to find a suitable place for shelter. Perhaps she could spot the impact crater of her Warhammer, and wait there for a rescue.

Akane began to trudge through the mire, which had thawed during the day and was now warm and squishy beneath her feet. Her legs were filthy, covered in grime and muck up to the knees as she walked, and she found herself wishing for a hot shower followed by an equally hot soak in a big bathtub.

The scraggly woods at the edge of the mire offered a little shelter from the sun, and the ground was a little drier, but there was a feeling of gloom and dread about the place. The planet seemed to have a fairly sophisticated ecosystem, including small vertebrate mammals and several species of birds, but once she reached the woods, her surroundings became quiet and still.

She reflected on the necessity of self-defense. She was confident that her martial arts could carry her through any kind of predatory confrontation long enough to run away, but after twenty minutes of picking her way through the dreary woods, she found herself reaching for the 10mm autopistol in her survival kit. It might not do much against a large animal, but the noise and the smell of the burnt propellant might be effective in scaring it away. She tucked the weapon into the waistband of her shorts. Knowing that it was quickly available to her did a lot for her morale.

She brightened further at the sound of running water. There was a small creek running parallel to the animal trail she was using, and the empty canteens rattling on her hips reminded her of the need to replenish them. She detoured off the game trail to the creek, stepping carefully over mossy stones, and hunched over the water.

It was surprisingly cold to the touch. She filled both canteens, and dropped in purification tabs, mindful that while the water looked good, she couldn't afford to come down with a case of dysentery before her survival efforts had even begun. After shaking thoroughly and waiting the requisite time period, she sipped at the first canteen, wrinkling her nose at the aftertaste from the purification tablets. Satisfied that she could drink without gagging, she drank down half the canteen in one go, paused for a moment at the cold-headache it gave her, then finished it off.

A lowing sound full of vibrato behind her made her freeze up with fright. It sounded like the warblefrogs she used to catch as a little girl back home on Nerima, only much, much bigger. She turned slowly towards the sound, but did not see anything that could have made such a sound. A swarm of tiny gnat-like bugs was the only thing around.

She watched the roiling cloud of gnats for a moment, wondering if they had anything to do with the noise.

The lowing sound was louder this time, to her left. She spun towards the source, and felt something big whip buzzing past her ear. She shrieked out of reflex, batting whatever it was away, and screaming once again when she realized how big it must have been by how solidly it had resisted her blow.

She crouched down as a segmented insect with three pairs of shiny wings spaced along its full meter of length flew past. It made the lowing sound once more, and dove through the cloud of gnats. More of the giant flying worms began to appear, their lowing sound becoming frightfully loud as they whirled around her.

Akane caught a glimpse of their twin sets of clacking jaws, each as big as lobster claws, and screamed once more. One of them nipped at her hair, and she spun around, swatting at them to keep them away. Her screams only seemed to draw their attention, and they began to buzz around her in earnest, their long segmented bodies glistening in the shafts of sunlight that filtered through the treetops, and highlighting their fierce green, ochre, black, and red colorations.

Close to panic now, she pulled the handgun from the waistband of her shorts and began firing wildly at the things. A splatter of yellow gore stained her tank top, disturbingly warm as it soaked through the thin cotton material, and she watched one of the horrible bugs go down as if it were a puppet with its strings cut. The noise of the gunfire infuriated the rest, their lowing reaching a deafening intensity as they renewed their attacks. She felt a set of jaws scrape her arm, then her leg, while another nipped at her ear.

She unloaded the rest of the magazine at them, killing at least two more, before dropping into the icy water of the creek and drawing her arms and legs up into a ball to protect herself. Her screams of terror competed with the awful sound the bugs made.

A battle cry broke over the din, the voice of a human coming to her rescue. She did not dare to look up as the bugs whipped around her, but she could hear the sound of something clubbing them to the ground, and the man's voice growing more and more triumphant as he drove them away.

Finally, the bugs were gone, either dead or driven off, though she didn't care which.

"Are you okay?" the voice asked her.

She looked up through the gaps of her fingers at him. He was tall, with a headband and a broad jacket of coarse black homespun cloth. He clutched what looked to be a pushbroom in both hands, and Akane could see by the yellow gore dripping from its worn bristles that he had used it as a weapon against the bugs.

"I- I think so," she replied. She looked herself over to note that the bugs had been more of a frightening annoyance than any real source of injury to her.

"The dragonworms are attracted to loud noises," he supplied for her. "They eat bugs most of the time, but I've seen 'em eat small animals and birds before."

He gestured to the empty pistol in her hands, the slide locked back to indicate an empty magazine.

"Was that you doing all the shooting?"

She looked at the pistol as if for the first time. "Um, yeah..."

"I thought so," he replied. "It's pretty rare that you hear a gunshot these days, let alone a whole bunch of them at once. I decided to come take a look."

Akane released the slide and tucked the depleted weapon into her survival kit. "I'm sure glad you did."

He helped her to her feet. "I don't think I know you," he observed.

She smiled shyly. "No, I don't think that's possible," she agreed.

The man bowed for her. "My name is Shinnosuke. I'm pleased to meet you."

"I'm Akane." She pawed at the mossy stones with her toe. "Boy, am I glad to see you. Is there a settlement or something close by?"

Shinnosuke gave her a quizzical look.

"You aren't from around here, are you?"

"No," she replied, wondering how much she should tell him.

"I thought so," Shinnosuke remarked. "You have a funny way of talking."

He must think that I have an accent, she realized.

"I'm from another star system," she admitted.

"Really?!" His excitement was clear. "I've never met someone from another star system! My grandfather remembers a time when people from space came here, but that was when he was a boy." He looked away thoughtfully. "Sometimes I would sit up at night and wonder if it wasn't just wishful thinking that people lived on other planets than this one."

She gave him a sympathetic look. "They do, Shinnosuke. There are hundreds of other worlds where people live."

He looked her over. "Grandfather should know about this," he declared. "Do you mind coming with me? It's a couple days walk from here."

She shrugged. What else was she supposed to do?

"I was hoping that you would ask," she replied. "But could you do me a favor?"

He took on a childlike look of reverence that she had only seen on one other face, and that was Ranma. "Anything, Akane."

"Someone else was with me," she began. "We were separated. I'm trying to find this person."

He frowned. "You're the first person I've come across in a week."

"I know," she returned. "But we arrived late last night. We were attacked high in the sky, and... Well, I managed to bail out, but I don't know if my friend was able to."

His face lit up in recognition. "I saw that!" he cried. "Huge lines of fire lit up the sky. I didn't know what to make of it at first. I mean, the Orochi hasn't attacked us in years - not since before I was born."

"The what?" Akane asked, certain that this 'Orochi' was what had shot them out of the sky.

He cocked his head at her for a moment. "The Orochi. Grandfather says that it was supposed to protect this planet, but whenever it wakes up, it just starts blasting everything in sight."

"That must have been what it was," she conceded. "So you say that you saw this?"

Shinnosuke nodded gravely. "I saw something fall from the sky last night. It was as bright as the sun, and when it winked out with a big flash, I thought it was just a meteor. This morning, I saw where it hit, only..."

"It wasn't a meteor, was it," Akane finished for him.

"Not unless meteors are made entirely of metal and plastic," Shinnosuke agreed.

"Could you take me to see it? My friend might be somewhere nearby."

He shrugged. "It's in the wrong direction from Grandfather's house, but I guess so."

She smiled. "Good, because your meteor was really my battlemech falling from the sky. My friend was in another 'mech trying to save me." Her face clouded with concern. "It started to explode... I don't know if he was able to eject."

"You're a mechwarrior?" Shinnosuke asked reverently.

Akane nodded silently for him.

"I'll take you to where your 'mech crashed," he said at length. "But I think I should tell you now that I don't think your friend escaped."

Her heart sank. "How do you...?"

He looked away, unable to meet her wounded eyes.

"You'll know when you see."

Hours later, it was getting towards sunset when they left the woods behind and crested the hill that Akane had made her objective for the day. As the sun hung low in the west, she could see a vast grassy plain beyond the forest, littered everywhere with thousands, perhaps millions of glittering objects, and in the center of them was a deep crater gouged into the ground, still smoldering with heat.

It was far worse than she could have imagined, and she choked back a sob as she ran headlong down the hill towards the crater, passing thousands of bits of scorched metal, most of them no larger than coins. A few larger chunks were scattered about, and she spotted the half-melted ruin of the Phoenix Hawk's nose landing gear. The LAM's head, buried halfway into the ground in its own crater, lay cracked wide open, the sensors and other equipment spilling out like cybernetic grey-matter. Wispy threads of myomer fiber were strewn about, their normally bright pink strands melted and discolored to a lifeless biege.

She found bits of the HEPLAR drive pods; these mostly shredded by the exploding turbines in the legs that had torn the rest of the LAM apart, but there were no easily recognizable pieces of the main body to be found. The most intact part of Phoenix Hawk LAM #T-507 was its rifle-like Anderson 2000 Heavy Laser. The weapon was impaled muzzle-first and nearly upright into the ground, its 'mech-sized black nylon shoulder sling flapping absently in the early evening breeze.

"Do you understand what I mean, Akane," Shinnosuke said to her. "It looks like the thing blew itself into a million pieces in midair. You saw how far the debris field is spread out - it has to be at least three kilometers in radius."

"I know," she groaned. She felt weak in the knees, and collapsed to the ground as her head swam with grief. The touch of Shinnosuke's hands on her shoulders felt distant, as if she were in an entirely different place from her body.

North of the DropShip _Palomino_

Happousai wasted no time in stomping his Locust through the light woods that screened the Landing Zone. Ukyou's Hatchetman was on the opposite end of the LZ, meaning that no one was close enough to see him slip away from his appointed patrol area.

He was headed for the structure located by the DropShip's radar, a structure confirmed by those lovely ladies of the Air Lance, Yuka and Sayuri. In their brief passes, they had discovered more than a simple building or two, but the ruins of a small starport. There was bound to be something of value there, he figured.

The planet was turning out to be something of a disappointment so far, but he had the feeling his luck was about to change. He knew that he needed to seize upon that feeling, and especially before that ingrate Genma got around to scrounging up a search party to take a look at the place.

"First dibs!" he cackled to himself.

He crested a low rise, coming upon a broken paved road overgrown with weeds and a few trees. Beyond was the remains of a fence and an entry gate. He slowed his pace to a walk, crunching the trees underfoot as he approached. The gatehouse was well weathered, and missing a portion of its roof.

Paying it no further mind, he stepped over the gate and onto the worn and cracked concrete of the tarmac. Most of the surface was overgrown with weeds and a kind of creeping vine that covered the tarmac in a verdant carpet. It was easy to see why the _Palomino_ crew had missed the extent of the place during their descent.

Most of the hangars were intact, if overgrown with vines and other plants to the point where they resembled regularly spaced mounds more than buildings. The only places that had escaped the greenery were the pumping stations for liquid hydrogen and helium fuel, which were lined with a plastic spill containment that was apparently capable of surviving intact through the centuries. The vines and other plants simply couldn't force their roots through the material.

The control tower appeared to have fallen over at some point, which was disturbing given its apparent reinforced concrete construction. Where the vines had not completely covered the ruins of the tower, Happousai could see the tell-tale scorch marks of a fire. He could not determine the true cause of the tower's collapse without dismounting first, but this was something that he was prepared to do.

After all, Fortune favored the brave.

"What is it, Konatsu?" Ukyou asked her former adjutant over the external speakers of her battlemech. He had scrambled up her walking Hatchetman unnoticed until the point where he had waved his hands in front of her cockpit viewport.

"Pardon me, sir," he began. "But is there any word of Captain Saotome and Lady Akane?"

The Hatchetman came to halt, and the cockpit hatch sprang open. Konatsu drew back in surprise to see Ukyou pull herself up onto the sloping rise of the Hatchetman's head, her eyes red and her face puffy.

"No, Konatsu, there isn't," she replied gruffly.

"Forgive me, sir," Konatsu begged. "I did not mean to upset you."

She shook out her chestnut fall of hair, letting it float for a moment in the breeze as she took deep cleansing breaths. "I'm not upset because of you, Konatsu," she told him. "I'm upset because of HIM."

"Pardon?"

"Ranma," Ukyou clarified. "If anything happened to that jackass, it's because he chose her over me."

Konatsu scratched his head. "I don't understand, sir."

"What's to understand?" Ukyou asked bitterly. "When Akane was blasted out of the ship, he nearly ripped off the door trying to get outside to save her." She bowed her head. "I just finished speaking with Sayuri over the tac-net. She told me how he wouldn't leave her falling Warhammer, even though he couldn't lift it with his engines."

She looked away for a moment. "I almost wish that it had been my 'mech that had fallen."

"Sir!" Konatsu cried in horror at the idea.

"At least then I'd know for certain where I stood with him," she added. "If he did the same for me that he did for Akane, then I could be happy. If he didn't, well... At least it wouldn't matter for long."

"Ranma wouldn't let you die," Konatsu insisted. "I've only known him these last few weeks, but I'm certain that he cares enough about you to come to your rescue."

"Maybe," Ukyou replied, unconvinced. "But does he love me?"

Now it was Konatsu's turn to look away.

"I know," Ukyou sighed. "You don't have to say it. I do have eyes, you realize." She brushed at her hair distractedly. "It just isn't fair. How could he be in love with her, and not me?"

Konastsu bit down uncomfortably on his lip. "You don't know that he loves her, sir," he offered.

"Ha," she snorted. "That's a good one. If that was true, then why does he always get so uptight whenever I try to show him a little affection? Why does Akane get flowers and not me?" She shook her head ruefully. "So what if the doofus didn't know that some of them were poisonous, the fact remains that he picked them for her."

Konatsu had nothing to say to this. He hated to see his beloved Ukyou like this, and yet, knowing that Ranma was no threat to his dream of someday winning over her heart, he could not help but feel a little pleased as well.

"I've been in love with him since I was little," she cried without preamble. "When he left me the first time, I was shattered, unable to open up my heart to another man!" Fresh tears began to flow from her eyes. "My life has been nothing but loneliness and heartache for ten years, and then _suddenly_ he comes back into it."

She pounded a fist on the hard armor of the Hatchetman's head.

"Was it too much to ask that the two of us could fall in love?!" she lamented. Her face fell, and she seemed to collapse in on herself just a little.

Konatsu watched her, helpless to do or say anything, and knowing that this was something she had to work out for herself.

"Why the hell can't I get a little break now and then!?" she whispered.

Konatsu scuttled close to her, touching her gently with a forwardness that he would not have dared a year ago.

"You're very tired, sir," he soothed. "We all are. Perhaps you should return to the _Palomino_ for awhile. Commander Saotome did say that he would keep himself available for relief."

She shook her head ruefuly. "That would be the first time that he's ever done me any favors. If the lying bastard hadn't left me behind ten years ago..."

"You can't say that for certain, sir," he replied, his voice losing some of its falsetto to become more masculine. "You don't know how things would have turned out between you and Captain Saotome if his father hadn't left you behind."

She gave him an accusing look. "Go to hell, Konatsu. For even thinking something like that, go to hell."

He bowed low for her, scraping his forehead against the armor plate in his devotion.

"As you wish, dearest Ukyou."

With that, he leaped down to the ground and dashed off into the trees.

Ukyou watched him go, now feeling even more miserable for the way she had treated him.

The DropShip Palomino

8 June 3025

Ryouga Hibiki sat disconsolately atop the shoulder of his BattleMaster. The 85-ton battlemech's powerplant was plugged into the _Palomino_'s shore power trunk, supplying electricity to run the stricken DropShip while the crew assessed the damage and gauged their ability to repair it with what little they had on hand. The war machine rumbled quietly for him, the pitch of its turbogenerators changing almost imperceptibly as the electrical demand from the DropShip's systems changed. While they depended on his battlemech for power, he was stuck at the Landing Zone, unable to join in the search for Akane.

And Ranma, he admitted to himself. Neither of them had been found yet. Yuka and Sayuri had been looking for over twelve hours, rotating back and forth as per Genma Saotome's orders. While he doubted that either of them were eager to find Ranma, he knew that they would spare no effort to find Akane.

The two pilots' frustration over their failed search was growing, to the point where they no longer even trusted their search areas. Anything was possible, he figured. In the confusion of the drop, with some monstrous orbital construct trying to blow all of them out of the sky, it was more than just possible that they should be unable to relocate the likely crash site of the Warhammer, it was highly likely. He didn't know what to make of the failure of both Ranma and Akane to call for help on their survival radios.

What could not be denied was Sayuri's bitter insistence to Ukyou that Ranma had been doing everything in his power to help Akane at the time when the two fighter pilots had been forced to flee. The former F-S brigadier had a hard time reconciling that Ranma had most likely sacrificed his life for his fiancee. Ryouga no longer doubted it. He had to concede that, like himself, his pig-tailed rival would do anything for Akane's sake - even die if it meant that she could live.

"Hello, Ryouga dearest," Akari said gently to him from the cockpit boarding ladder. He looked over his shoulder and offered a tired smile for her.

She had brought him a thermos of hot tea from the Crew's Mess, a rice ball loosely wrapped in wax paper, and what appeared to be cup ramen, the steam wafting from the peeled back paper lid.

She set the food down by his side, and joined him quietly where he sat. Their legs dangled over the top hull of the BattleMaster's shoulder as they sat, their feet just above two of the torso-mounted medium laser projectors. He looked at her for a moment and knew that she was exhausted from spending the last half day with the _Palomino_'s Engineer trying to find a way to repair some of the damage to her V84 StarDrive engines and her Main Reactor.

He picked up the cup ramen, having little appetite but determined to see that Akari's effort on his behalf, and in spite of her own weariness, was not in vain.

"Have they found Lady Akane and Captain Saotome yet?" she asked him after he had slurped up some noodles.

"No," he replied.

She closed her eyes in grief, expecting as much. Ryouga shared her feelings on the matter, but he wasn't ready to give up hope for them yet.

"When do you think the _Palomino_ will be ready to start up its reactor again?" he asked her.

Akari sighed. "I don't know. Tomorrow afternoon, maybe, if they can cut away enough of the wreckage around one of the starboard radiators to get at the damaged coolant loop by tonight."

Ryouga, having no idea what the interior of a Leopard Class DropShip's Reactor Compartment looked like to understand the nature of the problem, merely nodded his head. As he did so, he realized that Akari was looking at him with a mixture of sympathy and apprehension.

"You want to go looking for her, don't you?" she asked him.

Her question cut deep.

"Yes," he finally replied.

She nodded knowingly. "I understand." Her feet kicked idly above the BattleMaster's lasers. "You love her, don't you. I can see it in your eyes when she's around you."

He swallowed hard, not expecting such a biting and yet emotionless accusation from her.

"I do," he said quietly. He could not pretend to her any longer. She deserved the truth from him, just this once. "I can't help it, Akari."

She tried to smile, but her mouth wouldn't quite obey. "I don't hold it against you, Ryouga dear." A tear began to well at the corner of her eye in spite of her glib remark. "Really, I don't."

He set the ramen down on the warm hull armor. The styrofoam container shook with the subtle vibrations of the active powerplant. "Akari, I..."

His hands clenched nervously over and over into fists before relaxing.

"I know that my feelings for Akane can never be more than idle dreams. She loves Ranma, and I'm... I'm pretty sure that he feels the same way about her." He stood, eyes cast to the horizon. "I accept that. I accept that my love for her will never be returned in the same way."

Akari nodded mutely.

"I should go," she said to him at length, her sorrow evident in her tiny voice. "There's still so much work to do."

Ryouga, his face wracked with indecision, watched her turn away.

What was he doing standing there like a fool? he tried to ask himself. Didn't he have feelings for her too? Wasn't he breaking her heart with this terrible confession? Didn't he care too much about her to ever let her get hurt like this?

His anger with himself struggled with his shame and his anxiety at laying bare his feelings for her, the tendons in his arms creaking with tension as he wrestled with his very soul.

What kind of a man was he that would allow such a thing to happen to the woman he loved?

No man at all!

"Akari -" he called to her. She stopped at the base of the cockpit ladder and turned her wet eyes towards him. If he didn't say something to bring her back, it was going to be all over with her. "Could you, ah, stay here for just a few more minutes?"

He wanted to hit himself as the words spilled out. Was that the best he could do?

She wavered for a moment. "I'm sorry, Ryouga," she replied softly. "I'd love to, but I--" She wiped at her eyes, trying to hold herself together. "I have a lot to do."

She started down the ladder, her descent drawing him towards her reflexively. His heart of glass trembled in his chest, ready to shatter into a million pieces.

"Akari!" he cried. "Please..."

She paused in her descent, keeping her face carefully averted from his.

"There's something that I, ah... I have to t-tell you," Ryouga continued, his voice weak and tremulous with apprehension. "It's too important to wait."

She hung there on the ladder for a moment, locked in an inner battle of her own, before slowly pulling herself back up to the shoulder of the BattleMaster where he stood.

"Akari," he said, his body trembling and his hands shaking as he tried without success to look at ease with himself. "There's something else you should know. You see..." He cleared his throat before continuing. "Y-You see, th-there's this other g-girl that I'm..."

He swallowed hard, cursing inwardly at his failing nerve, and closing his eyes to steel himself. "That I'm in... in lo-lo-love..." His eyes opened, meeting hers in that moment. "That is, um... Th-that I'm in love with..." Akari's soft gasp nearly melted him. "And... and... Well, lucky me, she wants to m-m-marry me s-someday, I guess, and..."

She looked up at him, face filled with hope.

"Ryouga?"

His face was nearly purple with embarrassment, but he held out his hand to her.

Akari took his hand, the tears in her eyes finally set free and spilling down her cheeks in hot streaks to fall upon the BattleMaster's thick armor plating.

"You don't have to say another word," she whispered to him as his arms closed tightly around her. She lay her head against his chest and sighed softly into the folds of his tunic.

Ryouga Hibiki felt strangely weightless as he held the girl with the long streaks of pink hair in his arms. Perhaps it was the feeling of vertigo from standing high atop his mighty BattleMaster, perhaps it was the feeling of joy within him that made his heart flutter at a hummingbird's pace. He did not know. What he did know was that he loved the beautiful Senior Technician in his arms, and that she loved him. On a hostile planet where everything else had gone wrong, the two of them together seemed to be only thing that had gone right.

He could feel the wind as it rushed over his wings at close to seven hundred kilometers per hour, could feel the lift generated by the warm air rising from the blistering hot pavement of the deserted two-lane freeway a few meters below. The shriek of his fusion turbojets rebounded from the macadam, filling his ears with its hollow keen. He was in Airmech Mode, an armored bird-of-prey bristling with weapons as it raced across the scrub desert, and he was just sixteen years old.

The feel of the old LAM in his hands and in his mind was an unconscious comfort to him, having learned the skills and nuances of both aerial combat and close quarter land battle with this formidable machine. Since he had been old enough to care about such things, the LAM had been an imposing and inticing mystery, a thing that he must conquer and control if he was to make his father proud and carry on the family tradition. In time, he had mastered the LAM, and at sixteen, tradition didn't mean as much to him as the chance to fly, fight, and prove himself in battle.

As the Phoenix Hawk LAM raced along the deserted freeway that linked the contested planet's two major cities, he reflected on his role in the conflict. He and his father had contracted with the planet's lords to defend them against the predations of one of the Periphery's many bandit kings, one of whom had felt sufficiently ambitious to invade the world and add it to his holdings. This was no major set-piece battle, but a series of small, fast engagements, as neither the bandit king nor the petty lords who contested for possession of the planet had a large army, and had only a handful of battlemechs between them.

He questioned his father's insistence that they remain merely scouts in the conflict, in spite of the fact that a 'mech like the LAM could have a significant effect on the battle's outcome. His father had overruled him, declaring that the LAM was too important to risk damage - given its rapidly deteriorating condition and the dearth of critical replacement parts that were available. He was under strict orders not to fight the enemy unless it was absolutely necessary, and then only as a means to escape.

The Airmech sped along the highway, adjusting its leg thrusters to slalom through gentle curves as the flat expanse of desert gave way to arid hills. He was looking for a fight, heedless of his father's wishes. The 'mechs of a bandit king were frequently in bad repair, and the chance to knock off a beat up Warhammer or Thunderbolt single-handedly had great appeal for him - as well as provide them with bonus cash from the sale of the salvage.

He was looking for a fight, but with the majority of the action consisting of isolated raiding actions for water and other spoils that were over practically before the word could get out, he was having a tough time of it. His best chance was to find a bandit group moving into position for the next raid, or else catch one as they made their escape.

Plumes of dust rising on the horizon stirred his hopes.

He vectored for an intercept, confident that he could catch them by surprise. As his LAM cleared a low dusty hill, he spied his quarry; a column of beat up trucks and 4x4 wagons that looked like props from some post-apocalypse video - which he supposed parts of the Periphery, this world included, resembled. Escorting the column was a red Warhammer.

Show time! he thought eagerly, and pushed his throttles over to maximum.

The aerodynamic housing retracted on his starboard engine pod, revealing his twin medium laser projectors, and he made a low level strafing run down the length of the column. Trucks exploded at a touch from the twin beams, bursting apart in oily black clouds of smoke. Gasoline and high energy coherent light did not mix well, he noted with a laugh, and banked into a turn for another pass.

The Warhammer reacted slowly to his first attack, but now it was bringing its tube-like PPC arms to bear on him. Bolts of lightning ripped from the muzzles in alternating blasts of fire as it tried to shoot him down, but he was flying low and fast against the rolling hills, and narrowly avoided the fusillade as he charged back to attack.

A beam from his heavy laser set off another huge explosion, catching one of the trucks he had missed in his first pass. The heat and the smoke obscured him from the Warhammer's sights for a moment, and he swooped overhead to land behind it.

His own heat levels were high thanks to a few defective heat sinks, and he was forced to resort to the twin 20mm machineguns in his left forearm. He hammered on the thin rear torso armor with the guns, the shell casings flying from the ejection ports in a torrent of brass. Sparks and bits of metal cascaded from the host of hits he had scored, though his burst had not penetrated the armor.

The Warhammer pivoted at the torso, twisting completely around to face him. On the battered red hull was the white and purple fishcake device of the Nerima Confederation, and the voice of his fiancee cried out in anger over the tac-net.

"Ranma, you jerk!" she screamed at him. "What do you think you're doing to me?"

He froze up in his ejector seat. What was SHE doing here? he wondered.

The Warhammer brought one of its massive Donal PPC arms down on his fuselage, smashing armor and breaking off both medium laser tubes. His LAM buckled at the knees, and the bird-of-prey Airmech pitched forward, burying its radome in the sand.

"Akane!" he shouted back. "Stop it! I just made a mistake, that's all!"

She pounded him again, starring the canopy and nearly knocking him senseless with the force of the impact. The other PPC arm fell, smashing him up even more.

"RANMA, YOU JERK! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!"


	5. Chapter 5

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Test Region Four-West

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

The Magistracy of Canopus

8 June 3025

Ranma awoke with a start to find himself dangling ten meters above the ground. He looked up to see that he was hanging in his parachute straps, and that his reserve chute canopy was tangled in the branches of the trees. Sap from broken branches had run cold and sticky into his cracked helmet crown and down into his hair and his neck ring seal, adding to the discomfort he felt upon awakening.

_It was just a bad dream_, he moaned, though his head did not hurt any less for that simple truth_. Just a bad dream_. Akane doesn't hate me, he assured himself. _I know she doesn't_. He looked around, wondering how he had ended up like this. He only vaguely recalled the process of ejecting. The blow to his helmet had stunned him, and as he pitched over in his seat straps he had made a desperate grab at the yellow and black striped ring between his legs. The shock of the instantaneous thirty-gee acceleration had succeeded where the impact against his helmet had failed, and he had blacked out.

He regained consciousness to find that he was falling, and falling rapidly through the cold black sky. His nylon main chute had malfunctioned, giving him the dreaded 'cigarette roll,' where the friction of deployment had melted portions of the canopy to the shroud lines and itself. Shaking off his stupor, he remembered frantically cutting away the main chute, and deploying the reserve. He was lucky that he had one. Mechwarriors and the pilots of purely atmospheric craft didn't have reserves.

He was so low when the reserve finally opened that he had come screaming into the treetops at close to sixty kilometers per hour. A frantic tug of his control lines flared him just shy of the treetops, and he remembered nothing after that.

He was awake now. Awake and alive. A quick inventory determined that his limbs were intact. The padding of his pressure suit had absorbed some of the pounding he must have taken as he broke through the trees, and the helmet had spared him a fatal head injury, though it was clear that his suit was ripped and torn beyond repair. He was intact, but bruised and battered all over his body.

He noted this as he lifted his arms to release the neck seal ring. Popping the ring was so tasking that he was forced to lean his head forward to help remove the helmet, letting it slide off his head to fall to the musty ground cover below. He panted with the effort it had taken him to do such a simple thing.

The thought of sustaining a ten meter drop in this condition was not appealing. The thought of hanging there until he starved to death was worse. He studied the ground below him carefully, ensuring there were no nasty surprises waiting for him before tugging at his releases.

His somersault was stiff and clumsy, and he hit harder than he would have preferred, rolling with the impact to sprawl out breathless and gasping painfully from having the wind knocked out of him.

When he was breathing normally once again, he pulled himself into a sitting position against the spongy trunk of a tree. His survival kit was lying half covered by piles of dead leaves nearby, but he didn't have the strength or the willpower to retrieve it just yet. He decided to rest a bit first.

It was midday when he realized that he had passed out.

He felt a little strength return to him over his nap, but his limbs were even more stiff and sore. It was a struggle to pull himself to his feet, and he had to pause often to massage the knots out of his strained muscles. The survival kit was his goal. It had his radio, his food and water, and his change of clothes. The pressure suit was heavy on his body, too heavy to want to drag it around with him.

The bag appeared to have broken loose from his parachute harness on impact, and he could see that his rescue radio had not survived. The food was crushed within its vacuum sealed pouches, but was probably still edible. One of the canteens had opened, soaking his clothes.

He shrugged off the pressure suit anyway, letting it drop around his ankles as he pulled his feet out of his boots. His sensor-studded 'long-johns' were damp with sweat, and he peeled himself out of them gratefully. The forest was absolutely deserted, by his appraisal, and so there was no need for modesty where it conflicted with comfort. The clothes would dry soon enough.

He ate sparingly, regaining his strength, and trying to put together a mental picture of what had happened that night. He had seen Akane eject from her falling Warhammer. She had to be around somewhere, and he needed to find her.

As he thought about it, he realized that they might be separated by quite a distance. Assuming that her parachute had functioned normally, bailing out at such a high altitude meant that she would have been carried by the wind, whereas he had plummeted nearly straight down most of the way with his damned cigarette roll of a parachute. With his radio broken, there was no way to get in touch with her.

The first thing he needed to do, he decided, was to find the crash site. It was the landmark most likely to be spotted by Yuka and Sayuri from the air - though that was assuming the girls hadn't been shot out of the sky by their attacker. Once he found the crash site, he could follow the direction of the prevailing wind, and hopefully, find his not-so-uncute fiancee.

She might have been a stupid macho tomboy, but he was worried about her all the same. His own landing in the trees hadn't been pleasant, and the thought that she was hurt and alone somewhere on this stinking planet made his heart seize in his chest.

"You've gotta be okay, Akane," he said as he rose unsteadily to his feet. It was late in the afternoon, and it would getting dark within a few hours. He had to find her, to see with his own eyes that she was alive and well. "You've just gotta be okay."

He had other concerns, like whether or not the _Palomino_ had been able to land safely, who or what had attacked them without warning, and how he was going to be able to find his father and his friends. His only desire was to find Akane. Nothing mattered more to him than knowing that she was all right.

Assuming his estimations of his trajectory were correct, the crash site probably wasn't far from where he had landed. He picked a direction and began to walk, slinging the survival kit over his shoulder. The pressure suit and helmet he left behind; they were useless to him now, and too heavy to carry in his injured condition. His dark green mandarin blouse and black drawstring trousers were mostly dry, and he dressed himself stiffly. He hadn't been this sore even after his last big fight with Ryouga on Tiber.

The colors of his clothes probably weren't the best for being spotted from the air, he noted grimly, but they did help him blend in to the foliage. The planet was a complete unknown to him, and while he did not imagine that there many dangerous predators lurking about, there was always the chance that he might run into the people responsible for this mess.

He walked about a hundred meters along a meandering game trail before being rewarded with a scrap of burnt metal that had fallen through a gap in the canopy. It was probably a piece of his LAM, he reflected. He continued on, the loss of his Phoenix Hawk only now hitting home with him.

He was Dispossessed once again, and in less than six months...

The trees began to thin, and soon the woods opened up onto a wide plain that was littered with debris. Steam wafted from a blackened crater near the center of the field, and he knew that he had found the crash site. He started for the crater, picking his way around the bits of burnt LAM.

Akane's Warhammer was surprisingly intact. The legs were smashed to bits under the force of the impact, but the torso was largely in one piece, if blackened by an intense heat. Upon a closer inspection he could see the long rent along the side of the torso where the breached reactor vessel had vented plasma through the hull. The innards of the battlemech were probably gutted.

Mindful that the area was probably contaminated with tiny radioactive particles, and heedless of the slight risks associated with exposure, Ranma pulled himself up the still warm hull of the Warhammer to inspect the cockpit. The escape hatch in the roof was blown, and as he peered down into the darkness of the cockpit, he could smell the lingering traces of the solid fuel rockets that had lifted Akane free of her plummeting 'mech.

She had ejected. At least she got that far, he thought to himself. All he had to do now was follow the prevailing wind, and he would find her. He licked his fingertip and held it up over his head. There was only a slight breeze to guide him, but he took it anyway.

The breeze led him to the top of a low hill nearby. He paused to look around and get a feel for the terrain. It was mostly woods, though in the distance he could see some kind of swampy mire. He hoped that she hadn't landed in the trees.

As he began making his way down the hill, a flash of movement in the distance caught his keen eyes. He could see two figures walking into the woods opposite from the crash site. One, the taller of the two, was dressed in dark clothing. The other was wearing an olive drab coverall that looked suspiciously like survival kit issue.

"Akane?" he asked himself aloud. There was one way to find out. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted her name. The two in the distance continued on, heedless of his repeated calls.

Cursing in frustration, he rummaged through his survival kit to produce his signal gun. He checked that a starshell was loaded and fired it into the air, hoping that the sudden radiance would attract their attention as the sunlight faded.

The red star shot into the air with a hiss, its parachute deploying to let it fall slowly from a height of two hundred meters. If they saw it, they did not notice, and Ranma lost them in the trees.

"Dammit!" he swore, and started after them at a hobbling gait. By the time he reached the treeline, the sky had darkened, lit only by the thin sliver of an orange crescent moon and a handful of stars that shone through the broken cloud cover. He stumbled on blindly in the near darkness of the woods, forgetting that he had a small box of chemlights in his kit, and nearly cold-cocking himself as he ran into a low branch.

When he shook away the pain and the dizziness, he realized that they were long gone. The game trail branched off in two different directions. He stood at the fork in the path for some time, agonizing over his decision. If he guessed wrong, their trail would grow cold by the time he realized this and backtracked.

Finally, he took the path on the right, and stumbled on under the eerie glow of a green chemlight. He cried Akane's name from time to time, but received no answer other than the chirps, warbles, and moans from the local nocturnal wildlife. After what seemed like an hour to him, the path opened up into a broad swampy meadow.

There was no sign of Akane.

He turned wearily to start back the way he came, when he heard a distant and familiar rumble in the sky.

He squinted against the darkness, and was rewarded with the blue flash of an aerospace fighter's HEPLAR drive. It was far across the meadow, circling over what he assumed by dead-reckoning to be the crash site. Again, a agonizing decision came over him. Did he try to flag down the fighter in the hope that it was Yuka or Sayuri, or did he continue the search for Akane?

He started across the meadow. If it was one of the girls, they could take word of his survival back to the Palomino. He didn't figure Ryouga would have any problem going out in his BattleMaster to look for Akane. If Akane had found one of the locals, it was probably safe to assume that she was going with him to whatever passed for a settlement on Ryuugenzawa. Finding that settlement couldn't be too hard, he supposed.

The fighter began to turn towards him as he struggled through the mire. He raised the flare gun and fired his second starshell, mindful of the fact that he only had one left.

The fighter, a Sparrowhawk from the look of it, screamed overhead, and turned hard to come back around for another look. He decided to risk his last shell, and fired it as the fighter came back around. The light of two stars was enough to illuminate the meadow and make him stand out clearly from the air.

The Sparrowhawk reduced speed, made another pass, and turned once again to return. Ranma sighed with relief as the landing lights came on, and the pitch of the fighter's turbojets increased as it shifted over to vertical propulsion for a landing.

He dashed as fast as his tired legs would carry him to the fighter. The canopy was rising as he reached it, and the voice of a girl he had once considered an enemy addressed him.

"Ranma!" Sayuri cried. "Is that really you?"

"It's me," he returned.

"I'd almost given up hope," she said to him, leaping down from the cockpit to catch him up in a completely unexpected hug. "Have you found Akane?" she asked as she released him.

"Maybe," he replied, bewildered by her show of affection. "I think I might have seen her a few hours ago, but I lost her in those woods behind me."

"She's all right then?" Sayuri asked, her voice cracking with weariness. In the light of the Sparrowhawk's landing lamps, he could see how bone-tired she was.

He shrugged. "If it really was her, I think so. She was with someone, from what I could tell. Probably a local."

Sayuri blanched. "A local?"

"I guess," he replied.

"Come on, then," she told him. "If she's that close, she should be within my radio range."

He had to agree with that. Sayuri clambered up to the cockpit and began fiddling with her commo set.

"Akane, this is Sayuri," she said hopefully. "Do you read me? State your position if you know it."

There was no answer. Sayuri repeated her request.

"Oh come on," she protested. "Answer me already."

"Maybe her radio's on the blink," Ranma suggested. "Mine doesn't work either."

"It's possible," she admitted. "But then how is she going to contact us?"

"Did the _Palomino_ make it down safely?" he asked her instead.

"More or less," she sniffed. "The ship's beat up pretty bad."

"Go back to the ship," he told her. "Send Ryouga and Ukyou out at first light in their 'mechs."

She gave him a dubious look. "What about you?"

"I'm gonna see if I can catch up with her."

"Do you need anything?" she asked him. "You said your radio wasn't working."

"Does your Sparrowhawk have a remote?"

She yawned wearily, nodding her head. "It does, and you can have it. I want to make a few more passes before we head back to the ship. She might hear my engines and shoot up a flare the way you did."

"Sounds good to me."

Sayuri strapped herself into her seat, then removed the remote radio relay from her commo console. Removed from the fighter, it had a very short transmission range, but it would allow Ryouga and Ukyou to contact him once they were within ten kilometers. She handed it to Ranma, then lay back in her ejector seat for a moment, looking absolutely exhausted.

"Maybe I should fly us both home," he offered. "You look pretty bushed."

She yawned again. "Yuka and I have been searching non-stop since early this morning, but I can handle it."

"Are you sure?"

She levelled a hard look at him. "Go find her, Saotome. I'll be all right."

"I'll do that," he said.

"Good luck," she said as she lowered the canopy. "I really mean that, Ranma. Not just for Akane's sake, but for both of you."

He stepped away from the fighter as it powered up for lift off. The Sparrowhawk rose into the sky on a column of superheated air. Ranma watched her as she increased speed and flew out over the woods. Their radios were tuned to the survival bands, so if Akane could hear the fighter's engines, she would know to contact them.

There was no response, not even a flare, to indicate that she had noticed them. Sayuri made passes for twenty minutes, and still there was no answer from below.

"Nothing," Ranma grumbled, listening in over his remote. "Come on, Tomboy, say something."

"I hope she's all right," Sayuri sighed over the commo.

Ranma closed his eyes for a moment. "I hope so too."

"It's good to hear you say that," she returned.

He blinked in surprise. "What's up with this?"

"What?" she murmured.

"You being nice to me."

"You've finally earned it," she yawned.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Everyone knows what you did for her last night," she said so softly that he had to strain over the radio static to hear her. "How you risked your life and your 'mech to save her. How you wouldn't give up even while we were getting shot at." She turned for the DropShip and increased her speed. "Even Yuka admits what you did for Akane, and why."

He took this in silence. The reasons why he had done what he did were never clear to him. He had simply acted, as he had done before, to protect her. There were no thought processes behind it that he was aware of.

"Why do you think I did it?" he asked her, but she was already flying out of his range, and didn't hear him ask.

He set the remote to 'standby' and turned for the woods once more. As the prospect of meandering through the darkness loomed, he found himself wishing that he had gone with Sayuri back to the DropShip. But Akane was out there somewhere, and he had to find her.

Akane dozed in the hammock Shinnosuke had lent to her. There was a distant rumbling to the east, like thunder, and she hoped that it wouldn't rain tonight. With the clouds rolling in as they had before they entered the dense woods, she would not have been surprised by it.

Shinnosuke slept like a rock in a nest of dead leaves that he had made for himself. He seemed much very at home in the outdoors, living a life so primitive that she could hardly imagine it. Was this all that Ryuugenzawa had to offer?

The DropShip _Palomino_

8 June 3025

Yuka watched as Sayuri's Sparrowhawk circled once over the Palomino, and sighed wearily.

"I guess it's my turn," she lamented.

Genma Saotome cleared his throat for attention.

"Don't bother," he said to her. "You and Sayuri should get some sleep. You're too tired to fly."

She whirled on him. "And who's gonna search for Akane and your son, you?"

He cracked his knuckles noisily. "If necessary."

"Do it with Sayuri's fighter then," she insisted. "If she'll allow it."

"Don't get your panties in a bind," Genma growled. "You know you're an even bigger bitch when you're tired?"

She shot him a dirty look. "Get bent," she told him. "Sir."

Sayuri settled down on the grass during their exchange. The canopy hadn't finished rising, and she was already squirming under it to escape the cockpit.

"I found them!" she cried excitedly.

Yuka and Genma rushed over to her at the news. They were joined by Ukyou, Konatsu, and Ryouga.

"Where?" Ryouga demanded. "Are they all right?"

Sayuri was nearly breathless with excitement.

"I found Ranma, actually," she began. "But he said that he had seen Akane, and that she appeared to be okay. He tried to follow her, but he lost her in some woods. He's still out there, looking for her."

"What about their 'mechs?" Genma asked.

"Destroyed, from what I could see. They both must have ejected."

Ryouga looked to Genma. "Request permission to assist Ranma," he asked.

"Denied," Genma grumbled. "We still need your 'mech for shore power."

"What about your damn Griffin?" Ryouga shot back. "You aren't using it."

"Take the Griffin," Genma said. "But I don't want you to leave until sunrise."

"What for? They could be in trouble by then!"

"I don't want you getting lost as well," Genma pointed out. "You're bad enough in daylight, let alone on a dark night."

"I'll go with him," Ukyou threw in. "That should keep him out of trouble."

"Not until morning," Genma growled. "We're short on physical security around here as it is, and furthermore, we don't know what happened to Master Happousai since he took off this morning. There could be hostile elements nearby."

He paused for a moment as a voice spoke to him from the _Palomino_'s Flight Deck through his ear bead.

"Everyone mount up," he ordered. "Radar has painted multiple airborne contacts approaching our position from high altitude."

Ranma and Akane were quickly put aside as the mechwarriors and pilots ran to their respective machines. Ryouga knew that he might have to separate from the DropShip if he was to fight, and that doing so would reduce the _Palomino_ to its emergency battery backup.

He watched his radar display as the targets approached. They were still very high in the sky, well beyond his PPC's range. What puzzled him was that while two of the targets were about the same size as a heavy fighter, the other eight were much smaller - too small to be a threat.

He watched as Ukyou's Hatchetman stomped towards the western treeline. Her battlemech had an excellent air-defense tracking suite. If anyone could divine the nature of the inbounds, it was her.

"That's odd," he heard her remark over the tac-net.

"What is it?" Genma asked her.

"I've got one of the smaller contacts locked in my bifocal unit," she replied. "It just deployed a parachute." There was pause. "There goes another one!"

Ryouga trained his telescopic camera into the sky. Sure enough, the smaller contacts, mere smudges of reflected moonlight in the darkness, were deploying blaze orange parachutes. Strobe lights flashed from them as they sank lower in the sky. If he didn't know better, he'd have to say they were...

"Life pods!" he cried. "Those are life pods!"

"_Palomino_," a voice crackled over the radio. "This is _Nymph_. Request immediate landing support, over. I say again: _Palomino_, this is _Nymph_. Request immediate landing support, over."

Ryouga turned pale. The _Nymph_ was one of the _Dragonfly_'s boats. If the other large target was the _Sylph_, plus all those life pods, then that meant that the _Dragonfly_ had been abandoned!

"Copy _Nymph_," Genma replied. His Griffin turned its floodlights on, illuminating the clearing around the DropShip. "What happened up there?"

"We were attacked in space," Captain Ninomiya's voice declared over the tac-net. "The Dragonfly was destroyed."

Ryouga's heart sank. They were marooned on this worthless mudball forever!

"Say again, _Nymph_," Genma requested, not believing what he had heard.

"I'll explain when we land," Hinako snapped. "_Nymph_, out."

"Whatever they were, Orochis or some other kind of orbital defense system, is moot," Hinako said to the assembled officers and mechwarriors of the two ships. They were in the Crew's Mess aboard the _Palomino_. "The point is that we have no JumpShip to get us out of here."

"The _Palomino_ isn't going anywhere for awhile either," Grant remarked. "Not until we can patch up the reactor coolant system. The starboard loop looks like swiss cheese, and the port loop started springing leaks about two hours ago."

"So, we're stuck here then," Genma observed. "We're down to two fighters, three battlemechs, a busted DropShip, and we're missing Ranma, Akane, and Happousai. What else could go wrong?"

"Whatever it was that blasted us could decide to wipe us out on the ground," Hinako said gravely. "I'm both grateful and surprised that you haven't been attacked since you landed here."

Genma shrugged. "Blind luck more than anything, I think."

Doctor Tofu cleared his throat for attention. "Can I make a suggestion?"

The officers turned to him.

"Go ahead, Doctor," Hinako said.

"I think the first thing we need to do is find Ranma and Akane," he said to them. "It's good that you know they're alive, but we need to get them back."

"I think the doctor has a point," Hinako noted. She looked to Genma. "What can you spare for the search?"

"The girls are toast," he replied, referring to Yuka and Sayuri. "I sent them to bed an hour ago, but they'll need a full night's rest before they can do us any more good as airborne searchers. We've got two 'mechs we can send out, plus the two six-by's in the cargo hold, plus the two Boomerangs - but I'm the only one qualified to fly one since Ranma isn't here."

"And you say you haven't seen Happousai since this morning?"

Genma nodded. "He took off sometime between two and three hours after sunrise, local time. He probably went to investigate the ruined starport about thirty kilometers northwest of our position. He hasn't responded to our hails, and we haven't had the resources to go looking for him."

Tofu gave him a dubious look at this last remark, but held his tongue. It was no secret among the officers and crew that Genma Saotome cared very little for his master.

Grant sipped from his coffee mug. "We'll need to think about sending an expedition to the starport sometime soon," he said to them. "We need tools, parts, and supplies that we don't have on board if we want to put the _Palomino_ back together, and there's the chance that we might be able to scrounge together what we need from there."

"If we patch the Griffin into shore power, I can take my BattleMaster to the starport to give fire support to the salvage team," Ryouga offered.

"Fair enough with me, sugar," Ukyou added. "I'd just as soon go looking for Ranchan."

"No one's made any decision on that," Genma rumbled. "I agree that we need to find my son and my future daughter-in-law." Ukyou winced. "And that the starport may contain materials that we need to repair the DropShip. But I'm reluctant to go releasing all of our protection at one time."

"What good does it do to just sit here and twiddle our thumbs?" Ukyou riposted. "I say we act, and act now."

There was hearty agreement from the rest of the crew following her declaration, and Genma found himself in the firm minority of opinion.

"All right," he conceded. "I'll see about getting my 'mech hooked up to the DropShip. But I still think that this is a dangerous plan, and I'm asking you all to wait until Yuka and Sayuri are rested enough to provide air cover."

"A reasonable compromise," Hinako declared, desiring to keep the level of contention between the group to a minimum. "We could all use some rest, and I suggest that we take the opportunity while we can."

9 June 3025

"Good morning, Ryouga dearest," Akari greeted Ryouga, giving him a peck on the cheek before settling into the rear cockpit seat of the BattleMaster.

Ryouga smiled back in a blissful daze. He could hardly believe that his miserable life had turned around so dramatically and in such a short time by making her a part of it.

"Let me know when you're ready to go," he finally managed to say to her.

She finished strapping herself to the ejector seat. "Ready, dearest."

He turned to face the canopy as it locked into place. The BattleMaster took a hesitant step forward as he eased the throttle forward, its wide armored foot sinking into the soft ground.

"I hope this doesn't get any stickier," he said aloud.

He followed behind the two 6x6 trucks as they slogged through muddy grass drenched with early morning rain. The ruined starport was thirty kilometers away - a good hour's journey at the pace they could manage in the mud.

Their primary mission was to search the ruins for materials they could use to repair the DropShip. Akari was leading this end of the mission, as she was familiar with what was needed most. Ryouga would provide protection with his 'mech while the techs and crew did their work.

Finding Happousai was their other mission. No one was eager to discover the whereabouts of the lecherous little pest, but his Locust was too valuable to leave behind. Doctor Tofu had been a mechwarrior before his career in medicine, and could always take over piloting duties in the event that something terrible had happened to Happousai.

There was something of a third mission, which was to discover if any of the fuel processing and delivery stations were operable. Captain Ninomiya wanted to investigate the orbital space station - particularly the drydock. There was a thin shred of hope that a servicable JumpShip might be found in orbit, though Ryouga didn't think it was likely.

They needed fuel for the two Ship's Boats, _Nymph_ and _Sylph_, since they had expended nearly all of their reaction mass getting to the planet, and did not have enough left over to reach orbit. The two boats represented their only means of reaching space with the _Palomino_ out of action. Since there were no assurances of anything useful remaining in orbit, the search for a fueling station had been given the lowest priority.

Ryouga had no great expectations for either of their other missions. What did it matter that they repaired the _Palomino_? he wondered. They couldn't risk going into orbit with the Orochis waiting to blast them to bits, and it had been agreed that they would instruct the Confederation transport fleet to remain where they were once they arrived in-system. They were stuck here until the Orochis could be neutralized, and he had few illusions about them succeeding.

"I hope Captain Saotome finds Lady Akane soon," Akari said behind him.

"He will," Ryouga assured her. Since he had confessed his feelings for Akari, a sense of fulfillment had come over him. He still loved Akane, but knew and accepted that his feelings had shifted further in the direction of love in the Platonic sense.

Akari, of course, was as blissfully happy as himself. One of the things that had drawn him to her in the first place was her cheerful industry. She frequently hummed or sang while she worked, and since yesterday's confession her considerable fatigue in the face of the _Palomino_'s engineering woes had given way to a new burst of optimism and energy from her.

That he was the wellspring of her joy exorcised the ghosts of loneliness and misery that had long haunted him, and he felt like a man reborn. Now if only he could get up the nerve to kiss her the way he had in Berthing so many weeks ago!

"Konatsu and I are off to find Ranchan," he heard Ukyou call to him on the tac-net. Her Hatchetman strode off to his left flank, the figure of her pet kunoichi visible on the shoulder of the 'mech, and the massive axe like battle-spatula clutched in its metalshod fist.

"Good luck," he called back.

"Luck is not a factor, honey," she returned with a smug grin, and signed off on his cockpit display.

He wished them well anyway. His opinion of the former brigadier was in a state of continuous flux. He appreciated what she had done for the expedition on Genevieve, but her motives were obvious and questionable. She was in love with Ranma, though the gods only knew why, and she did seem to have a legitimate claim to him. He may not have been the most observant of people sometimes, but it seemed clear to him that Ranma did not love her in quite the same way that she loved him.

"I feel sorry for both of them," Akari remarked to him.

"P-Pardon?" he returned.

"It's no secret that Mechwarrior Kuonji is in love with Captain Saotome," Akari said evenly. "But she doesn't seem to realize, or at least accept, that he doesn't feel the same way about her."

Ryouga nodded. "You're probably right."

"But the worst part is that poor dear Konatsu is in love with Ukyou," she continued. "And he knows that she doesn't feel the same way for him, but it doesn't stop him from serving her so devotedly."

He didn't know what to say to this, so he kept silent.

"What makes this so sad is that both of them will do anything for the sake of the one they love, and yet it won't change anything between them."

_I know the feeling_, he thought grimly. _Even with Akari in my heart, I know that I would die to protect Akane, and Akane... loves Ranma. Nothing will change that either_.

They continued on.

The starport was overgrown with vines and weeds, making it difficult for the six-bys to traverse the tarmac without churning up a storm of shredded greenery. The BattleMaster trudged on without such hindrances, crushing the vines under its feet and splattering green juices up to the ankles. From his high vantage, Ryouga scanned the area for a sign of Happousai's Locust, and found it standing under a quonset hut style hangar that was overgrown with vegetation.

"I see the 'mech," he told the crew in the two trucks. "I'm going to investigate."

The men in the trucks agreed to wait where they were. Ryouga stomped towards the hangar.

"What hit this place?" Akari asked.

"A weed bomb, if you ask me," he replied.

"Before the weeds," she clarified. "Look around, Ryouga dearest. This place was blasted from the air."

Taking a closer look at the facilities, he could see that Akari was right. Craters filled with plants pocked the tarmac. Buildings overgrown with clinging vines were scarred with black streaks of carbon. What he had mistaken for a crumbling hill a hundred meters away was actually the burned out hulk of a Leopard Class DropShip.

"You're right," he muttered. "Something terrible happened here."

"Do you think it was the Orochi?" she asked.

"Possibly," he hedged. "I can't imagine why, though. You would think that something designed to protect the planet from invaders wouldn't do this to the place it was supposed to be defending."

He stopped the BattleMaster outside the hangar, which was too low to accept his 'mech.

"I think you should stay here," he said to Akari.

She gave him a pouty look. "You're going to leave me all alone?" she simpered, batting her eyelashes at him.

He crumbled. "Well, okay, I guess... But stay close to me." He produced a stout red shamboo umbrella from his personal storage locker and hefted its reassuring weight.

The two of them climbed down the 'mech to the dingy concrete pad of the hangar floor. The vines and weeds had a tougher time getting established in the smooth, mostly intact floor, leaving their path clear to the Locust.

It stood silent and still on its spindly, reverse-articulated legs. Both could tell that it was shut down by the silence that filled the mostly empty hangar.

"I don't see any damage," Akari noted.

"The cockpit hatch is open," Ryouga added, pointing up to the top of the hull.

"Do you suppose he left his 'mech to go looking for something, and never returned?"

Ryouga shrugged. "One way to find out." He shimmied up one of the legs to the hip and then pulled himself over on top of the hull. Akari watched breathlessly as he crouch-walked over to the open hatch.

He kicked something loose accidentally, and an object flew from the hull to shatter spectacularly at Akari's feet. She shrieked in surprise and alarm, drawing a worried look from him.

"Are you okay?" he hissed. "What was that?"

She composed herself, and stooped to examine the remains.

"It was a sake bottle," she declared, holding up a piece of glass that remained glued to a paper label that was yellowed and stiff with age.

"Is that what I smell?" Ryouga returned, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the foul odor. "I thought it was paint thinner."

She chuckled softly and pointed to the label. "Well, Ryouga dearest, this bottle _is_ almost two hundred years old."

Ryouga looked down into the cockpit through the open hatch.

"I found him," he said dully. "Passed out drunk in his cockpit, with about ten more empty bottles inside, plus one half-full that's about to spill in his lap."

She let the piece of glass fall from her hand. "What should we do with him?" she asked.

Ryouga shrugged back. "I dunno. Let him sleep it off?"

"We do have a lot of work to do, my love," she agreed.

It was several hours march for Ukyou to reach the place where Sayuri had claimed to find Ranma. The ground was swampy and difficult to traverse, and the recent rainfall had generated broad puddles of indeterminate depth that made the trip slow and difficult.

"Any sign of him, Konatsu?" she asked her kunoichi.

He leaped off the Hatchetman's shoulder to investigate. She watched him bound about the swampy mire, searching for clues in the mud. She didn't expect him to find anything useful after all the rain that must have fallen on the ground.

_What kind of blockhead was he that he would insist on staying out here instead returning to the ship to get help?_ she thought angrily. It was because of HER, she lamented. He had stayed behind to search for Akane.

It just wasn't fair. She would give anything to have him feel for her what he obviously felt for Akane. What was she even doing out here looking for a jerk like that, anyway?

Konatsu returned, clutching a scrap of olive drab nylon cloth.

"I found a parachute, sir," he said to her, holding the piece of material up so she could see it clearly.

"Terrific. We know where one of them landed now. Too bad we have no idea where they went."

Konatsu stuffed the cloth fragment into a pocket. "What should we do now, sir?"

Ukyou sighed. "What else? Look for Ranchan. I'm not going back until we find him."

Though if the jackass doesn't answer his radio, it might take days!

Planet Ryuugenzawa

10 June 3025

They had been walking for two days now, and Akane's feet ached. Most of their travels had been through woods of varying size and density, and Shinnosuke's expert fieldcraft had provided them with nourishment and fresh water for their trip, while avoiding the numerous pitfalls of an unknown biosphere.

He was quiet most of the time, their infrequent conversations turning towards the Inner Sphere at large. He seemed disappointed by the total balkanization of human space and the three major wars that had been unsuccessfully waged to regain unity. Once, she had even overheard him cursing Kerensky's name. He also seemed to be a touch absent-minded, asking her questions about matters that they had discussed several times before.

The subject of why she was here had not come up. She was reluctant to tell him that the only reason why the _Dragonfly_ had come to the system was to see if they could plunder the Star League proving grounds for lost technology. She certainly hadn't expected to find anyone living on the legendary world when she arrived.

The fact that he wore the device of the Star League Defense Force on the back of his coat also gave her pause. It was a large embroidered patch of some sort, and from her casual examinations, it seemed as if it had been cut directly from a coat of similar make and sewn into place. The patch looked very old, much older than the material of Shinnosuke's coat.

"We're coming up on the village," he said to her as they carefully picked their way through a tangling web of stinging vines. "It's been awhile since they've seen me, so we should have a pretty good reception."

"You mean you don't live there?" she asked him.

"No," he replied. "I live with my grandfather deeper in the forest."

"I see," she remarked. "What exactly are you doing out there."

Shinnosuke stopped walking. "Grandfather and I are caretakers for the facilities," he replied. "Living out in the forest puts us close to where we're needed."

At this revelation, Akane decided to take the plunge.

"Would these be Star League facilities?" she asked.

He nodded. "There isn't much to do anymore," he said to her. "Grandfather says that we're mostly there to make sure the place doesn't completely fall apart before Kerensky's army returns." He fished an ancient text pager from his pocket. "What little still runs is all automated," he explained. "When there's a problem, the automation system pages me or grandfather, and we go out to take a look. Usually it's something cool to fix like a leaky pipe in a basement, or a blown fuse somewhere." He put the pager back in his pocket and shrugged indifferently. "But mostly we just keep everything clean."

He started walking again, as if unwilling to continue the subject. She supposed that he must have felt a little overwhelmed by her being a mechwarrior, with him nothing more than a custodian for an abandoned facility. General Kerensky was long dead by now, and his descendents were somewhere very far from the Inner Sphere. They had been gone for over two hundred years, so it was safe to say that they weren't coming back.

The village was a mixture of old technology and new improvisation. Structures made of advanced building materials like cement and glass stood alongside primitive log cabins, teepees, and lean-to's made of corrugated metal and crumbling sheets of plastered drywall. Most of the place was under the shelter of a few carefully placed trees. The ground cover and the smaller trees had obviously been cleared, allowing the remaining trees to spread their canopies wide and conceal the place from the air.

At first glance, Akane judged that the village was home to at least three hundred people. Children played a game of baseball in the middle of the dirt lane that passed for main street. Women hung homespun laundry on lines, and yelled at their young ones to keep the dust down. She saw a man in a lash-up watchtower carrying a lethal automatic rifle at sling arms. The weapon might have been a few centuries old, but it had been kept in pristine condition.

When Shinnosuke appeared, the children stopped their game and began shouting with glee. The laundry women looked up from their chores and offered waves. The man in the watchtower threw him a jaunty salute. It was as he had said; a good reception.

One of the older women, her face carefully aged with crow's feet at the corners of her eyes and deep laugh lines on either side of her generous mouth, took the two of them aside with an offer of lunch.

"Shinnosuke!" she cried happily as she seated them at a small table on the porch of her log cabin home. "It's so good to see you. You rarely come this way anymore."

"Well, Grandfather does keep me busy," he replied sheepishly.

The woman looked Akane over approvingly. "Allow me to congratulate you on your new wife," she gushed. "She's quite a beauty! Did you find her at one of the Outsider camps?"

Akane turned crimson, as did Shinnosuke.

"This is, uh..." he replied weakly, looking mortified at having forgotten his companion's name.

"Akane," she prompted quietly

"Uh, yeah," he stammered. "Akane. I'm sorry to say that she isn't my wife."

"Shinnosuke is helping me find my way," Akane added.

The woman frowned slightly at Akane's accent, before offering them both apologetic smiles. "I see. You're a true gentleman, Shinnosuke, to be escorting her through the forest. It's a dangerous place for young ladies."

She went inside to fetch lunch. The children playing ball clustered around the wooden fence that separated the property claimed by the woman from the street.

"Hey, Shinnosuke!" an older kid cried. "You get married?"

Shinnosuke shook his head, his face red.

"I'll take her if you don't want her!" the kid added, then tried to cajole his comrades into playing another inning.

Shinnosuke turned to Akane. "I'm sorry about this," he said to her. "I should have known this would happen. Girls get married pretty young in the village, and since I haven't been by in awhile, they must have thought..."

"It's all right," Akane insisted. "I understand."

"I know that Grandfather has had some of the men of the village offering their daughters as a wife for me," he continued uneasily. "They were all pretty, some even as pretty as you, Akane, but... I - I guess I'm just not ready to get married."

"You don't have to tell me this," she returned, sharing in his embarrassment to some degree. "It's none of my business."

He looked away shyly. "I guess it's because I'm waiting for the perfect girl to come along."

"I'm sure she will," she said, trying to lift him from his sudden melancholy. "So tell me about these 'Outsider camps.'"

He looked back at her. "Grandfather knows a little more about them than I do. They're the descendents of people who were marooned here by the Orochi after Kerensky left. Most of them are decent people, but some of them are bandits who raid the outlying farms - even this village - for food and clothing. No one here really trusts outsiders because of that."

"Everyone must think that I'm an Outsider," she remarked.

"As far as these people are concerned, anyone who doesn't live here or at one of the nearby farms is one," he pointed out. "They're good people, really, but with all the raids, they've lost their ability to trust strangers."

"I can see how well you're treated here, Shinnosuke, but are you an outsider to them?"

He shook his head. "Grandfather and I don't count. It's a long story, and he'll explain it better than I could. We'll get going as soon as we're finished with lunch."

Lunch came, light and refreshingly civilized after eating berries and the various roots, mushrooms, and tubers Shinnosuke had procured for them in the woods. Meat was something Akane hadn't thought she would miss, but after three days without, the sight and smell of a sizzling tray of skewers made her mouth water. She ate with gusto, and their host gave an approving nod.

They talked for some time afterwards, in spite of Shinnosuke's assurances that they would get on the road again. Akane didn't mind, so long as the conversation stayed away from who she was and where she had come from. To his credit, Shinnosuke seemed to sense her desire to remain anonymous - although his absent-mindedness probably had something to do with it - and did not mention that she was a mechwarrior from another planet. Akane noted that it might have been easier for both of them to pretend that they really were married.

The woman talked mostly of life in the village, its gossip, and predictions for the coming harvest and the winter that would follow. Shinnosuke politely declined the casual offer of the woman's daughter as a bride for him, earning a wry look from the lady. Apparently, she remained unconvinced that Akane wasn't already filling the position.

As the men came home from the fields, they were at last able to beg leave. They offered thanks for the meal, and were about to sit up from the table when the woman ran inside to fetch something for them.

She returned with a dark red cape of rich homespun cloth.

"For your lady friend," she said, handing it to Shinnosuke. "You've got another day at least in the woods, and I know how cold it can get out there at night."

"I couldn't..." Akane said, trying to beg off. She could tell by the weave of the cloth that it was quality work, and from the lack of similarly colored clothing among the villagers, she knew that the pigment used to dye it was rare.

"I insist," the woman said. "Think of it as a wedding present."

She blushed uncomfortably and bowed, knowing that it would be rude to press the matter. "Thank you."

They started onto another forest path that lead steadily uphill. The boys followed them for some time before finally withdrawing to the village. Apparently they couldn't get enough of gawking at her, and more than one had offered himself for the position of her husband.

She was glad they were gone. Obnoxious boys drove her up the wall when she was sixteen, and they weren't getting any more tolerable at nineteen. In another month she would be twenty, and she doubted that her opinion of them would be any different.

What was it that made her love Ranma then? she wondered. He was pretty obnoxious most of the time. Was it those few moments when he had been mature and thoughtful that gave her hope? She was still tickled over the flowers he had picked for her, even though some of them had turned out to be poisonous.

_Please don't let him be dead!_ she offered in prayer to the heavens.

In the meantime, she would follow Shinnosuke to meet his grandfather, and then ask him questions about Ryuugenzawa. If there was any chance that the expedition hadn't been in vain, she would seize upon it.

11 June 3025

"Grandfather!" Shinnosuke called to the neat wooden structure that was his home.

"Shin-boy!" an aged voice called from within. "You're back!"

Shinnosuke stepped through the door with Akane.

The small home was a one room affair divided by a few folding screens into a sleeping area, a living area with a floor pit fire, and a small kitchen. The floor was made of sanded wooden slats that were as finely crafted as the simple but fine construction of the rest of the home.

The fire pit was lined with large river stones, and a bed of red coals filled the house with warmth, cutting the chill she had felt in the woods. Stew simmered in a crude cast iron pot. It was all very rustic, but she also noted the bits of high-technology Shinnosuke and his grandfather possessed.

They had a laser rifle hanging over the door, looking functional even after all these years. A portable photovoltaic array was on the roof, and she could see the power cables running down to an inverter and to several charging stations. A pager like the one Shinnosuke carried was plugged into one of them, and so was a laptop terminal. On the opposite wall was draped the flag of the Star League. Ancient photo and stereographs surrounded the flag, presumably the ancestors of Shinnosuke and his grandfather.

"Who is this?" Shinnosuke's grandfather asked with some surprise.

"This is... uh..." he supplied for his elder.

She nudged him gently and whispered her name.

"Akane," he finished, again mortified that he could have forgotten her name.

The old man had a bushy grey beard and thick eyebrows that accentuated his bald pate. Though he was laying in bed with the sun still up, he seemed to possess a fiery vigor about him.

"Akane," he said, rolling the name over in his mouth. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Akane."

She curtsied for him. "The pleasure's all mine, sir."

"Akane's a mechwarrior from another system," Shinnosuke supplied. "The Orochi must be awake again."

The old man frowned deeply at this. "That's a terrible thing to suggest, Shin-boy. In any event, the satellite units are autonomous from the Orochi. I think we'd know if it was active again."

He rose from his bed and looked Akane over. "Is this true?" he asked her. "Are you from another a system?"

She blushed meekly. "Yes sir," she replied. "My DropShip was attacked several nights ago."

"A pity," he sniffed. "You're probably stranded here, then. I'm sure the boy told you that."

"I'm not going to give up hope just yet," she replied.

The old man grunted something under his breath. "I was a boy Shinnosuke's age the last time a ship came to Ryuugenzawa. The Orochi satellites destroyed it, and the survivors landed here. The ones who were able to adapt to our, ahem, primitive conditions ended up marrying into the village, or else joined one of the Outsider camps."

"Shinnosuke told me about them," she said.

"Did he tell you how they're bandits, murderers, and thieves?" the old man asked her in an acid tone. "How they came to plunder this world?"

Akane tensed at his accusations. He was not going to be sympathetic to her plight, because this was exactly the reason why she had come to the system.

"Shinnosuke said to ask you about it," she said at length.

The old man put on a dark coat similar to his grandson's. "Liars, too," he added. "Talking about how the Star League had collapsed, how it was everyone for themselves."

She knew it might be dangerous for her to disagree, but it was clear that he was wholly ignorant of the Inner Sphere's current state.

"It's true," she said. "The Star League collapsed into civil war over two centuries ago. Kerensky's army never returned. No one's heard from them since they left."

He gave her a sour look. How could he not believe this? she wondered. They had been waiting for generations on this planet for Kerensky or his people to return. One would think that after all this time, they would have given up hope.

"Who exactly are you?" he asked her.

She swallowed hard. When in doubt, give them the truth. "My name is Akane Tendo, youngest daughter of Grand Duke Soun Tendo of the Nerima Confederation."

She could see him rifling through the stacks of his memory, trying to place names with what his ancestors had taught him.

"A Tendo, eh?" he said finally. "So you're one of the people who tore the Star League apart."

His accusation was filled with bitterness.

"I'm a Tendo," she returned evenly. "But I didn't have anything to do with what happened two hundred years ago. How could I? All I know is that the Furinkan Combine is trying to conquer the Inner Sphere, and if I don't find a way to stop them, they will."

He gave her declaration some thought. "So you came here for what purpose? To steal technology? Are the stories of the collapse really true? Have things become that bad in the Inner Sphere?"

"We didn't come here to steal anything," she insisted. "We didn't even expect anyone to be here. To the Inner Sphere, Ryuugenzawa is just a legend. A myth." She shook off the cape the woman in the village had given her. "And yes, the stories you heard about the collapse are true. We've lost the ability to make Jump Drives, HPG arrays, and so much more. It was our hope that we would be able to recover that technology here."

Shinnosuke's grandfather folded his arms across his chest. "I see. So you can defeat the Furinkan Combine and rule the Inner Sphere yourselves."

"That's not it!" Akane protested. "We're just trying to protect our families and our property, not conquer everything. We just want a better life for our people again. Is that so wrong?"

He looked her over gravely for several minutes, apparently locked in a battle with himself over her plea.

"I believe you, young lady," he said at length. "I shouldn't, but there is a sincerity in your voice that I find difficult to ignore."

"Will you help me then?" she asked him.

"I'm afraid that you might be disappointed," the old man intoned. "When General Kerensky asked the SLDF to desert and join him in exile, most of the Proving Grounds staff and their projects went with him. A few of the scientists, engineers, and their families remained behind, thinking that they would better their positions when the Star League moved back in. Aside from them were the colonists Kerensky had brought in to make the place more habitable for the research staff, and the representatives of the various military contracting firms whose equipment was being evaluated for use. They had no way to leave the system and no place to go if they did.

"Those who were left behind suffered terribly. After a few years without contact with the rest of the Star League, there was an ugly war here as the colonists vied for control of the remaining facilities and food production areas. Most of the colonists died in the years of violence that followed, and all the survivors could do was buckle down and try to carve out a new life in the wilderness. Shinnosuke and I represent the last of a line of caretakers for the facilities, keeping the hope of Kerensky's return alive for the people of this world."

He seemed beaten down by his recounting of the world's turbulant history, but continued.

"What attacked you was the Orochi; a network of defense satellites that was supposed to preserve the planet from harm. I do not know when the Orochi began to malfunction - it happened before I was born - but I do know that it nearly completed the destruction of the colony here. It also destroyed all the ships that entered the system, turning their survivors, most of them nothing more than bandits and treasure hunters, against us.

"Even as we keep watch over the bandits, we must also keep hidden from the Orochi, as it becomes active from time to time, and causes great damage to us before it goes dormant once again. All sources of advanced technology are its targets, which is why we live so simply these days."

Akane thought this over. "So anyone bringing in advanced technology triggers an attack by the Orochi?"

The old man nodded. "This has never specifically been put to the test, but yes, when the Orochi becomes active, it will destroy any targets that it cannot identify as friendly."

"Why doesn't it distinguish between the colonists and a real military target?"

"That, I do not know. My own grandfather theorized that the powerful solar storms that rage every few years have caused some kind of malfunction within the computers that direct the Orochi network. It no longer recognizes certain facilities as friendly targets - like the starport - and subjected them to a terrible bombardment. Most of the colonists killed by the Orochi died when it levelled the starport and the outlying colony town. It seemed prudent after that to build shelters away from any remaining facility, and better still to conceal them from the air."

"There isn't any way to stop the Orochi, then?" Akane asked.

The old man shook his head. "There is a bunker to the north of here, where the Orochi network can be controlled, but we lack the authentication codes to send it any commands. My grandfather tried for many years to bypass the security system, but it proved to be too difficult. The best we can do is monitor the network."

"I could take her there, grandfather," Shinnosuke remarked. "I had to go there to change out a sump pump in the basement about a month ago, so I know where it is."

The old man pursed his lips in thought. "I don't see what good could come from it," he said at last. "As I said, there is no way to control the Orochi network. They were designed for autonomous operation and to resist all unauthorized attempts at controlling them."

The matter was settled as far as he was concerned, so he returned to his sleeping mat.

"There is food if you are hungry," he said, pointing to the pot over the coals.

"It's not much, but it'll do, won't it?" Shinnosuke asked her.

Akane looked over the steel drum sitting on cinder blocks above a bed of coals that was to be her bath.

"It should," she replied, wanting a bath desperately, and not caring that was under such primitive conditions. Running water was nice, but a bath was a bath.

"Let me stoke the coals a bit first," he said, pointing to a hollow tube of fibrous wood that resembled shamboo. He blew through the tube, forcing air over the coals and making them glow brighter. Wisps of steam wafted up from the water in the drum after several minutes of this.

"It should be ready now," he said, and left her to bathe.

She smiled for him as he went. Once he was around the corner of the house, she began to strip out of her olive drab coveralls. The mud on her legs had dried on, and she knew it would take a good soak to wash it away. Her filthy tank top and shorts she cast aside. She could wear the coveralls until she had a chance to launder her other garments.

The water was very hot, forcing her to ease herself in gently. Once she was covered up to the shoulders, she relaxed, letting the heat soak into her tired and sore body. Wisps of steam drifted past her eyes, further soothing her.

It was primitive, but she could get used to living like this. Fresh air, lots of exercise, sleeping under the stars; there was a lot to be said for Shinnosuke's way of life. If his grandfather knew what he was talking about, there was a good chance that she would be living like this for the rest of her life. The _Dragonfly_ must have been destroyed or else driven off by now, perhaps after an attempted rendezvous with the _Palomino_. It was a sobering thought, because the crew had done so much for the expedition, and she cared for all of them in a certain sense.

Ranma, Ryouga, Yuka, Sayuri, the others... Were they dead? Were they alive and stranded somewhere on this planet just like she was? She had no answers, only the faith that Ranma had somehow survived.

Shinnosuke knew most of the facilities that made up the Proving Grounds, and it was possible that he could lead her to a radio transmitter powerful enough to reach the Jump Points in time to warn the transport fleet away. It would mean being marooned forever on Ryuugenzawa, but there was no sense in endangering the lives of so many of her people for nothing. Perhaps a rescue force could be assembled someday that was powerful enough to destroy the Orochi network, but she wasn't counting on it. Whatever secrets Ryuugenzawa had left to it might have to stay secrets forever.

There was another thought that disturbed her. After all of the struggle to get to this planet, the fact that they were stranded here meant that there would be no relief against the Furinkan Combine. Sooner or later, Prince Kuno would win, and he might learn of the coordinates to the Ryuugenzawa System. With his Nightlord Class battleship, _Imperator_, there was the possibility that he might be able to destroy the Orochi network and seize the planet for himself.

She sighed. To be rescued by Tatewaki Kuno, of all people...

She finished bathing and stepped out of the drum, wondering where Shinnosuke had put the towel. As she did so, he came around the corner, clutching the towel in question. His eyes slammed shut at beholding her in all of her naked glory, and he placed a hand over them for good measure.

"I - I'm sorry!" he stammered. "I forgot about your towel, and..."

She walked over to him and took the towel from his hand. When she had wrapped it around herself, she stepped back and told him it was safe to open his eyes.

He did so reluctantly, his face burning with shame.

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

She cocked her head to the side. "Uh huh... An accident, right?" she teased.

"R-Right!" he concurred. "It'll never happen again, I promise!"

"I forgive you," she chuckled. She had been ready to explode, but his obvious embarrassment and effusive apologies had defused her. He was kind of cute in a bumbling, self-conscious way; like Ranma, only without the ego.

She walked past him, smiling, to retrieve her coveralls and get changed for bed.

Shinnosuke could only watch, breathless, as she passed him.

12 June 3025

"Oh man, what the hell have I gotten myself into?" Ranma Saotome asked herself as she slogged uphill through the dense forest growth. For four days now she had been searching for Akane, and had nothing to show for it except hunger, fatigue, and more bruises. She wasn't even certain where she was anymore, as the sky had been overcast for much of the past two days, catching her in more than one cloudburst, and making it difficult for her to navigate by the sun.

She was just wandering now, and wondering if this was what Ryouga felt like when he got lost. Her only link to her friends lay in the radio that Sayuri had given her, but she could only receive at long range. Transmissions were only good for about ten kilometers.

If there was anything to feel hopeful about, it was that she must be close to what passed for civilization on Ryuugenzawa, as she had discovered a fairly wide path through the forest that spoke of human intervention. She had been following it since that morning, when it abruptly petered out into a forked set of narrow twisting paths.

There was a hill nearby, so she resolved to climb it and get her bearings. If there was a settlement nearby, as the road possibly indicated, she might be able to see it. Climbing the hill meant scrabbling up the loose, muddy ground, slicked with fresh rainfall, but she was already so flithy that she didn't care.

She was exhausted by the time she reached the top of the hill, and paused to nibble on the last of her survival rations. She had stretched them as far as they would go, and now she was out of food. If she did find a settlement, she hoped that they would be friendly enough to offer her something to eat. If not, well, it wouldn't be the first time she had stolen food to survive...

Having eaten what was left of her rations, she perched herself on a fallen, rotting log and scanned the horizon. The sky was hazy and indistinct in the distance, but through the mist she could see what looked like tilled fields, and the tiny dots of people tending them.

She whooped in delight. Civilization at last! She judged the distance to be close to ten kilometers, perhaps a two hour walk if the trails held up.

As she sat up from the log, she spied a glint of metal in the distance near the fields. Squinting against the mist, she caught sight of a battlemech approaching from what she thought was the south.

She pulled out her radio remote and set it to a Confederation tac-net frequency.

"It looks like farmlands," Ukyou said to herself.

Konatsu peered down through the open hatch.

"Shall I take a look, sir?"

"Let me get us a little closer first," she said, spying a muddy road lying nearly parallel to their course and turning to follow it.

As she approached, she could see people tending the fields. They hadn't noticed her yet, but as her Hatchetman drew near, they would feel its feet pounding into the ground.

She was surprised when she saw a flare rocket into the sky from the other side of the fields. The farmers immediately scrambled for the road and started running away from her.

"I think they've spotted us, sir," Konatsu said. "I can hear a bell ringing in the distance."

"Stay cool, sugar," Ukyou replied. "We aren't here to hurt anyone."

She switched her optics over to the thermal-imager, which cut through the mist to reveal the tiny, fuzzy shapes of people moving into what appeared to be a good sized village. There was no telling what kind of hardware they might have had handy, but she doubted that they had anything that posed a threat to her battlemech.

All the same...

"Konatsu, honey, you might want to take some cover. I'm an awfully big target, you know."

Konatsu agreed. He leaped down from her 'mech and scrambled to a position behind her right leg, jogging to keep up with her pace. She reached up and dogged her hatch shut as a precaution against grenades.

She continued her ponderous advance. A few people showed up on her thermal imager, leaving the buildings to take up what were likely to be defensive positions. They had firearms, but it was difficult to tell if they possessed anything big enough to cause her harm.

"That's far enough!" she heard a voice shout. She trained her parabolic mic around to pinpoint the source, and found an old man pointing a rifle up at her cockpit.

She stopped the Hatchetman fifty meters short of the village perimeter and waited. No man-portable SRM launchers appeared from cover to take a shot at her. The village militia didn't seem to have anything bigger than a light machine gun set on a rusty tripod mount. She could cancel it with one of her lasers with a mere thought if she had to.

She decided to take a chance and prove her peaceful intentions to them. She undogged the hatch and raised it, then slowly came out, hands first so they could see that they were empty. She peeked up out of the hatch, waiting for a bullet, but none came.

They were cool customers, she decided.

"I'm looking for some people," she shouted. "Have any of you seen a guy with dark hair in a pigtail in the last few days?"

There was no answer.

She pulled herself up out of the hatch and threw her legs over the brow of the Hatchetman's head. "How about a girl with short, dark hair, answering to the name Akane?"

The old man with the rifle advanced from cover, keeping the weapon handy, but not raised against her.

"Get that thing out of here, and maybe we'll talk!" he shouted back, pointing to the battlemech.

She faced him. "Look, pal. If I wanted to turn your village into smoking ruins, I'da done it already. Lighten up." She offered her hands to them in a gesture of supplication. "Now could you please answer my question?"

"The answer's no to both your questions!" the old man replied. "Now git!"

She kept her temper, understanding how something like her Hatchetman would strike fear into a village like this one.

"Thanks for your help," she said dryly, and dropped down the hatch.

She turned the battlemech and started heading back the way she came. Konatsu pulled himself back up onto her shoulder.

"Do you think he was lying to you, sir?" he asked her.

"Hard to say," she replied. "We certainly weren't welcome." She shook her head wearily. They had been out for days now, and their supply of food was running low. "Perhaps we should go back to the _Palomino_ and resupply," she remarked.

Konatsu appeared at the hatch. "I shall stay behind and continue the search, if you wish it."

"Don't do that to yourself, honey," she replied. "You're just as tired and worn out with the search as anyone. Besides, if you got caught sneaking around, they'd probably lynch you."

She turned back to her instruments, calling up the map her battlemech's computer had been able to generate of her surroundings. The DropShip was a good hundred and thirty kilometers away - too far for a radio message without a satellite relay, and while there were probably commsats in orbit, she did not possess the codes or commo protocols to access them.

"Heya, Ucchan," a voice crackled over the radio as she pondered this.

"Ranma?" she cried in surprise. If it was him, he was currently a 'she' - which was no surprise given all the rain they had endured of late. She clicked her mic. "Ranchan? Is that you?"

"Where are ya goin'?" Ranma asked. "You're walking away from me!"

Ukyou brought her 'mech to a halt. "You can see me?"

"With a radio as wimpy as mine, I'd almost have to."

She turned her 'mech around in a circle, trying to spot her.

"I don't see you," she said finally.

"I'm near the top of a hill," Ranma said to her. "I can see some farmland in front of me, southeast of my position, I think."

"I just came from there," Ukyou replied. "They told me they hadn't seen you."

"Makes sense," Ranma agreed. "I haven't actually made it to the village yet."

"Don't bother. They aren't very friendly towards strangers."

"Did they know where Akane was?"

Ukyou frowned. "No. At least they said they didn't."

"Dammit! Where could she be?"

"I don't know, Ranchan, but I think you had better come with me. Hold your position, talk me in, and I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Copy that, Ucchan," she said. "I'll be the one freezing his butt off in wet clothes."

"Shouldn't that be 'freezing _her_ butt off,'" Ukyou teased.

"Oh, ha ha."

"I'm really glad you're showing me where this bunker is, Shinnosuke," Akane said to him.

"Grandfather won't like it, but I don't see the harm in showing you," he replied. "He's right though, there isn't any way of controlling the Orochi. People in my family have been trying for as long as we've been the caretakers."

The mention of family raised a question within her that she had been wanting to ask, but had held back for fear of upsetting him.

"It's just you and your grandfather now, isn't it," she said.

His pace slowed a bit. "Yeah," he replied. "I've got a few older cousins living in the village, but that's it."

She almost hated to ask. "Your parents?"

He stopped, and turned towards her. His face held a grief that had long since passed into a dull ache.

"They died years ago. I was very small then. I don't even remember it." He pawed at the muddy ground. "Grandfather's been taking care of me ever since."

"I'm sorry, Shinnosuke," she said softly. "I shouldn't have pried."

"No!" he protested. "Don't be, Akane. I feel like I could tell you anything about myself, no matter how painful."

She blushed shyly at this. Shinnosuke was such a sweetheart that it was amazing that he hadn't found a girl to settle down with.

"Well, lead on," she said sprightly to him. The bunker would be connected to a radio relay for communications with the Orochi network, and she could use it to warn the transport fleet.

They continued on, passing between a pair of hills near the village on their way north to the bunker. As they took the leftmost path in the fork, the surrounding forest became very quiet and still.

"Something's wrong," Shinnosuke said, gripping his pushbroom tightly.

"More of those bugs?" Akane asked worriedly.

"No," he replied. "Something else. Be careful, Akane, and keep your eyes and ears open."

They continued warily. Akane could feel eyes upon her, but nothing was visible in the dense forest growth to either side of the path. She found her hand slipping into her survival kit. The pistol was there, but it was empty. She would need to put the spare magazine in before -

Movement on the path in front of them caught her by surprise. She watched as three men wearing loose strips of cloth dyed to match the foliage jumped out of cover, two of them armed with crude spears, the third with an ancient and rusty pump shotgun.

"Run!" Shinnosuke cried to her. She turned to find three more behind them, two of them with guns.

"We're surrounded!" she cried, fishing in her kit for the extra magazine.

"Hey, Shin!" the man with the shotgun called to them. "Make ya a deal! Give us the girl and you can go on sweepin' floors!"

"That's not gonna happen, Graham," Shinnosuke replied. He raised his pushbroom. "Go back to your own lands before you get hurt!"

The man called Graham jerked his head in Shinnosuke's direction. "Teach the boy whose lands these are," he said with a grating laugh. "This whole goddamn planet is mine, kid!" he called after Shinnosuke as his spear-armed cronies advanced down the narrow path. "Don't you be forgettin' that!"

Shinnosuke braced for a charge, turning his head briefly to Akane. "I said run! These people don't play games!"

Akane loaded her pistol instead. "I'm not leaving you!" She pulled back the slide to chamber a round, and took aim at the men behind them. "Back off, or I'll blow holes in you big enough to drive a battlemech through."

The three scattered to either side of the path, taking cover.

"The girl's packing heat!" one of them called, presumably to Graham.

"So?" he called back from behind the safety of the two spearmen. "What do think you're carrying, slingshots?"

"You want us to shoot her?" one of them cried. "I thought you said you wanted her alive?"

"Shoot her in the leg or something!" Graham hurled back impatiently. "Do I haf'ta explain everything myself?"

One of them found his courage and popped around the tree he was using for cover. Akane fired a snapshot, the 10mm hollowpoint striking the trunk of the tree near eye level, and sending the thug ducking back behind cover with a girlish shriek of fright.

"I'm not joking!" she called to them.

"Akane..." Shinnosuke grunted tersely to her. "Run!"

"We'll both run," she replied, nearly quaking with fear. They only had one way to go, and that was up. Trying to move down would put them in a tangled mass of brambles and stinging vines. "I'll start shooting to keep their heads down, and we'll start running up the hill."

She began firing a sustained series of shots at the ones behind them while sidestepping up the hill. As Shinnosuke started to move, she pivoted and fired twice more at the spearmen, catching one in the bicep and blowing a very satisfying chunk of meat off his arm. His hollow wail of agony drowned out the angry voice of Graham exhorting his thugs to action.

They clambered up the hill, clawing desperately at the muddy ground for purchase as Graham shouted curses at them. A blast from his shotgun sent crude cast lead buckshot pellets whining through the air just over their heads to explode in the foliage on the hillside above them. The strong sulfurous scent of blackpowder filled the moist air.

"They don't even have smokeless powder!" Akane shouted indignantly over the din. "I can't believe I'm about to be killed by something that's practically out of the stone age!"

"Keep climbing," Shinnosuke grunted. "We're not out of range yet!"

A second blast from the shotgun confirmed this. A pellet lodged in the back of his leg, centimeters below the knee. He spasmed in pain, stopping his progress.

"Shinnosuke!" she cried, trying to drag him up the hill. His leg twitched uncontrollably, making it impossible for him to use it for purchase, and he was too heavy for her to drag through the mud.

"Now we've got 'em," Graham hooted from below.

Akane pulled the still warm pistol from her coveralls and fired at the cur. The bullet struck a branch over his head, dusting him with green needles. He didn't even flinch as he raised the shotgun at her.

She saw that the slide was locked back on her pistol, and threw it at him with a curse, spoiling his aim. The shotgun blast ripped into the hillside well to her right.

"That'll be enough outta you, missy!" he snorted triumphantly. His remaining thugs formed a skirmish line and began moving with methodical patience up the hill towards her.

"Go to hell!" she screamed at him, and tried dragging Shinnosuke up the hill once more. He tried to assist her, but his wounded leg had gone limp.

She managed to pull him up to a level patch of ground, but the hill became much steeper beyond, and she knew she could barely climb them herself, much less help her wounded friend. She unzipped her coveralls to the navel to give herself some room to move in them, and dropped into a fighting stance.

They were going to have to kill her.

"Akane, what are you doing?" Shinnosuke cried to her.

"I won't let them hurt us," she snapped. They were almost upon them.

"Akane, no! Your life is more important than mine! Run, I'm begging you!" He pulled himself upright, his left leg supported by the pushbroom."I'll hold them off."

"Shinnosuke!" she cried. There wasn't time for more, as one of the spearman lunged at her. She wasn't there for the blow, however, since Shinnosuke pushed her aside with a grunt of warning. As she fell to the ground, she watched the spear sink into his shoulder. The thug kept the spear inside, throwing his weight behind the shaft to pin Shinnosuke down and hold him while his comrades continued their advance.

"Shinnosuke!" she cried again. One of the rifle-armed thugs swept at her head with the butt of his weapon. She ducked the blow easily and landed a kick to the solar plexus that sent him tumbling down the hillside.

"Don't play with her," Graham yelled at them. Naturally, he was behind the remainder of his men. "If she's a little bruised and bloodied, it's no big deal. She'll heal in time."

The spearman twisted his weapon in Shinnosuke's shoulder, making him scream in agony.

The scream distracted Akane, and she was caught flat-footed by the second rifleman's buttstroke to the stomach. She reeled over, about to be sick, when he reversed his stroke and took her in the jaw. She saw stars then, and tumbled to the wet ground by Shinnosuke's side, too dazed to act.

"Akane!" he cried to her.

Graham was laughing. "See boys! She ain't so tough."

He started the rest of the way up the hill, chuckling evilly.

"Bastard!" a girl's voice cried. A green and black blur flew down from the hill at the man who had laid Akane out. He barely had time to look up before a savage kick to the side of the head snapped his neck like a twig. His body became as limp as spaghetti, and he slithered down the hill to pass the stunned Graham.

The girl then lunged with her elbow at the spearman who kept Shinnosuke pinned, catching him square in the throat and crushing his windpipe. He fell down the hill, choking for breath that would not come.

The remaining thug charged at her as she recovered from her lunge, his spear sliding into the narrow gap between her arm and side. The girl clenched up, spun on her heels, and ripped the weapon from his grasp with her maneuver. As he backpedaled, fumbling for a knife at his waist, she brought the butt end of the spear against the side of his temple hard enough to splinter the shaft.

"Who the hell are you?!" the shotgun-toting brigand shouted at her as the last of his men on the hill fell stone dead.

The girl in the green mandarin blouse and the black drawstring pants jerked a thumb at her buxom chest.

"I'm Ranma Saotome, asshole, and I'll make sure you don't forget it for the rest of your miserably short life!"

Graham jerked his head to work out the kinks in his neck, and raised the shotgun to Ranma's chest.

"Somehow, I doubt that."

When Ranma did not try to duck or evade, he had to give the savage girl credit for spunk. He did not realize that a 10 centimeter spot of red coherent light had materialized on his chest as he peered down the length of his shotgun barrel.

There was a brilliant flash of light, a deafening crackle of ionized air, and then the wet _whhooommmphh_ of ninety kilograms of human being and several dozen kilograms of dirt and vegetation behind him being rendered instantly into a rapidly expanding cloud of moist steam.

High atop the hill, a Hatchetman stood, a wisp of vapor wafting from the focusing optics of the medium laser embedded in the shaft of its battle-spatula.

Ranma turned and waved to the battlemech.

"Good timing, Ucchan!" she cried. "Though I think you gave me a sunburn from that blast."

"I was wondering what the hell you were doing running away from me," came her reply over the mech's external speakers. "You could have said something more specific to me than 'Hey, Ucchan, something's up. Come quick!'"

"Yeah, well, I didn't have any specifics 'til I got here."

She turned, looking at her fiancee with concern as the adrenaline rush of combat faded from her system and left her feeling shaky and anxious. Blind chance had put her on the same hill as Akane, close enough to hear the gunfire and fearful cries and to act in time to save her. She didn't know who the men in the makeshift ghille suits were, but it didn't take a genius to figure out where they stood on the scale of enemies and allies.

"Akane," she said softly to her.

Akane pulled herself up onto all fours and crawled over to the body of the young man she had fought beside. The spear which pinned him to the ground was still lodged within him, and an expanding stain of wetness soaked his coat. He was still alive, his eyes glazed over with pain.

"Shinnosuke," she whispered fearfully, and buried her face in his chest. "Please don't die... Oh, Shinnosuke!"

Ranma's jaw dropped. After four days of searching for her, after saving her life not once, but _twice_ in those four days, the first thing she does is worry and cry over some strange guy from the forest?

"Akane..." she grunted, anger and stunning injury creeping into her voice.

Akane, her eyes spilling tears and her lip bleeding, turned up to face Ranma.

"We've got to help him, Ranma," she pleaded.

She could feel an icicle sinking into her heart. Akane... how? Why...?

The stench of the vaporized brigand that lingered in the air became overpowering to her, and she nearly retched where she stood.

"What's going on down there?" Ukyou asked over the radio.

"Better get down here," Ranma replied numbly. "We need a medevac."

"I'm sending Konatsu with an aidkit," she replied.

Ukyou Kuonji looked through her cockpit viewport at the extended hands of her battlemech as it tromped across the grassy plains of Ryuugenzawa. Cupped within them were Akane, Konatsu, and the injured young man. Konatsu was keeping an eye on his patient, while Akane hovered worriedly over the two of them. Ranma perched silently atop the head, and though the hatch was open, did not feel up to conversation with her.

She did not understand what was going on. The strange young man was obviously Akane's new-found companion, and she was certainly concerned for his well-being, despite Konatsu's assertion that the injury he had sustained was not immediately life-threatening. All she did know was that Ranma was acting like he had been crushed, and that Akane had done the crushing.

She didn't know what to make of that. On the one hand, any kind of relationship problems between Ranma and Akane were good news for her, and at the same time, seeing her beloved Ranchan so miserable made her wish that she could do something about it - even if it meant patching things up between them. Not that she would have made that option her first choice. As soon as she got the chance, she resolved to try and comfort him in her own special way.

"How much longer?" she heard Akane ask her with a shout.

She checked her map display. Lacking the codes to access the planet's GPS network, she could only rely on her Inertial Navigation System to fix her position, and that was subject to error. She was familiar with the present terrain, and confident that she was heading in the right direction to reach the _Palomino_, but not exactly sure how far away it was.

"Probably another forty-five minutes," she replied over the external speakers. "Why, is your friend's condition getting worse? I'm in radio range now. I can call for help." The two Ship's Boats from the stricken _Dragonfly_ had enough fuel remaining for short hops if necessary, and she wanted very much for this Shinnosuke fellow to remain among the living. Her future with Ranchan depended on it.

"There's no hurry, sir," Konatsu assured her, his voice losing some of its falsetto as he shouted to be heard.

It was actually closer to thirty minutes as they neared the perimeter treeline. The _Palomino_ was concealed beneath its netting and tarps, making it blend better with the surrounding forests. Genma Saotome's Griffin continued to provide external power, she noted - not a good sign. Ryouga's BattleMaster and Happousai's Locust were parked close by.

She keyed up the alert frequency the DropShip was using, and clicked her microphone switch.

"_Palomino_, Kuonji; I'm approaching the perimeter from the southwest. Request that Doctor Tofu and a medical emergency team be standing by when I get there."

"Copy that, Kunoji," one of the _Dragonfly_ crew replied.

As she slipped under the camouflage netting, she could see Doctor Tofu, the _Dragonfly_'s hospital corpsman, and two of the starship's cooks standing by with a stretcher. Genma, Captain Ninomiya, Ryouga, Yuka, and Sayuri were also present.

She came to halt, and knelt carefully to place her charges on the ground. Tofu and the others took them from her battlemech's hands, with Shinnosuke being placed on the stretcher. Doctor Tofu went to work immediately as Yuka and Sayuri exchanged tearful hugs with Akane.

"What happened?" Tofu asked as he listened to Konatsu give a report of treatment administered thus far.

"Never mind that, Doctor!" Akane cried. "Will he be all right?"

Tofu examined the wound, taking Shinnosuke's pulse as he did so. Shinnosuke was conscious, but suffering mildly from shock, his eyes dull and unfocused.

"I think he'll pull through," Tofu declared. "The wound looks more serious than it probably is, but I won't know for certain until I get him under the scanner."

Ukyou pulled herself through the hatch of the 'mech, watching Ranma as she watched the drama unfold below.

"You look like you could use a shower and something to eat," she observed.

Ranma bowed her head, her blue-grey eyes glinting with sharp lights of hurt and betrayal, but said nothing in reply.

Ukyou bit her lip, wishing she hadn't come across so flippant. She took her place by Ranma's side and put an arm around her. When Ranma eased out of her shell enough to lay her head against Ukyou's shoulder, she kissed Ranma's brow tenderly in reply. A month ago she could not have imagined being so intimate with another girl, but she had quickly come to learn that Ranchan was still Ranchan, even if he had boobs some of the time, and that her feelings for him had not changed.

"Come on, honey," she said in a quiet voice to Ranma. "Let's get cleaned up. After four days of being cooped up in a 'mech, you're not the only one who could use a shower. After that I'll see about making us some okonomiyaki." She gave Ranma a squeeze. "Though I shudder to think what we'll have in the way of fresh ingredients."

Ranma rose with a wordless nod. Shinnosuke had been carried into the DropShip, and most of the onlookers had followed. Only Genma and Ryouga remained behind, waiting for him to come down from the Hatchetman.

She pulled herself down from the head, when Ukyou had expected her beloved to leap. She followed after her. Genma Saotome stood across from his son, his arms folded across his chest.

"Good work, boy," he said to his son. "I knew that if anyone could save Akane's life, it was you."

Ranma gave a bitter half-hearted laugh, and shambled past her father without another word. Ukyou had nothing to say to him either, and caught up to Ranma on the bounce.

Ryouga was next, bowing slightly in gratitude. "Thank you, Ranma," he said evenly. "For saving Akane's life, I can't hold anything against you anymore."

"Heh," Ranma snorted. "Just wait, Ryouga. I'm sure you'll have something to hate me for very soon." She continued on, leaving Ukyou to make a helpless apologetic gesture in reply.

13 June 3025

"Has anyone seen Ranma lately?" Akane asked the people in the Crew's Mess.

"I saw him with Kuonji last night, ma'am," one of the _Dragonfly_'s engineering techs replied. "Last I saw of him."

"He missed chow this morning," his _Palomino_ counterpart added. "It's the first time I've seen that happen since the transit from Capra to the Jump Point."

Akane frowned. She remembered it clearly. He had been jealous and upset over her giving Ryouga a kiss on the cheek. Now what had gotten into him?

Another thought worried her. What was Ukyou's part in this?

"Thanks anyway," she offered. "If you do see him, could you tell him that I'm looking for him?"

"Will do, ma'am," the two replied.

As she left the compartment, she ran into Petty Officer Howard, who wore the gunbelt and carried the clipboard of the Roving Watch.

"Hi, Tad," she greeted him.

He smiled shyly. "Good morning, ma'am," he replied.

"Have you seen Ranma?"

"Captain Saotome?" he asked. "I saw him not too long ago, actually."

Akane brightened. "Really? Where is he?"

"I saw him in the dorsal transverse passageway while I was making my rounds," he replied. "Said something about getting a little fresh air. He's probably up on the hull."

"Thanks, Tad!" she cried, and headed for the stairs up to the Upper Deck.

She found him where Tad had suggested, sitting with his knees pulled up to his chin on the armored deck of the DropShip. The flutter of the camouflage netting just a few meters above them made a snapping sound in the breeze that offset the shrill noise of grinding tools and welding equipment from the engineering techs who worked on the hull damage below them on the starboard side.

He took note of her as she pulled herself through the dorsal airtight hatch to stand on top of the hull with him, but said nothing.

"I've been looking for you," she broached in a friendly voice.

"How's your friend?" he asked sullenly in return.

She was taken aback by his tone. "He'll be okay. Doctor Tofu says he should be up and around in a few days, actually."

"Well good," Ranma snorted. "I bet you're very happy about that."

Akane knew something was wrong with him, but couldn't for the life of her figure out what. His hostility was absolutely bewildering to her.

"Ranma, are you feeling okay?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" he growled. "After all, I only spent the last four friggin' days wandering through the forest; soaked to the bone, half-starved, and all beat up from falling four thousand meters through the air - most of it without the luxury of a working parachute - trying to find you."

She winced at this. "That's why I've been looking for you," she said to him. "I wanted to say thanks for what you did for me."

"You're welcome," he grunted, and turned back to watching the camouflage netting sway in the breeze.

She stood in fuming silence for a moment, watching him ignore her.

"Do you mind telling me what the hell is wrong with you, Ranma?"

"Nothing's wrong with me," he barked. "Does it look like there's something wrong?" he added, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Then why are you so angry with me?" she demanded. "Why have you been avoiding me ever since we returned to the ship?"

"Avoiding you?" Ranma snapped. "Get real. I've been on the ship the whole time. Where were you?"

Her jaw hung open. She was incensed with him, and yet found herself incapable of giving words to her ire.

"Lemme guess," he continued. "You spent the night in Sickbay."

She pursed her lips. "So what if I did?"

He shrugged. "It don't mean nothin' to me," he replied. "You do what you want. Isn't that how it's always been?"

Akane stood in silence for some time. She wanted to pound him for being such a jerk to her, but even if he deserved it, which he probably did, she knew it wouldn't help matters between them.

"Well, whatever I did that has you so pissed off at me, I'm sorry," she said to him. "Okay?"

He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "Whatever."

She huffed at him. "What is with you, Ranma?" There was a pleading edge to her voice that forced him to look at her. "I mean, we nearly died together five days ago. The next time we saw each other wasn't until yesterday - when I almost died once again - and now all you can do is treat me like dirt!" She started to reach out to him, then pulled her hand back to her lips apprehensively. "This really hurts me, you know."

The hard glint in his eyes wavered for just a moment before he spoke.

"What do you know about gettin' hurt?" he snarled. "You've had it easy your whole life. Money, power, respect, you've always had those things - never once had to work for 'em. Probably the only time in your entire existence when you didn't get your way was when you got stuck with me, and even then it ain't like it ever mattered. It sure as hell don't seem to matter now."

He held up something which glinted in the mid-morning sunlight. Akane saw that it was the silver and brass collar insignia of a Mechwarrior Captain of the Confederation, the only one she had been able to find on the _Dragonfly_ to give to him after he accepted his commission, and even that one had been a lucky find sitting in a dusty corner of the tiny ship's store.

"It looks like we ain't ever getting off this mudball," he went on, still fingering the collar insignia. "No chance of ever passing the paperwork on to higher authority, so what's the point?" He threw the collar device away, glittering in a slow arc as it fell to the grassy field far below them. "So we made it to Ryuugenzawa. Screw it. I resign anyway."

Akane was speechless. When she finally found her voice, it was tremulous and weak.

"I-I refuse to accept that," she said to him.

"Get used to disappointment," he returned. "Maybe you'll understand me better that way."

He sprang to his feet, startling her with his swiftness, and stepped past her to drop down the dorsal hatch.

She raced after him. "You swore an oath!" she cried.

"So what if I did?" he retorted from the bottom of the ladder.

"You didn't just swear it to the Confederation," she returned, her voice cracking with emotion. "You swore it to ME...!"

He looked up at her, his blue-grey eyes trembling.

"Let's get one thing straight between us. I didn't betray you, Akane," he said in a quiet voice that she somehow heard crystal clear over the din of the repairs. "You betrayed me..."

Nerima Confederation DropShip _Palomino_

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

The Magistracy of Canopus

14 June 3025

"What are you talking about?" Akane demanded. "How did I betray you?"

Ranma started walking away. "If you can't figure it out by yourself, then there ain't no point in me pulling teeth to explain it."

Akane jumped down the ladder to catch him.

"That's right, Ranma!" she challenged. "Just run away! It's what you're good at, isn't it?!"

He tossed her a casual wave, not even looking back.

"Coward!" she spat at him.

He froze up at her accusation, then turned slowly to face her.

"Says who," he grunted.

"I do," she retorted. "You might be brave on a battlefield, Ranma, but whenever something comes between us, all you ever do is run away. You don't have the guts to face me and answer a simple question."

The pained expression on his face told her that her barb had hit the mark. Would he keep running? she asked herself in that moment, wanting the jerk to show some spine, and fearing that he would disappoint her once again. She didn't want to chase him off, and yet she felt that he needed a good kick in the ego if he was ever going to grow up.

More than anything, she wanted to hear that she was important to him, that the reason he was so out of sorts was because he was hurting inside at something she had done or said. Even if she was the cause of it, at least it meant that he felt the same way about her as she felt about him. She wanted so badly for Ranma to love her that his hostility was tearing her apart.

"I just want you to be happy," he said at length.

Akane stiffened at his cryptic reply.

"How is resigning your commission supposed to make me happy?" she demanded. "Don't you realize how proud you've made me because you accepted it?"

His expression shifted from defiant to ashen-faced. Akane wanted an answer from him, but the words kept spilling from her lips.

"I don't know what I did or said to make you so angry with me, Ranma, but I apologized," she went on, her voice beginning to crack again. "Why can't you forgive me?"

Ranma looked away.

"You wouldn't understand," he muttered.

"Explain it to me!" she pleaded. "I'll listen!"

"No!" he shouted, anger seeping back into his voice. "I can't explain! It ain't that easy! It's better if you just forget it, all right?!"

She took a step back from him, edging against the cold steel ladder that led up through the dorsal hatch.

"It's not all right, Ranma," she said quietly, her eyes fixed at her feet. "And I can't just forget it. All I want is a simple answer. You say I've betrayed you. Then you say that you just want me to be happy. You say all these things, and yet nothing else you've done or said since we returned to the _Palomino_ has made any sense to me."

"There ain't any simple answers!" he retorted, his voice beginning to crack as well. "_I_ don't even understand all this, so how can I explain it to you?!"

"You could start by talking to me instead of shouting!" she riposted, her pensive demeanor flashing into outrage. Her hands balled up into fists as she started towards him.

Ranma stood his ground. How the hell was he supposed to explain anything to her when he didn't understand how he felt?! Six months ago everything had been so simple in his life. It was true that he was broke, Dispossessed, and a fugitive from the Jusenkyo Commonwealth, but at least then he knew where everything stood.

The moment Akane had been forced upon him, all that had changed. What little comforting certainty in his life had been turned upside down, and for what? He had a fiancee that didn't want to marry him, a responsibility to her that never seemed to end, and a host of enemies because of it. For what? he asked himself again.

He had risked his life for her over and over.

He had killed for her.

That was part of his turmoil, he knew. As a mechwarrior in an age of constant war, death was an unavoidable part of the job, one that he had been taught to accept. Before losing the family 'mech, he had racked up four victories against aerospace fighters, and only one of those pilots had bailed out. He had destroyed two battlemechs, with neither mechwarrior opting for survival if it meant joining the ranks of the Dispossessed. He could accept that they had chosen to stay and die with their crippled battlemechs - that was their decision, not his. He could accept that fate had ended a pilot's life with the sudden brilliance of an exploding fuel cell, or an ammunition explosion, or that one unlucky beam that penetrated the cockpit armor. They had chosen to play the dangerous game of mechanized warfare, and they had known the risks.

As a martial artist, however, he had a responsibility to limit his use of force to the minimum of what was necessary to resolve a conflict. The ascending ladder of force ingrained into him as a youth: take no violent action when peaceful means were available; fight to contain rather than injure; injure rather maim; maim rather than kill; and take a life only when no other response was effective or prudent - these tenets had existed in an uneasy cohabitation with the reality of combat using giant war machines and weapons that could not be recalled once released.

That same uneasy cohabitation in which he had lived his life came apart the moment he had seen Akane beaten with the butt of a rifle. The homicidal impulses that had flowed within him had been no blind fury, but a cold and very personal hatred. Though there was no conscious debate over the matter as he rushed down the hill, he had come immediately to an inescapable moral certainty that those men did not deserve to exist for what they had done to Akane.

Now he had three more lives called to their accounts because of him, and all for a girl who had thrown herself at some other guy the moment the dust had settled. Six months ago, he wouldn't have cared, but now...

He froze up as Akane approached him. He couldn't say that he didn't care anymore. He might deny it to her, but he couldn't deny it to himself. If she was bossy, hot-tempered, and unfeminine at times, she was also the closest thing he ever had to a friend. Not even Ryouga, with his on-again off-again rivalry, had come close to being the friend that Akane was. She mattered to him; her happiness and well being had become the most important things in his life - and she had rejected him and everything he had ever done for her sake over some clown she had known for what, four days?

He had every right to be angry with her. The betrayal was hers, not his, and as for his oath, what good was it when given to a person who had so heartlessly cut down the trust that had grown up between them?

Akane was uncomfortably close to him now, her eyes boring into him as she looked up at him. It was easy to stew over what she had done to him, but explain it to her? He couldn't even explain to himself why he let it hurt him so much!

Doctor Tofu had admonished him to be honest with his feelings, first to himself and then to Akane, but that was easier said than done. Even if he understood his feelings for her, what kind of idiot would set himself up to get slammed like that? Akane had chosen, and it hadn't been him. What he felt didn't matter any more.

It didn't matter, he realized. That made what he had to say a little easier.

"It's like I told you," he began. "I just want you to be happy. If this Shinnosuke guy makes you happy, then I can live with that. Just don't ask me to like it."

Akane was dumbfounded for a moment.

"W-What are you saying, Ranma?" she asked him.

Ranma rubbed the back of his neck anxiously. "I'm just saying that if you want me to, I'll step aside." He closed his eyes, not daring to look at her. "If he means that much to you, I won't get in the way. We've still got a lot of work to do here if we want to survive, so it ain't like I'm leaving again. I just can't be your Lance Commander anymore."

A long silence passed between them before Akane spoke.

"I can't believe you're saying this, Ranma. Do you really mean it?"

He bit down on his lip, his eyes cast to the deck.

"Yeah."

Another silence passed between them.

"You are a complete idiot," she said to him tonelessly.

Ranma bristled, the rollercoaster of emotions he was on lurching from total surrender to attack.

"Whatever," he growled back. "Maybe I should go find Ukyou. What do you care, right?"

Akane stabbed a finger into his chest. "Do you really think that I'm in love with Shinnosuke after everything that we've been through together?!" She shouted this at him, at last understanding what was bothering Ranma, and furious that he would think so little of their friendship to come up with something so stupid.

"It sure as hell looks that way," he shot back, leaning into her stabbing finger to practically yell it in her face.

"That's impossible!" she cried angrily, thrusting her face right back in his.

"Oh yeah!?" he roared, his eyes just centimeters from hers. "Tell me why it's so goddammned impossible!"

She shoved him away with both hands, slamming him roughly into the opposite bulkhead. "Because, you moron! The only guy I happen to be in love with is YOU!"

Ranma could only stare slack-jawed at her as he slid down the bulkhead to the deck.

"Akane - y-you... you love me?"

She whirled away from him, her face flushed and her breathing coming in huffs. "Don't ask me why," she added, her voice full of heartache. "Because I should probably have my head examined for feeling this way." She trembled with emotion, her fists shaking at her side. After some moments of this, in which Ranma remained immobile and silent on the deck, she turned her head to look over her shoulder at him. "Damn you, Ranma Saotome! You are the only man in the universe who could make the way I feel about you come out like an indictment!"

Ranma watched her storm off down the passageway, but did not try to stop her for the simple expedient of his brain having seized.

Genma Saotome observed his son down on all fours, searching through the grass surrounding the DropShip for something he had apparently lost.

"What do you think you're doing, boy?" he asked gruffly. "There are a hundred more important things you could be doing right now than this."

Ranma glanced up at his father with a look that could have frozen helium.

"I dropped something," he grunted. "Gonna make something of it, old man?"

Genma blinked in surprise. "Tell me you didn't start wearing contact lenses without informing me about it, boy," he growled. "I knew it was a crap shoot that you inherit your mother's sharp eyes instead of my lousy nearsighted ones, but you can't be going blind on me now!"

Ranma returned to his search. "Yeah well, don't sweat it. I ain't looking for a contact lens."

Deciding that it was not worth his trouble to press the matter, Genma shambled off, leaving his son to continue what he was doing.

Ranma watched his father go. He felt his defensive anger subsiding as he returned to his task, replaced with a feeling of anxiety brought on by his disastrous encounter with Akane. They had been in fights before, but this one had ended in a way that none of the others ever had. For one thing, he had never felt like such a heel as he did at that moment.

He was in uncharted waters now, and all because of a confession that he had never imagined Akane would make to him. He tried to come to grips with the simple, elegant fact before him, and found it anything but simple or elegant.

Akane loved him.

A tingle of pride ran through him at the thought - pride and something more. Yuka and Sayuri had been the first to point out Akane's true feelings for him, but at the time there seemed to be little evidence to back up their claims. Now, having heard it firsthand from Akane, he could no longer deny the matter to himself.

He honestly did not know what to do about that. Love was something that had always been an abstract to him, something that other people felt. His life as an itinerant mercenary had little room for love, and in traveling exclusively with his father for almost the entirety of his life, he had never been able to assimilate the reality of love between two people the way almost everyone else did: by observing and emulating their parents. He could not even remember what his mother looked like most of the time, so how was he supposed to remember how she and Pop lived together?

He marked it as yet one more failing in his father's attempt to raise him. What were you supposed to do when someone was in love with you? More importantly, how were you to know if you felt the same way?

He suspected that he did. There was nothing conclusive about the matter, no heavenly chorus singing hosannas from on high, just a funny feeling deep inside him that he felt the same way about Akane as she did for him.

For one thing, he had never put someone's happiness ahead of his own the way he had Akane's. He hadn't been kidding around when he said he would step aside and let Shinnosuke have her - if that was what Akane wanted. The thought of letting her go like that hurt; hurt more than he imagined it was possible for a thought to hurt, but he was willing to do it for her.

For another, he had never risked his life so carelessly for another person before he met Akane. He was no stranger to peril, and a soldier protected his buddies, but looking back on the things he had done for her made him wonder if his head needed examining. Sane people did not take on trained assassins unarmed, insult the de facto warlord of the Furinkan Combine to his face, sneak into Goddess Empress Azusa's Collection of Cute, or drive their battlemechs to fiery oblivion to save a person's life.

For that matter, what was a normal person doing on his hands and knees, scrabbling through the grass looking for a worthless piece of metal he had just thrown away? - Now THAT was an epiphany, one that made his head swim as he searched vainly through the grass.

Was love really a form of insanity? he wondered. Do I really love Akane, or am I just plain nuts?

The truth was that he didn't know the answer to that question. If the question had been put to him another way, such as which was worse; being in love with Akane Tendo, or being absolutely bonkers, he still wouldn't have an answer, and wouldn't be entirely convinced that being in love with Akane didn't automatically mean that he was bonkers.

He halted his search for a moment at another striking thought. If being in love with Akane was really just another way of saying that he was nuttier than a fruitcake, was being crazy really so bad? He had to admit to himself that even a smile from her made him feel lightheaded sometimes. To get a hug from her was practically overwhelming. A kiss... He started to break out in a sweat. Kissing her was... well... he didn't have words for that.

He wanted to feel that way again with her though, and if he didn't find that lousy collar device, he was going to blow it for good. One thing was for certain at this juncture in his exploration into the nature of love, and that was that love made people do damn-stupid things.

"I've _gotta_ be nuts for doing this," he grumbled aloud.

"You'll get no argument from me," Ryouga said suddenly from behind him.

Ranma turned his head to see Ryouga standing there, watching him root around in the grass.

"Don't ask," he said to the fanged mechwarrior.

Ryouga folded his arms across his chest. "Ask about what?" he returned. "The fact that you're crawling around in the grass when there's work to be done?"

Ranma's guarded expression soured considerably at this. "Don't get me started, Ryouga. This is important."

Ryouga returned the look he was getting from Ranma. "If you say so. I was just coming over to see if I could help."

"Ha! Don't make me laugh. I don't need to go looking for you as well. With your sense of direction, you'd get lost and wander off in no time."

Ryouga narrowed his eyes at his rival. "Fine, Ranma." He brandished a shiny piece of silver and brass between his fingers. "I guess you won't be needing this..."

"Ryouga!" Ranma gushed. "Buddy! Pal! Old friend! Not so fast, man! I was just kidding!"

The fanged mechwarrior snorted something under his breath and started to leave.

"Hey, Ryouga!" Ranma cried in a pleading voice. "I apologize already! Don't go, man!"

Ryouga Hibiki remained where he was for the moment, clearly enjoying Ranma's grovelling. He tossed the collar device into the air absently, and caught it with a similar ennui.

"I was going to ask you how you lost it," he said finally.

"Maybe I should ask how you found it," Ranma returned.

Ryouga shrugged again. "I was helping with the repairs along the starboard side of the hull when I saw it fall out of the sky. At first I thought you had simply dropped it."

Ranma remained silent, allowing Ryouga to continue.

"I just ran into Akane a few minutes ago, and she was upset, Ranma." His eyes bored into his rival. "Usually when she gets upset, I don't have to look any farther than you for the cause of it."

Ranma continued to remain silent, though the guilty look on his face spoke volumes.

"That's when I realized that you hadn't dropped it," Ryouga went on, the tone of his voice taking a harder edge. "You had thrown it away."

"It was a mistake, Ryouga," Ranma returned. "Can't you see that's why I'm here, looking for the damn thing?"

Ryouga nodded slowly. "That's what I thought," he agreed. "That's why I came to return it to you." He clenched the insignia in his fist. "At first, I was coming to ram it down your throat."

Ranma stood up, ready for Ryouga to do just that.

"I want an honest answer from you, Ranma," he said in a low voice.

"And you'll give my collar device back to me?" Ranma countered.

"That depends on your answer. Will you tell me the truth when I ask?"

Ranma looked away for a moment.

"Lay it on me, Ryouga."

Ryouga crossed his arms at his chest. "I want to know if you really care about Akane," he said, a question that did not surprise Ranma in light of recent events. "I want to know if you love her the way that she loves you."

Ranma stiffened.

"The truth?" he squeaked.

"The truth," Ryouga said tersely. "Don't lie to me, Ranma. That's all I ask."

Ranma stood silent for some time.

"The truth... is that I don't know."

Ryouga's eyes crossed in a fury. "You call that the truth!?" he yelled. "Do you or don't you love her!?"

"I said I don't know!" Ranma protested. "That's the goddamned truth!" He threw up his hands and started pacing and gesticulating in front of Ryouga. "You wanna ask me if I care about her - yeah! You wanna ask me if I want her to be happy - yeah! You wanna ask me if I'd die to protect her - hell yeah! You wanna ask me if I think she's the best thing that could have ever happened to me - I'll even say 'yeah' to that!" He stopped cold, turning slowly to look at his rival. "But ask me if I love her? Man, I don't even know what that really means..."

He stood there for a moment, panting and trembling as he exhausted himself with his struggle to define his feelings.

Ryouga nodded gravely and reached out to drop the collar device into Ranma's hand.

"You get off this time," he said quietly. "But consider yourself on notice, Ranma: you treat her right, or there'll be hell to pay."

"She's my fiancee, Ryouga," Ranma growled, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and lifting him up onto his toes. Ryouga glared down at him, his body taut, but did not resist.

"She _is_ your fiancee, Ranma," he agreed gruffly. "I accept that. That's why I'm going to make sure that you don't hurt her like that again. Akane doesn't deserve someone like that, so you're going to have to earn her love every step of the way."

Ryouga's declaration took the fire out of Ranma, and he let his rival down and released him. Ryouga brushed at his tunic absently, seemingly unfazed by what had gone between them.

"I'm in love with Akari," he said to Ranma. "She's made me happier in the last few months than I've felt in my entire life, and I'd never give that up. But Akane will always have a special place in my heart, and I won't let you or anyone else hurt her."

Ranma nodded wearily. He had come to learn just how closely tied Akane's happiness and well-being was to his own. Hurting her had only ever ended up hurting him as well. He didn't need Ryouga to tell him that.

"Not that anyone listens to me," Doctor Tofu Ono complained lightly. "But you shouldn't aggravate your wounds by moving around too much."

Shinnosuke sat up in the single bed that served Sickbay. His arm was wrapped in a sling, and a bandage oozed blood and other fluids from the wound in his shoulder. His clothes had been set aside for laundering, leaving him clad only in a pair of olive drab shorts on loan from one of the DropShip's crew.

"I'm a little sore in places, but otherwise I'm fine," he insisted. "I need to contact my grandfather. I can't just lie in bed for two more days."

Tofu shook his head. "You'll fit in just fine around here," he lamented, thinking about Ranma and Ryouga as he did so.

Akane stepped through the open door from the passageway, prompting both men to look up at her. She seemed more than tired or out-of-sorts. She seemed emotionally beaten.

"What is it, Akane?" Shinnosuke asked her.

"Are you feeling well?" Tofu added.

She nodded absently, taking the only available chair without a word. The two remained silent while she composed herself to speak.

"I'm okay," she said finally. "Ranma and I just had another fight. I've been walking around for the last thirty minutes trying to clear my head, and I thought I'd stop by in here to say hello."

"Ranma?" Shinnosuke asked. "That girl who came to our aid in the forest?"

"The same," Akane replied, knowing that the issue of Ranma's gender-switching curse was bound to come up sooner or later, and unwilling to get into the matter right away to explain it.

"I owe her a great deal," Shinnosuke observed. "I owe all of your friends for what you've done for me."

"Think nothing of it," Tofu returned.

Shinnosuke looked around him, proud of the fact that he was sitting inside a spaceship. It didn't matter to him that at the moment, the _Palomino_ wasn't capable of going anywhere, it was a spaceship, and its crew were people from other worlds. To a young man with hopeless dreams of the stars, it was a miracle.

His eyes fell upon Akane again, and his buoyant mood was dispelled. She and Ranma must have been good friends to let a fight get to her like that.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Akane?" he heard Tofu ask her, and winced at not being the first one to say something like that.

She cast Tofu a despairing look. "I don't think so, Doctor Tofu," she replied. "Not this time."

"Maybe you need to get away for a little while," Shinnosuke suggested. "I was just about to return to my grandfather's house and -"

"Oh no you don't!" Tofu admonished. "Your shoulder is bad enough, but I don't want you walking for a hundred or so kilometers on that wounded leg."

"I agree, Shinnosuke," Akane added. "You're in no condition to travel."

Shinnosuke was about to protest this when a voice addressed them from the door.

"He doesn't need to do much walking," Ranma said coolly. "With your permission, Pop and I can fly the four of us there in the Boomerangs. That is, if you want to come along, Akane."

Akane looked up at Ranma standing in the doorway to the Sickbay, and instinctively prepared for another round of verbal brawling. At first she didn't know what to make of him, or his curious offer. Then, as he stood uncomfortably in the doorway, she realized why he was really there. It was the glint of silver and brass at his neck. Pinned to his ubiquitous red mandarin blouse was the collar insignia he had thrown away. His expression was outwardly aloof, but she could see the apprehension that lurked behind his blue-grey eyes.

The tension and heartache within her melted away, replaced with a tremendous upwelling of love. She could forgive him a hundred times over for not apologizing to her directly, for in their time together she had come to understand that his pride would only allow him to show so much humility, and certainly not in front of other people. The sight of the collar device glittering on his blouse was all the apology she needed.

She closed her eyes, nearly overcome with emotion, but determined not to make a scene. Ranma had made it clear with his unspoken apology that he was hers, personally as well as professionally, and that as far as he was concerned, the fight that had taken place atop the _Palomino_ had never happened. It was a sentiment that she agreed with whole-heartedly, and the regret and anxiety she had felt after confessing her love to him evaporated.

She opened her eyes and favored him with a sly and knowing smile that told him that she knew exactly why he had come to see her in Sickbay, and that he was forgiven for everything.

"That would be fine, Captain Saotome," she added warmly, just in case the dope hadn't read her loving look the way he was supposed to. His faint blush in return made her feel lighter than air. "I'll leave all of the arrangements to you."

He straightened up and tossed her a jaunty salute. "Assuming Pop decides not to go, I can get Sayuri or Yuka to fly the other plane. We can be ready to go in two hours."

With that, he ducked out of sight, the sound of his slippers padding on the linoleum deck matting fading into the indistinct buzz and hum of the repair work.

"I guess things are better between you and Ranma now," Tofu observed dryly.

Akane was too happy to notice the concerned look from Shinnosuke.

NCWS _Tautog_

Ryuugenzawa System Zenith Jump Point

Ryuugenzawa System, the Magistracy of Canopus

14 June 3025

Nodoka Saotome floated weightlessly within the confines of _Tautog_'s Bridge, watching over the shoulders of the three techs and their supervisor manning the ship's sensors. The three men and their female supervisor studied their displays with silent intensity, sifting through mountains of visual data for anything that might be of importance to the ship's mission. To an untrained eye such as Nodoka's, there seemed to be little difference between one pixel of colored light and another; it was inconceivable that she even try to interpret the polychromatic muddle on the host of gas plasma displays that dominated the Sensory station.

"What are they doing?" she asked the supervisor.

The middle-aged Chief Petty Officer looked up from her own panel to answer the question. Nodoka was a personal friend of the Grand Duke, and while His Grace was standing on the conn discussing matters with the skipper and Captain Hauptmann, it fell to her to keep the woman occupied. She didn't resent having to do it, but she did think it was an indulgence best enjoyed when their situation wasn't so precarious.

"All three of my techs are monitoring important sections of the electromagnetic spectrum through our passive arrays. Cheng listens to the high frequency radio and microwave bands for any signs of communications, automated telemetry equipment, or radar use; Phelps watches the infrared and visible light bands for an active maneuver drive, or, if we're lucky, the glint of sunlight off a distant ship hull; and Nomura looks after the X-ray and low-energy gamma frequencies that would be emitted from plasma ejected by a maneuver drive that might be too distant for Phelps to notice effectively at his end of the spectrum."

Nodoka absorbed this in silence. While she had no experience in such matters, it was all so fascinating. She felt in some way closer to her husband and son by exposing herself to their world.

"So you're depending on data coming in from space in order to know what's around us," she remarked.

"That's right," the Chief agreed. "We don't want to give away our position by using our radar. So we 'listen' on the passive EMS arrays and scan our telescopes for close visual contacts."

Nodoka pointed to the particularly busy display of the IR-VIS bands monitored by Petty Officer Phelps.

"And you can tell what all that color means?" she asked him.

"It's not that hard," Phelps answered her. "I learned this board sitting on my dad's knee when I was thirteen."

"I see," she replied, not quite certain if she should approve. "You bring children aboard?"

"On training runs," the Chief answered quickly. "This ship and all the other corvettes in the squadron are manned by the descendents of the original crews from the end of the Star League. We're all family here, and unless we have an aptitude for something else, we usually learn the jobs our parents did. I sat in one of those chairs with my parents when I was thirteen. Both my mother and father were Sensor Techs - from different ships, mind you - so it was pretty obvious what I was going to do when I was old enough to sign up with the Navy."

Nodoka nodded, seeing the wisdom of it. She felt that she now understood something of Captain Hauptmann's motivations as well, for he had undertaken the assignment of bringing Akane home with the hope that she would rescind the order to scrap his ship out of gratitude for his service.

It was one thing when a vessel was assigned to you by the government, and quite another when you grew up on that ship, the ship at least one of your parents had called home, and their parents and grandparents before them. Though the _Tang_ technically belonged to the Nerima Confederation, it really belonged to the dozens of families that had scrupulously cared for it over the last two hundred years, men and women who were losing their heritage and their legacy to a decision implemented by a cold, impersonal bureaucracy for the simple expedient of saving money.

Hauptmann was risking his life for a chance to save his ship.

She turned her head to see him conferring with Soun, Kasumi, and the commander of the _Tautog_, Captain Olivera. She did not know the details of their discussion, but she was certain that it had much to do with the fact that the _Dragonfly_ was not at the Jump Point when they arrived in the system.

Soun Tendo studied the small holotank representation of the system at the conn with a deep frown. The JumpShip carrying his daughter and the rest of the expedition was not at the Jump Point. Since they were unsure if they had actually beaten the Furinkan Combine fleet to Ryuugenzawa, they were reluctant to probe deeper into the system with their radar for a sign of them.

"I don't think we have any choice but to proceed deeper in-system," Hauptmann remarked.

Olivera grunted thoughtfully, then sipped from his sealed mug of coffee through a straw that was deeply stained with use.

"I concur, but I'm also concerned about the level of solar activity this system's primary is putting out. Once we drop down into the ecliptic plane, the interference will make it difficult for us to spot anything with our passive sensors."

"That could work in our favor," Kasumi returned. "If the Combine fleet _has_ arrived before us, they would have a hard time detecting us as we approached."

"I'd like to wait until we get a good-sized solar flare, one nice and heavy with particles," Olivera said after another thoughtful sip. "We could slip in behind it and ride it out from the sun."

"That shouldn't be too difficult to accomidate," the Astrogator said, handing Olivera a report. "Based on my observations, that neutron star companion should be swinging back around the primary to face the planet as we speak. It'll kick up a few good blasts of matter and energy as it continues its orbit."

"Dear me," Nodoka remarked as the three sensory stations began to light up in one quadrant. Whatever had happened, it had stirred up a great deal of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum.

The supervisor gave them a cursory inspection, satisfied with what was happening, and reaching for her intercom mic.

"Conn, Sensory; Detecting intense solar activity at this time. Estimated particle density reaching our position will be low."

Olivera watched the solar flare form on his sensory repeater display. It was a monster all right, full of alpha particles and free hydrogen that would smash into Ryuugenzawa's protective magnetic fields like a runaway train. It would be invisible to the naked eye by the time it reached the planet, but not to the instruments of any hostile elements that might be waiting for them. To hostile sensors, it would be almost opaque, and with the _Tautog_'s hull stealthing and emission control measures in place, they would be well hidden. Though it was moving at a speed much faster than the _Tautog_ could hope to reach in such a short time, once they dipped down into the ecliptic plane, nothing within that plane ahead of the flare could hope to see them, and there would be more flares to come that would overtake and screen them.

"Sensory, Conn; aye," he replied over the intercom. "Sensory, Conn; start a track on that flare." He looked to the Astrogator. "Plot a course that'll put us behind it with a minimum of acceleration and still let us remain covered out to the planet."

The Astrogator nodded. "Aye, sir. That shouldn't take but a minute."

He went back to his station as data from Sensory flooded in. A few prompts to the Astrogation Computer brought forth a solution to the problem.

"Conn, Astrogation; new course ready for execution. Recommend thrust at Ahead Standard for one-one hundred minutes; course change to two-seven-six, minus one-five. Closest point of approach will be bearing zero-zero-one, plus zero, at five hundred-thousand kilometers, in seven-point-seven-five hours. Estimated time to the planet, six-four-point-two hours."

Olivera jotted this down in grease pencil on the conn's writing surface.

"Astrogation, Conn; aye..." He looked to Grand Duke Tendo. "With your permission, your Grace, I'd like to proceed to the planet."

Soun nodded while stroking at his mustache. "Proceed, Captain."

Captain Olivera inclined his head towards his Officer of the Deck, who would give the actual order. The OOD cleared his throat and called to his Helmsman.

"Helm, All Ahead Standard; twenty degrees left yaw, one-five degrees negative pitch."

"All Ahead Standard; twenty degrees left yaw, one-five degrees negative pitch, Helm, aye." The Helmsman entered the data into his log and took over control of the corvette from the computer. The main engines began to fire, their thrust minimal at first, but ramping up gradually to one-gee. "Officer of the Deck, Maneuvering answers All Ahead Standard."

"Very well, Helm."

Nodoka watched the interplay between the conn and the helm, oblivious to what was about to happen. As the rest of the crew reached for handholds, she realized that something was up.

"Ma'am," the Sensor Supervisor called to her. "You might want to hold onto something for a minute or two."

"Oh?" she asked, noting that the distant scream of the main engines was also dispelling the condition of free fall about her. She reached for a handhold on the ceiling, steadying herself as the deck actually became 'down' for her. After weeks of free fall and less than normal gravity on the Grav Deck, one-gee felt oppressive to her.

Her discomfort was tempered by the thought that the ship was bringing her closer to her son.

Musk Dynasty JumpShip _Invictus_

Approaching the planet Ryuugenzawa

Ryuugenzawa System, the Magistracy of Canopus

14 June 3025

Mechwarrior General Herb watched the planet Ryuugenzawa through the telescope displays on the Bridge as the crew carried out their duties around him. He was in the fabled Ryuugenzawa System, three days away from claiming the technological riches that would catapult him to dominance over the Jusenkyo Commonwealth, and by extension, the Inner Sphere itself. The pitiful force of the Nerima Confederation described by Colonel Mousse could not hope to resist him.

In fact, his only concern lay in the intense solar storms that raged from the Ryuugenzawa primary. The streams of particles and radiation unleashed from the tortured G-type star by its neutron star companion wreaked havoc with the sensors and communications gear of his fleet, making it difficult to survey the planet and its surroundings for a sign of the Confederation JumpShip. Telescopes were the only devices not rendered useless for the moment, and detecting relatively tiny objects with them was a time consuming and uncertain process.

As he pondered these matters, one of the ship's officers approached him. The man was a hybrid like himself; the feline features of a jaguar were most prominent in his yellow eyes and his lean and graceful body.

"General Herb," the officer began. "We are detecting some unusual signals both from the planet and from a position ten light-seconds off our starboard beam."

Herb raised an eyebrow at this.

"What are the nature of these signals?"

"The signals from the planet are not conclusively from the surface, but most likely from sources in orbit around the planet. We have detected at least one large man-made object in a lunar polar orbit as well, though we are unable to classify it at this time with only telescopes."

Herb considered this. "A space station?"

The officer shrugged. "Unknown, General. We have detected what appears to be a space station in geosynchronous orbit above the planet, along with what appears to be a recharge facility and some lesser satellites. We have received weak signals from some of these objects, but these signals appear to be nothing more than automated data exchange and positioning system markers."

"I see," Herb replied. "Nothing to indicate that someone has detected us and is trying to communicate, then."

"No sir."

Herb's reptilian eyes flicked to the holotank, where a hazy shimmer of blue represented the unknown signals in space to starboard.

"What about the other set of signals?" he demanded.

"It's troubling, General. Every time we train our arrays away from the planet, the interference from solar radiation plays havoc with our sensors. Nevertheless, we are detecting what might be radar sweeps, as well as fragments of communications possibly following Furinkan Combine protocols."

Herb's blood pressure rose a notch. "Possibly?" he asked incredulously. "Possibly isn't good enough, lieutenant! I want answers immediately, if not sooner. Dispatch a GunShip with long range fighter escort to investigate!"

The officer saluted hastily, and floated away with all haste to carry out his orders.

Herb took a deep breath and thought hard about what he had been told. How had the Furinkan Combine known about this place?

He snapped his fingers as the answer came to him. The Confederation must have transmitted the coordinates of the system back to Capella, and that treacherous Tendo regent, Nabiki, must have given them to Prince Kuno as part of the surrender deal. That was terrible news, for if the Furinkan Combine under the prince had come to Ryuugenzawa, then he would have his entire fleet with him, including the dreaded battleship, _Imperator_.

Possessing only a pair of broken down Star League-era destroyers in his own fleet to face the Combine, he had one chance to win, he realized. He had to launch an immediate and all-out attack against the Combine fleet with his forces while the solar storms made detection efforts difficult. The _Imperator_, having engaged in open battle against the League of Five Nails during the battle for Capra, was technically fair game as a target, but that wouldn't have mattered to him. Every JumpShip in the Combine fleet had to be destroyed if he was to take possession of the Ryuugenzawa System for the Musk Dynasty.

"Belay that order!" he yelled to the officer. "Convene a meeting of all my senior staff officers in the Wardroom immediately."

He had an attack to plan, and little time in which to do it.

Black Rose Terror Regiment Flagship

Approaching the planet Ryuugenzawa

Ryuugenzawa System, the Magistracy of Canopus

14 June 3025

Kodachi Kuno cast her heavy-lidded gaze upon the sleeping form of her lover, who curled up cozily by her side, his head settled in her lap. Pansuto Tarou was an exquisite specimen of manhood, with a lean, sculpted body that begged to be undressed, caressed, and possessed. More tempting to her than his body though, was his essence, for he was in fact closer to her own secret soul than she had imagined possible in a man.

He was arrogant, true, but she found his haughty and condescending demeanor compelling. She was not accustomed to such behavior from her servants and troops - would not suffer it from the rabble - but coming from him it seemed to beg her indulgence. She enjoyed the company of a man who held himself so high over others, and unlike her fulminating brother, Tachi, Pansuto Tarou comported himself in such a manner as to suggest that he had nothing to prove in his superiority.

He was also possessed of a moral flexibility that she approved of, unpretentiously adopting that Nietzchean tenet that established the superior class as being above such petty restraints. He was a man of powerful ambition and surpassing appetite, and it did not matter to him if someone got hurt in the process of fulfilling both these desires.

Tarou was also a hedonist of the first rank, though she had to draw that part of his nature out of him one sweaty and feverish coupling at a time. She sought to refine him now, and suitably encouraged by their consuming passions, found him an apt pupil in the arts of pleasure seeking. That his personal tastes mirrored closely those of her own made the task as simple as it was personally fulfilling.

The door chime sounded as she lay in bed, dispelling her sense of contentment.

"What is it, Sasuke?" she asked with mock sweetness over the intercom.

"Mistress, Captain Hayton wishes to report that we are ready to cast off all DropShips," Sasuke replied.

Kodachi stroked Tarou's brow as her ninja manservant spoke. She had decided to leave for the planet Ryuugenzawa ahead of her two JumpShips in order to maximize the amount of time she would have to search for Akane Tendo. The DropShips with their greater thrust potentials could reach the planet far sooner on their own than they could be carried by the JumpShips, and she needed every hour gained if she wanted to ensure that she could find and kill the horrid Tendo girl before Tachi arrived.

Her personal DropShip _Thorn_, was already outfitted for the trip. All she and her handsome lover needed to do was transfer themselves over from the regimental flagship.

"Very well, Sasuke," she said coolly. "What news of the system?"

There was a pause while her ninja formulated an answer.

"We continue to search in vain for the Confederation JumpShip, Mistress," he began. "But with the solar flares and subsequent radiation emmissions, it hasn't been easy."

"No excuses, Sasuke," she retorted. "Tell Hayton and his crew that I expect results."

"Of course, Mistress," the ninja demurred.

"That will be all, Sasuke. We shall transfer to the _Thorn_ within the hour." She cut out the intercom before he could acknowledge, and leaned forward to nibble on Tarou's ear.

"Wake, my lover," she said in a low voice.

"I heard," Tarou grunted, turning his head to face her. His look of disdain never failed to make her hot under the collar, but she restrained herself this time. He could only be expected to perform so many times in a day, after all, and she wanted him to be fresh later, after dinner.

She furrowed her brow and gave him a mock expression of disapproval. "Eavesdropping, were we?" she teased.

"Enough to know that they haven't found the _Dragonfly_," he replied.

"Does that fact upset you?"

He sat up and stretched. "You're the one who's interested in killing Akane Tendo," he said flatly. "Not me."

"I see," she returned with a pout. "You have no interest in making me happy, then?"

"I don't care one way or the other if the Tendo girl lives or dies," he replied, scratching at his chest and slipping off the pair of pantyhose draped over his shoulder. "If you desire it, then so be it."

"How sweet of you," she said in a droll voice. "And what do _you_ desire, my lover?"

Tarou stretched out once more, popping his ribs and his back. "I want what's hidden on Ryuugenzawa. You know that, as you know the reasons why I want it."

"Ah yes," Kodachi chuckled. "Your dreams of destroying the Amazons and the Cult of Azusa. Both are worthy pursuits, lover. I shall enjoy assisting you in both of these endeavors."

He drew her face to his, kissing her deeply before releasing her. "You realize that in order to kill the Tendo girl, you must first kill Ranma Saotome. He'll never let you harm a hair on her head without a fight."

She stiffened. Sasuke had been spreading his poison directly to her beloved, apparently. All the more reason to be rid of him, and soon.

"He was a passing fancy of mine," she returned evenly. She was consumed with Tarou now - Ranma Saotome was but a footnote in her memory. He was handsome and gallant, but in their many conversations, Tarou had made it clear where the pig-tailed mechwarrior stood in his devotions, and that was firmly by the side of Akane Tendo. Though she thought it was a waste, he would have to die if he dared to prevent her from having her revenge on the Tendo witch. "He was nothing more than a fever dream brought on by my injuries on Capra, anyway."

Caretaker's Residence,

Test Region Four-North

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

14 June 3025

It took almost an hour to find the house once they reached the general location, since Shinnosuke had no experience in navigating by air. The Boomerang carrying him was piloted by Sayuri, as Genma had declined to no one's surprise. Ranma made certain that the person occupying his right-hand seat was none other than Akane.

The flight with her had been a quiet one. Both of them seemed content with the other's company, and neither had felt the need to discuss what had passed between them that morning. He certainly didn't want to be reminded of what an idiot he had been.

As something of a peace offering, he had let Akane keep control over the tiny plane for most of the flight. Given the simple nature of flying a steady course, it was no real challenge for her, but she seemed to appreciate his gesture a great deal anyway.

"I think I see a place where we can set down," Sayuri said abruptly over the commo.

Ranma watched her make a gentle aileron roll and turn toward a low hill shrouded in trees. He spied the clearing a moment later as he followed her in. It was a small field, but the Boomerangs' short take-off and landing requirements would serve them well enough. He let Sayuri land first, making lazy circles overhead as she taxied to the edge of the clearing to give him plenty of room to land.

It was going to be a good hike up the hill to Shinnosuke's house, but the guy would hear nothing of being carried. He had his pushbroom for a crutch, and too much pride to be treated like an invalid. Ranma had to give him points for moxie.

They started up along a well-worn path, scattering a skittish covey of small ground-dwelling birds before them. Shinnosuke used his pushbroom for support, though it was of little comfort to his wounded leg as they climbed.

"Need some help?" Ranma offered.

Shinnosuke gave him a pained look. "I can manage."

"It's no trouble."

"No, really," Shinnosuke said flatly. "Thanks anyway."

Ranma shrugged, his eyes flicking to meet Akane's for a moment. She seemed troubled, but did not raise any objections.

"Suit yourself."

At the top of the hill, shrouded by trees, was the house. It was quiet as they approached, but the smell of woodsmoke indicated that it was occupied.

"Grandfather, I'm home!" Shinnosuke called to the house. He limped a little closer as Ranma and the others waited for a response.

"Shin-boy!" a voice cried from within. They watched as a grizzled old man clutching a laser rifle appeared in the open doorway. "You're alive!"

"Of course I'm alive, Grandfather!"

The old man took a hesistant step out. He recognized Akane, but the man with the pigtail and the brown-haired girl who stood by his side were mysteries.

"I heard the worst news from the villagers," he said to Shinnosuke. "They said some of Graham's men had been prowling around, and that there had been a big fight." He noted the sling that Shinnosuke kept his arm in. "Tell me, Shin-boy!" he cried, close to tears. "What happened to your arm? Why are you walking with a limp?"

"Graham and his men were prowling around," Shinnosuke said quietly. "They attacked us in the forest."

"But why?" the old man asked his grandson. "What were you doing so close to the village?"

Shinnosuke blushed in embarrassment. "I was taking Akane to the Orochi bunker."

The old man frowned. "I thought we already discussed that."

"Yes, Grandfather," Shinnosuke concurred sheepishly.

The old man then looked at Akane. "The villagers also said a battlemech confronted them, looking for you, apparently."

"She was one of my troops," Akane admitted. "I hope she wasn't rude."

"That's difficult to say," the old man returned. "They don't like strangers, and a battlemech is something out of old nightmares for them. What happened to Graham and his men? I was told that at least three of them were found dead."

"That was us," Akane replied quietly, gesturing to Ranma as well.

The old man nodded slowly, having suspected as much. "I suppose I should invite you and your comrades inside," he said at length. "You're welcome to stay for awhile."

"We can't stay for long," Akane returned. "We need to investigate the bunker as we had planned to do yesterday. A fleet of JumpShips is on its way to the system, and we need to find a way to transmit a warning about the Orochi to them so they'll stay away."

"I see," he grunted. "Yes, I suppose that would be the right thing to do." He looked at her sternly. "If you really are a Tendo, and the daughter of the Grand Duke, do you think they'll listen? If you're in danger here, won't they try to rescue you?"

"I don't know, sir," she replied. "But we have to try to warn them."

"If you could give us coordinates or something, we could fly there in no time," Ranma added.

The old man looked him over. "Come inside. I think you'll appreciate what I have to offer you."

Once the five of them were inside and seated around the firepit to enjoy some freshly brewed tea, Shinnosuke's grandfather began to rummage through several metal strongboxes. He produced a handful of notebooks, and leafed through them absently.

"Aha!" he cried. "This will serve you well enough." He neatly tore a page out of the notebook and handed it to Akane.

She looked at the paper for a moment, recognizing in the crabby handwriting some information of vital importance.

"These are access codes and protocols for the GPS system and the communications network," she gasped.

"We haven't had much use for them," the old man told her. "Shin-boy and I know the forest like the backs of our hands, and there isn't much call to go elsewhere."

"But they'd be great for flyers," Ranma observed.

"Once you patch in, you should be able to configure your Lostproof systems with downloads of the planet's cartography," the old man said to them. "Every SLDF facility at the time of Kerensky's exodus should be listed, along with the ruined starport and colony town, and the individual contractors' facilities. If there are any radio transmitters remaining that might reach the Jump Points, you should be able to find them with this."

"How do you know about all this stuff?" Akane asked him.

"It's something that is passed on from one generation to the next," the old man replied. "I was planning on showing my grandson here all of these things, since I'm getting to old to carry on my duties. He might as well learn them now."

"You aren't that old, Grandfather," Shinnosuke protested.

"Nonsense," the old man spat. "I'll be seventy this winter. There are no guarantees after that."

Ranma leaned over to Akane as Shinnosuke and his grandfather spoke. "Now that we have this stuff, let's send for some people who might be able to tell us what's going on at the control bunker, like Hinako and some of her crew. They can meet us here first in the _Nymph_, then we'll all fly over together to the bunker."

Akane nodded her head. "Best idea I've heard all day," she said with a smile. Things were definitely better when they weren't at each other's throats.

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

14 June 3025

The bunker was a reinforced concrete box set almost entirely into the side of a long windswept hill that sloped gently from north to south and ended in the expanse of forest growth. A pair of parabolic dish antennae and a slender radio array projected from a mossy pad of concrete set on the top of the hill, and provided the bunker with its communications and data links to the Orochi network. Trees and bushes had grown up around most of the exposed face of the bunker, making it difficult to spot unless you knew something was there.

"I'll wait here, if that's all right with everyone," Yuka declared. She had piloted the _Nymph_ to the rendezvous at Shinnosuke's house, delivering Captain Ninomiya and her Astrogator, Lieutenant Davidge.

"Are you sure?" Akane asked her.

She nodded, brushing back her short ponytail. "It's a nice day out, and someone should probably keep an eye on the craft."

"Good idea," Ranama agreed. Though the tension between them had eased from its peak on Tiber, he remained less than enthused with the idea of having her around. Sayuri on the other hand, was actually being nice to him now.

"Need some company?" Sayuri offered.

"I'm fine. Don't take too long."

Ranma turned back to Shinnosuke.

"It's all yours, ace."

The caretaker nodded in agreement, and turned to the doors with a grunt. The armored doors of the facility were covered with moss and creeping vines, though they opened easily at a prompt from the magnetically-encoded key he carried on a chain around his neck.

"The place has power?" Ranma asked him as the doors sighed open.

Shinnosuke nodded. "The bunker has a dedicated fusion plant in the basement to provide power and heat. It's been a reliable unit. Ever since my family became the caretakers, no one has ever had to do more than the most basic maintenance on it."

He stepped through the doors, and fluorescent lights flickered for a moment, struggling to come on.

"I just wish the lights worked as well as the reactor," he lamented. "I'd replace the ballasts, but I'm running out of spares."

Ranma and the others followed him inside. The first chamber was some kind of security lobby, though in the many years of the place's abandonment, it had become something of a refuse pile for broken equipment and a makeshift storage room. The furniture was covered in a thin layer of dust, and the air had a musty smell.

"This place was manned all the time once," Shinnosuke said, giving them the tour. "Most of the bunker is sunk straight down into the ground. There's a kitchen and dining area on the next level down, then a sleeping and living area for twelve people, then finally the control room for the network."

He then went to a panel against the far wall, behind a desk that had been used by the bunker's security staff at one time. The panel creaked open, and he flipped a series of circuit breakers. Circulation fans kicked on, though they sounded like they needed a little grease.

"Once the fans are on, the heating and cooling units should come up automatically, but you never know," he remarked to them. "Anyway, once the fans have had a chance to run, the air really cleans up."

"I hope so," Akane replied. "It's a little stuffy in here."

Hinako brushed at the silky strands of some local insect that stretched across a doorway to the stairwell. "Why did they want to control the Orochi network from a place way out in the middle of nowhere?" she asked him.

Shinnosuke tried to remember. "According to Grandfather, this was a backup location for the primary control center, which was at the Starport. That facility was obliterated over a hundred years ago." He slipped past Akane and started down the stairs. "The elevator doesn't work," he added.

Ranma, Akane, Captain Ninomiya, and the others followed. Shinnosuke skipped the habitation areas and went straight down to the control room. The doors were locked as well, though Shinnosuke's key opened them with a rusty _click_ and a dry hiss of unequal air pressure.

The lights were already on as they stepped through. The entire room was filled with computers, communications equipment, and numerous display panels, most of which were busy putting out information for the benefit of absolutely no one. There was no dust here, indicating that the chamber was kept at a positive pressure and had working precipitators.

"This is it," Shinnosuke said proudly. "You'll find notebooks over on that console that were compiled by my ancestors as they tried to figure out a way to control the Orochi. I hope they'll do you more good than they've done me."

"How many years did they try?" Akane asked him.

He was quiet for a moment. "A long time," he replied. "Grandfather doesn't know this, but I like to come here and read the notebooks. Most of it makes no sense to me, but I feel like I can get closer to my family this way. One of my Great-grandfathers used to write in them like they were a kind of journal, and that's how I know most of my history."

Akane smiled. "I think that's really neat, Shinnosuke. Don't worry, we'll take good care of them."

Shinnosuke bowed for her in gratitude, and watched the others examine the room. Ranma looked around, utterly lost. Akane seemed content to let the others work. Sayuri ran her hands along a bank of monitors, pointing out little details about each one. Only Captain Ninomiya and Lieutenant Davidge seemed at home in the place.

He watched as the two began sifting through the notebooks. Davidge went right to the various technical manuals, their pages yellowed and stiff with age.

"It's going to take a few hours at the least to get a basic familiarity with this equipment," he noted at length.

Hinako sat beside her Astrogator and began to prod at the controls to the communications units.

"I'm sure I can get the satellite network to respond," she said in her sultry voice. "We should contact the _Palomino_ and tell them that we have arrived successfully."

"I'm gonna take a look around outside," Ranma announced, and stepped back through the doors without another word. "Let me know if you find out something interesting."

Akane watched him go, but said nothing. This wasn't within the range of his abilities, and it was clear that he was already bored. Shinnosuke approached her as the other three continued to inspect the equipment.

"Akane?" he asked pensively.

"What is it?" she returned.

"Can I speak to you for a moment?"

She sensed that something was troubling him. "Sure."

They were seated at one of the tables in the dining area on the first sublevel. Shinnosuke kept ancient packets of instant hot beverages in one of the cupboards, and as the bunker had its own well for potable water, quickly produced two cups of tea for them.

Akane noted that the tea was a little flat, probably because foil-sealed pouch or not, it was still over two-hundred years old.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" she asked him.

Shinnosuke sipped at his tea uncomfortably.

"It's hard for me to say this," he replied slowly. "But it's about Ranma."

She brushed it off. "He is a little annoying at times. Don't let it get to you."

"That's not it," Shinnosuke replied. "It's just that you and he seem to be... well... More than friends, I guess." He fidgeted with his tea cup. "I saw what passed between you two in Sickbay."

Akane realized what he was getting at, and cringed inwardly at the idea that Shinnosuke was harboring a crush on her. She should have realized it - the signs were there.

"He's my fiance," she replied softly.

He looked away. "Oh."

"I'm sorry, Shinnosuke," she added. "I had no idea that you might, you know, be interested in me."

He blushed shamefully. "I knew it was too much to hope for." He turned back to her. "Do you... I mean, are you two close?"

She nodded once. "I love him," she answered, marveling at how easy it was for her to say it aloud now that she had told Ranma.

He remained silent, accepting what he knew she would say to him.

"I don't know what else I can say," she added, feeling terrible for not recognizing his feelings a little sooner.

Ranma saw Yuka standing idly by the _Nymph_, and considered ways to avoid her. It wasn't that he was intimidated by the aerospace pilot - far from it - it was just a matter of him wanting to keep the number of conflicts raging at any one time to a minimum.

She turned her head at the sound of the doors closing behind him, however, and looked him in the eyes.

"Is there a problem, Captain?" she asked as he approached her.

"No problem," he replied coolly. "I was just bored, that's all."

"And you came out to keep me company," she observed. "How sweet of you."

He couldn't tell how sarcastic she was trying to be, so he decided to let it pass for genuine.

"You looked a little lonely," he said uncomfortably. It was true, she did look lonely standing there by the Ship's Boat. He never thought he would feel anything other than animosity towards her, but it didn't come. "I thought that maybe..." He looked her over, noting how taut her body had become at his proximity. "Nevermind..."

His reply took her by surprise, and her eyes grew wide for a moment.

"Do you really mean that?" she asked him warily.

"Don't take it the wrong way," he replied. "I ain't trying to pull your chain."

"Maybe," she sniffed, unconvinced.

He found himself drawn by her implied challenge to prove what he had said. She watched him with that same wariness she had used to challenge his sincerity.

"I never wanted to be your enemy, Yuka," he said to her.

She considered that for a moment. "You've done a pretty good job of being one so far."

He bristled with frustration at this. So much for offering up the peace pipe...

"Look, just forget it," he snorted. "You go back to hating me, and I'll go back to hating you, okay? Is that what you really want, Yuka? If it is, I'll be happy to oblige you."

She pursed her lips at him. "You're really trying to apologize, aren't you?"

"Not apologize," he said. "It's too late for apologies."

"Then what's the big deal, Saotome? Why the look of contrition?"

He threw up his hands. "I was hopin' we could start over between us, or something. Just forget about the last six months and start fresh." He gave her a critical look. "If that ain't asking too much from you."

She gave that some thought.

"I see your point," she replied.

He thrust out his hand. "So how about it?"

She eyed his hand for a moment, then took it in hers. They shook once, firmly, then let go of each other.

"Friends?" he asked.

"Don't push your luck, Saotome," she said, but she favored him with a tiny grin as she said it, drawing a brief chuckle from both of them before they lapsed back into an uncomfortable silence.

The two of them enjoyed a breeze that was pregnant with the promise of rain looming on the horizon. Ranma studied the clouds for awhile, noting that the storm would probably pass them to the south, just missing them. He felt like he had just avoided a similar storm from the girl who stood next to him.

"If you break her heart again, I'll kill you," Yuka said abruptly.

"You'll have to stand in line for that," he replied, thinking of Ryouga.

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

14 June 3025

"It's been eight hours now," Ranma groused. "Tell me this wasn't a waste of time. There are some places around here I wanna go check out."He had been examining the layout of the Proving Grounds ever since Shinnosuke's grandfather turned it over to them, and there were places listed that might still contain useful technology - maybe even working battlemechs.

Hinako gave him a hard look but said nothing.

Lieutenant Davidge gestured to the displays. "We've got a unique window on the system from here," he began. "The entire satellite network, including the Orochi, can be monitored from this control room."

"But can you control it?" Ranma asked.

Davidge shook his head. "Not without the access codes, and there doesn't seem to be any traces of them in these manuals, the vaults, or in the databases."

"Terrific," Ranma snorted, and sat down in a rolling chair behind him.

"Isn't there some way you can bypass the codes?" Akane asked him.

"According to the tech manuals on the network, the Orochi was designed to resist attempts by an enemy to subvert or control its function," Davidge replied, rubbing his brow as he thumbed through a few crinkled pages. "Not only is it protected by a long string of codes for access, but that code transmission must also follow on a precise frequency-hopping schedule that we also don't seem to have any trace of."

He sighed. "Basically, it's impossible for us to try and gain control over the Orochi network remotely. The only conceivable means I can think of to take control is to patch into the primary satellite locally, but you can imagine how well protected it is against such intrusions."

"So what _do_ we have in our favor?" Akane asked.

"Well, we can use each Orochi satellite plus the various observation and weather satellites to see what's going on within about half a million kilometers of the planet's surface. That will give us some warning in case the transport fleet or maybe even the Commonwealth shows up. We now have the ability to access the GPS and commo networks so we can all get around and communicate better on the surface."

Ranma leaned over in his chair. "So could we use what we know about where the Orochis are looking to let us sneak up into orbit to check out that space station?"

Hinako's hard look melted into a smile for Ranma, as she had been thinking about the space station and what it might hold for some time now.

Davidge gestured to the displays. "It can be done," he agreed. "From what I can see of the seven lesser Orochi satellites, they are all operating in a reduced capacity." He gestured to several of the monitors, where various strings of red alphanumerics flashed. "This system experiences some intense solar activity, and you can see where sensor arrays and other components have been damaged. I'm sure that time has done its share of damage as parts wore out. I've looked at some of the program databases from the Orochi units as well, and they've got substantial amounts of corruption in them - probably also because of solar radiation. With no one left to upload a good database, they've progressively lost more and more of their ability to function."

He pointed to another display, which showed their positions in orbit above the planet. "It's possible to time a launch from the surface that could reach the space station while one of the most heavily impaired units was overhead. We know that they can coordinate their efforts, but if the right Orochi units are overhead, it shouldn't matter."

Hinako called up a status report on several of the Orochi satellites. "We have what could be a favorable window coming up in two days," she declared, looking at Akane. "With your permission, Lady Akane, I'd like to take the _Nymph_ up with a small crew and investigate the space station."

Akane gave this some thought.

"It's worth a try, Captain Ninomiya, but I don't want to send you up just to have you stranded there for weeks on end waiting for another opportunity to return to the surface."

Hinako would not be so easily put off. "I can make it to orbit in four hours, and return in less than two. With an eight hour window, that leaves me with two hours to explore, which is more than enough time to investigate the drydock to see if there is a JumpShip we can use to flee the system interred there." She brushed back her long dark brown hair before continuing. "Besides, we've already seen how the Orochi network could have blasted us after we abandoned the _Dragonfly_, but for whatever reason, chose not to. I believe that it wouldn't open fire on us even if it could detect us - so long as we used the _Nymph_."

"It's probably part of the programming," Davidge threw in. "The Star League was always concerned with minimizing casualties during battle. Once the JumpShip itself was rendered incapable of operation, any life pods or small craft fleeing it would be considered non-combatants. A DropShip and fighter on the other hand wouldn't receive the same consideration."

Akane remained unconvinced. "I'll have to think about it. Begin the preparations to go, but I reserve final judgement until later."

Hinako bowed in gratitude for her.

"Well this was great," Ranma said sourly. "I'm gettin' hungry. Anyone else want to head back to the _Palomino_ with me?"

He was looking at Akane as he said it, but she remained aloof. Realizing that he was on his own, he started for the door.

"Hello!" Davidge cried suddenly, halting him at the threshold. "The network just shifted over to some kind of alert stage." Most of the boards began flashing with activity, confirming his analysis.

"What's going on?" Hinako demanded.

Davidge consulted the myriad displays in search of an answer. "The network seems to be reacting to sensory information directed towards the system's primary." He tapped out a few commands, and was rewarded with more information that nobody seemed to understand but him. "I'm detecting two distinct sets of multiple spacecraft converging on the planet from a distance of forty light-seconds."

"I thought that was out of the network's range?" Ranma asked him.

"The network is detecting radar and communications signals over the noise of the solar storms," Davidge replied. "It's polling the various Orochi units for capability and position to best respond to the incoming ships."

"Two sets of ships," Akane breathed. "Could one of them be the transport fleet? Are we too late?"

"We can transmit out to them," Hinako noted. "Our communication system can reach the satellite relay, and from there, the Jump Points, but the question is, do we transmit a warning before we know who they are?"

Davidge continued to analyze the data. "I really need a sensor tech to look at this stuff. Right now, the best I can do is go off what the Orochi network thinks is going on. It looks like an ETA of sixty-five hours, based on current velocity."

"Any guesses as to who they are?" Ranma asked him.

He shook his head. "Let me put up some of the voice transmissions the network is receiving."

He tapped at the console and at once speakers clicked on. Over the wash of static and warbling noise came the distinct sound of gruff male voices speaking in an alien tongue.

"That sounds like Chinese," Ranma remarked, having heard enough of it on Lightoller to last him a lifetime.

"The Commonwealth!" Akane gasped. "They must have had ships waiting to journey to Ryuugenzawa the moment Shampoo's accomplice delivered the system's location to them."

"Speaking of Shampoo," Ranma added. "Let's bring her here and get her to translate for us. I'd like to know what the hell they're saying, and if they're talking about us."

Akane gave him a dubious look. "I doubt she'll cooperate."

"It's worth a try," Ranma replied. He started for the door. "Call the _Palomino_ and tell them to have her ready to go when I get there. I'll fly her back here as fast as I can."

"Do you really think that's a bright idea, Ranma!" she called after him. What was that dope thinking, knowing that he was going to have Shampoo sitting next to him the entire flight back to the bunker."We'll send the Nymph back instead!"

"Don't waste the fuel!" he yelled as his slippered feet slapped against the stairs. "We don't know if Akari's crew can get that processing station functional yet."

Akane grit her teeth and tried to remember that she loved the idiot.The moment passed, and she turned back to the displays. "So far, all I see are readouts for the seven minor Orochi satellites," she observed. "Where is the big one right now, and what is it doing?"

Davidge called up some data. "Currently, it's parked on the far side of the moon in what looks to be a stable synchronous orbit." He frowned. "Odd, it seems to be mostly dormant."

Shinnosuke spoke up. "It usually is," he said to them. "When it wakes up, it starts attacking the planet. Once it runs out of targets, it goes dormant again."

Davidge called up a few more displays on the primary Orochi. What he saw made him pale. "The thing's almost fully functional," he declared. "The only serious problem I see with it right now is some corruption of some of the ancillary databases." He flipped hastily through the tech manuals, tearing some of the ancient pages in his haste. He compared what he read in the books to what he saw on the screens. "Target discrimination, IFF passcodes, and the failsafes..." he intoned, realizing what all of that meant.

"Your friend here is right, Lady Akane. When the Orochi comes out of dormancy mode, all hell is gonna break loose. The only things it won't shoot at in space are the station, the commo and GPS sats, and the other Orochi units. Anything else without the IFF passcode is fair game, and even then it won't matter because the database telling it what the valid codes are is shot. I don't see anything else limiting its attacks on the surface, either."

"How long do we have?" Hinako asked him.

"Within seventy hours," Davidge replied. "There's a countdown running to full system activation." He pointed to the corner of one display, where a countdown ran in bold red numbers.

"So we have seventy hours to get up to the station, hope a JumpShip is there that can take us out of the system, and leave?" Akane asked.

Davidge shrugged nervously. "Essentially. Either that or we wait out the Orochi's temper tantrum and hope for the best."

"It will probably attack those two groups of ships approaching the planet first," Hinako pointed. "Perhaps their destruction will appease its programming, and it will go back into dormancy mode."

"As long as one of them isn't the transport fleet from Capella, I wouldn't mind seeing it happen," Akane agreed. "But until we know for certain, I think we should consider the possibility of transmitting a warning to stay away."

Hinako shook out her hair. It was going to be a long night of watching the displays. "I suppose I should call the _Palomino_ and tell them what to expect."

The DropShip _Palomino_

Ranma let the engine run on the Boomerang as he hopped out of the cockpit and started towards the ship. Genma, Ryouga, and Doctor Tofu were waiting for him, and with them was a sullen and shackled Shampoo.

"What's going on, boy?" Genma demanded to know. "What's so important that you need Shampoo?"

"A Commonwealth fleet is on its way to the planet," he replied. "I don't know much more than that, but we want Shampoo to translate what they're saying for us."

Genma blanched. "A Commonwealth fleet? Are you serious, boy?"

Ranma nodded. "As a heart attack, Pop. We gotta start putting together some kind of defense, cause we've got about two and a half days 'til they get here." He pointed to Ryouga. "You're in charge of the defense of the DropShip, man. I need you to work up some kinda plan in case we get attacked from the ground or the air. If you need Ucchan's help, take her, but otherwise I want her to come with me. If you can get Happousai to help with things here, great."

"What about the salvage crew at the starport?" he asked, thinking about his beloved Akari and her techs.

"I don't know if we have the resources to cover them too. They'll probably have to wrap up what they're doing within the next day or so."

"You're probably right," Ryouga agreed, and saluted him, feeling a little odd to be doing something like this to Ranma of all people. He left to carry out his orders, knowing that Akari would not be happy about having to leave the starport sooner than she had planned.

Doctor Tofu stepped forward. "I'll start putting together a triage, but that's about the best I can do with the limited facilities on the ship."

"Do that for now, but know that I might need you in a 'mech, Doc," Ranma replied. "I've got a map of the old Proving Grounds, and there are couple of places where there might be some useful hardware still around. I want to check them out, but if I _do_ find some 'mechs, we might need you to help defend the ship."

Tofu nodded. He was not one to shirk his fighting duties if matters came to that.

"Are you serious, boy?" Genma grunted. "Show me this map."

"I ain't got it on me," Ranma groused. "So don't get all greedy on me. How much longer will the repairs take on the ship? We might need to move it to a more defensible location."

"I'll get with Grant on it," Genma agreed. "But I want you to give me a copy of the map. Two groups can cover more ground than one."

"As soon as I get a chance, Pop." Ranma said to his father.

"Hey, Ranchan!" Ukyou called to him from the ramp to the 'Mech Bay. "You need me?"

"I need you to follow me in your 'mech," he replied. "Bring Konatsu too." He then turned to Shampoo, who had watched all of this in hopeful silence. "I'm giving you the chance to come quietly with me in the Boomerang," he said to her. "Otherwise, you get to ride in the Hatchetman's fist. What's it gonna be?"

Shampoo's violet eyes lit up. "Shampoo come quietly. Am very curious to hear so-called Commonwealth message."

"Glad to hear it, Shampoo," he replied. "Come on."

She followed him towards the plane, pulling herself into the right hand seat without the offered help from him. He knew she was shackled, but the only thing that might prevent her from attacking him was knowing that they would crash if she did.

He jumped into the cockpit as Ukyou climbed up into her Hatchetman. Her battle-spatula tested the air with a few perfunctory swipes, then the battlemech lurched forward towards the plane.

"Do I really want to know what you and Shampoo are doing in there," Ukyou called to him over the radio.

Shampoo gave him a feral look as he closed the canopy and goosed the engine.

"Don't worry," Ranma returned. "She'll behave."

"Just tell her to keep her lips to herself this time," Ukyou sniffed.

Ranma released the brake, and the Boomerang surged forward and into the air. "Will do."

Ukyou followed from the ground in her 'mech as they started off towards the bunker. Ranma gave her the access codes so her 'mech could use the GPS system and get a local map to work from. They'd have to do that with all of their equipment if they wanted to take advantage of the situation against any Commonwealth forces who managed to get past the Orochi network to land on the planet. He called the crewman manning the DropShip's radio and told him what to do about it. Eventually, Pop would figure it out too, and stop hounding him.

Once that was accomplished, all he had left was survive his trip back to the bunker with Shampoo. She remained quiet in the seat next to him, her eyes looking hopeful. He supposed that she had a right to feel that way, with the Commonwealth practically coming to her rescue.

"Since it's a moot point now," he said to her. "You mind telling me how your accomplice got off the ship with the stolen database?"

She considered his question for a moment. "You and I not only ones who have Jusenkyo bodies," she said to him. Ranma detected a hint of loathing in her voice as she spoke to him.

"You don't still blame me for falling into one of the pools, do you?" he asked.

"Not anymore," was her curt reply. "At one time, yes. Shampoo want to kill you for what you do. Now Shampoo must kill to avenge honor of clan."

He checked her chains with a sharp glance of his eyes. "What did I do to deserve that?"

She gave him a long cold look.

"No make joke to Shampoo. You break into secret lab. You escape from Shampoo on Lightoller. You escape from Shampoo on Capra. Now Shampoo have death sentence from clan elders. Only way to appease them is to kill you and stupid panda father."

"It ain't gonna happen," he returned.

Her violet eyes flashed for an instant as she pondered proving him wrong that very instant - even if it mean that she died in the crash that would soon follow.

"Ranma think what he likes," she sniffed.

They continued on for some time, circling occasionaly to let Ukyou catch up. One other question plagued Ranma about Shampoo, but he was reluctant to bring it up. The silence between them grew more oppressive, however, and he found himself saying it just to have something to say.

"So why did you kiss me?" he asked her.

She flinched slightly at the recollection of her ignominious defeat on the _Dragonfly_.

"Shampoo no want to talk about it."

"Uh-huh," he groused, figuring as much from her, and went back to his flying.

Shampoo sighed absently. "You want know truth?"

"Are you going to tell me the truth?" he countered.

"Shampoo kiss because it Joketsuzoku law. Outsider who defeat member of clan must marry defeated warrior. It how we get strong babies for clan. Shampoo also hope kiss make Ranma have sympathy for her; help in escaping."

Ranma swallowed hard.

"Ranma no need worry," she added ruefully. "Shampoo not able to get baby from him right now."

"Oh yeah?"

"Is true," she sighed. Her manacled hands patted her trim belly. "Shampoo already have baby inside her. One she not want."

Ranma threw up his hands in protestation. "Don't look at me, I didn't have nothin' to do with it!" He remembered now of Tofu mentioning at one point that she was pregnant.

She had to smile at his naivety. "Shampoo know, stupid Ranma," she scolded him gently. "You ask about accomplice. Accomplice name is Mousse; Shampoo get baby from him."

Ranma thought about that for a moment, then put two and two together and hoped it didn't make five. "So you're having this Mousse guy's baby, then, right?"

Shampoo nodded silently.

"And you don't want it," Ranma continued.

She nodded once more. "Shampoo no like him. No want his baby, either."

"Why not?" he asked. "If you didn't like him, why did you, uh... you know..." he began to sweat nervously.

"What you talking about?" she demanded, wishing that she had a greater command over the Standard tongue.

"Well, you know," Ranma grunted. "Why did you sleep with him if you didn't like him."

She bowed her head for a moment. "It, how you say... It complicated."

"I guess," Ranma snorted. "Though I can't imagine why anyone would, well, have s-sex with someone that they didn't even like." His stammering on the 's-word' was embarrassing, and he hoped that she hadn't noticed.

She gave him a penetrating look, understanding something about her enemy at long last.

"You never make love to someone before," she pointed out smugly. "Shampoo can tell. You still - what is word? - virgin. You still virgin. Yes?"

Ranma did not reply. He let his red face and his steady gaze out of the canopy speak for him.

"It no matter," she said to him at length. "Shampoo no mind being first time for Ranma."

The Boomerang plummeted into a sharp dive as Ranma lost control of the plane for a moment.

"S-Sorry!" he gasped, his hands clenched on the controls of the aircraft in a death grip.

"You no do that!" Shampoo hissed worriedly.

"Everything okay up there?" Ukyou asked over the radio.

"Everything's fine," Ranma managed. "I just slipped off the controls for a moment."

"Keep your hands to yourself, sugar," Ukyou warned him. "And that goes double for that Amazon hussy you're carrying."

"I'm doing my best," Ranma returned. "_Believe me_."

Shampoo sat back in the chair, looking pleased with herself.

The bunker was the first example of Star League construction that Shampoo had seen on Ryuugenzawa, and she wondered at its purpose as she was led down the stairs in the company of Ranma, the spatula-girl, and the spatula-girl's lapdog kunoichi. It was undoubtedly a communications center of some sort, but she expected more of a facility than what she saw before her.

Once she arrived in the control room, she spied Captain Ninomiya, who gave her a chilly look. At least she was in her adult body, Shampoo noted gratefully. Her child form probably would have scooped her up and started petting her - whether she was human or not.

The numerous displays and control consoles staggered her for a moment as she was led to a seat next to the Astrogator - the man whose hand she had rent in the process of stealing the database patch. At least two of her claws had left thin white scars along the heel of his hand.

"Voice signal activity has since dropped off," she heard Davidge say to Ranma as he and a wide-eyed Ukyou took up positions behind her. "I do have some recordings for Shampoo to listen to."

He leaned over her and tapped at the console.

Static filled the air as she waited with trepidation for the sound of her battle-sisters. They were coming to Ryuugenzawa. They would rescue her from her captors, and she would become a hero to her people.

The voices over the speakers shattered any such dreams in an instant. Her blood ran cold with the realization that her battle-sisters weren't coming at all.

"I'm very curious to know why I haven't heard any female voices," Davidge observed aloud. "I thought most of the ship crews on Commonwealth JumpShips were female."

Shampoo knew the answer to that. The ships they had detected were not Commonwealth Ships any more than she was one of Empress Azusa's pets.

_How?_ she asked herself. _How had the Musk Dynasty known of this place?_

She knew the answer though. There could be only one real explanation, for although General Herb's spies were good, his arrival was too soon for pure chance.

Mousse had betrayed her. He had joined General Herb and his Musk Dynasty, and he had given them the database patch she had intended for her great-grandmother. Of course, now that she considered it, his desire to keep her in the dark about their mission was probably due to the fact that he had been working for Herb from the very beginning.

The escape from her cell on Tau Ceti, the spyship that was waiting for them at the starport, even the show-trial that had handed down its death sentence - all of these things had been engineered by Herb for this moment, and all of this was done with the help of Mousse, his able servant. It was galling to think of how easily Mousse had deceived and betrayed her. Of course, she had done nothing but deceive and betray him herself, so perhaps there was a perverse sense of irony at work.

The most telling irony was that she was now pregnant with her betrayer's child.

She slumped back in her chair as the voices grunted out orders in their battle-language, a dialect of the Joketsuzoku's own version that reflected their uniquely male perspective on matters.

"What is it, Shampoo?" Ranma asked her, his voice filled with concern. "Do you know what they're saying or not?"

She understood a little of it, but that wasn't the point. Who they were was far more important than what they were saying to each other.

"Shampoo understand little," she sighed. "It special battle-language."

"You're a mechwarrior," Akane pointed out. "You should understand any battle-languages from the Commonwealth."

She shook her head. "Not this one," she returned. "These ships not part of Jusenkyo Commonwealth."

"Huh?" Ranma grunted. "Then who the hell are they, and how'd they get here?"

There was no point in withholding anything from them. They shared a common enemy in General Herb.

"They Musk Dynasty," Shampoo replied, her violet eyes trembling with dread for the days to come. Herb was probably bringing a full regiment of battlemechs to Ryuugenzawa to secure the world and its secrets for himself. "They want overthrow Elder Council, and put all mens in charge. They enemies to Shampoo."

Akane stepped forward. "So how did they know how to reach this system?"

"I know how," Ranma remarked, and Shampoo turned in her seat to give him a hot look of warning which he ignored. "Your friend Mousse, the guy whose kid you're gonna have. He gave them the patch you stole from us."

Her eyes burned with loathing for Ranma, but she said nothing.

"He screwed you in more ways than just the usual," he continued smugly. "He must've been working for these Musk guys on the side."

Shampoo lurched out of her chair to kill him, but was restrained by the flash of a razor sharp blade from Konatsu at her throat. She hadn't even seen the kunoichi in the dim lighting of the control room. Konatsu leaned in close to her ear, whispering so softly that she had to strain to hear the words.

"Remember this knife?" he asked her, applying a touch more pressure to the blade against her pulsing jugular vein. "It's yours, Shampoo; the knife you nearly killed me with. Remain quiet and still in this chair, please, or I shall be compelled to give it back to you in a manner you would find least pleasant." His soft, breathy falsetto was devoid of all malice as he spoke, but Shampoo knew sincerity when she heard it.

"It no matter," she said at length, easing back into her chair. The blade was withdrawn wordlessly. "Musk Dynasty kill you all same."

"Maybe," Ranma admitted. "First they gotta get past the Orochi network, but you probably got a point. Hey, at least you'll get reunited with your boyfriend when they get here."

She tensed in the chair, wanting desperately to kill him, but seeing no way in which she could do it before getting her own throat cut open by Konatsu in the process.

"Careful, Ranchan," Ukyou remarked. "You aren't winning any points for congeniality saying stuff like that to her."

"She brought it on herself," Ranma snorted. "Even if we all get killed by this Musk Dynasty she's talking about, it might be worth it to see the look on her face when her boyfriend shows up."

The night sky above the bunker was filled with swirling bands of luminous greens, blues, and violets that were bright enough for Ranma and Akane to cast faint shadows from where they lay. The brilliant auroral fireworks were courtesy of the intense solar storms bombarding the planet's magnetosphere, something that neither of them had ever had the opportunity to observe on any of the worlds they had travelled before. Beyond the pretty lightshow, they knew, lay ships from the Musk Dynasty, coming to lay siege to Ryuugenzawa and make it their own.

The Orochi network would attack them of course, and possibly even wipe them out, but any survivors would likely remain their enemies. At least until the main Orochi platform completed its return to normal function from a unknown period of dormancy, anyway. At that point, they were probably all as good as dead.

Ranma wanted to believe that they could escape, and if they abandoned all of their technology to the Orochi's bombardment, they probably would. They would become just like all the other humans living on Ryuugenzawa, struggling to survive on a hostile planet with no hope of ever returning to their former lives. He was a mechwarrior, not some rustic farmer.

"What are you thinking about?" Akane asked him suddenly.

"Who says I was thinking about anything," he returned. There was no real challenge in it, and she made none of her usual shows of indignance.

"You were so quiet," she went on. "That's all."

He turned his head to where she lay next to him on the grassy hilltop above the bunker. The lights of the aurora were reflected in her eyes, and he was spellbound for a moment, just looking at her. It was times like these that he understood how incredibly cute she could be when she wanted to.

She smiled at him, realizing that he was staring at her, and why.

"Yes?" she asked him teasingly.

"I wasn't gonna say nothing," he returned lamely.

"Oh," she said with a pout that he knew was a put-on, and turned back to look at the sky.

He lay back as well, watching the streamers of light silently sway and curl above them. It was just the two of them together. Yuka had flown Shampoo back to the _Palomino_ in the _Nymph_, while Ukyou and Konatsu walked home in her 'mech. Captain Ninomiya and her Astrogator remained in the Control Room, while Sayuri took a reluctant Shinnosuke home to await further instructions. The only thing keeping him here was Akane, and when she was ready to go home, he would fly her in the remaining Boomerang.

"Hey, Akane," he asked her.

"What is it, Ranma?"

"Do you mind if I, well..."

"Yes?"

"That is, can I, uh, hold your hand?"

She slipped her hand into his and gave him a squeeze. "You don't have to ask me about something like that, Ranma... Just take my hand."

"O-Okay," he returned, his voice a little more tremulous for her than he would have preferred. He could feel a blush starting on his cheeks as he gazed fixedly at the display above them. Her hand was warm,callused along the palm from years clutching her Warhammer's controls, but surprisingly soft everywhere else. Without thinking about it, he squeezed a little tighter, enjoying the comfortable closeness between them.

She sighed in response, and snuggled a little closer against his side. Encouraged, Ranma tried another squeeze, and was rewarded by a little squeeze from her and a quiet giggle in return. Somewhere in his mind, he had a niggling suspicion that there was something inane about all of this, that he was being unutterably foolish, or maybe even crazy. He thought back to earlier that day, his hands scrabbling through blades of grass looking for a piece of junk. Yeah, crazy. He squeezed her hand one more time. But this kind of crazy sure felt good, he admitted to himself.

He turned his head to look at her again. She was watching him with a tiny smile on her face, which widened slightly when their eyes met. There was almost a challenging look in her eyes, twinkling through the reflections of the torrid sky, reminding him of their first kiss, the way she had dared him to kiss her. He hadn't been able to, he recalled with some embarrassment, and then she had shown him up with a kiss of her own.

She had always taken the initiative, he realized suddenly. From their first kiss to their last, when they had steamed up the _Dragonfly_'s elevator, she had always been the one to express what they both were feeling. Right now, he could see from the look in her eyes that they were both thinking the same thing, and if he left it too long, she was going to beat him to the punch - again.

He rolled to his side, propping his head up on a hand so he could look down at her, and cleared his throat. "Um, Akane?"

She blinked prettily. "Yes, Ranma?" There was a note in her voice that told him she knew exactly what he wanted to say, but was going to make him say it for himself.

"Uh, well..." His voice sounded squeaky to his own ears, and he coughed self-consciously. "So, like, do I hafta ask you if I, uh, if I can kiss you?" That didn't come out quite as cool as he had hoped to be, but it seemed to get the job done, from the way she tilted her head up to his.

Their faces were only centimeters apart, but they seemed to be an impassable chasm as he slowly dipped his head to hers, his heartbeat pounding an accompaniment in his ears. When her cool lips finally touched his, misted with a sigh, it was as if their trials and arguments, ever since they had first met on Nerima, had only existed to bring about this one moment. This was what he'd fought for, sacrificed for, bled for - Akane, warm and sweet in his arms.

They parted briefly, breathlessly gazing into each other's eyes, a look of affirmation passing between them before their lips joined again. There was nothing tentative about this second kiss; it was warm and tender, all-encompassing. Ranma felt his apprehension waning at Akane's obvious willingness to keep on kissing him.

How long they lay there, kissing under the joyous night sky, he didn't really know, though they paused often to breathe gaspingly, sometimes just to look at one another with giddy smiles until their lips met again. What he did know was that he was getting a crick in the neck - but that wasn't any reason to stop kissing, he reasoned with himself, and regretfully slipped his hand from her silky hair and eased it down to where he figured the ground probably was - though the ground seemed awfully soft today...

Akane's muffled gasp against his lips startled him, and he glanced down to see his hand on her breast. He quickly returned it to its warm, safe nest in her hair. "S-sorry," he croaked, half-expecting her to hit him after all.

She gazed up at him with a look in his eyes that he couldn't quite figure out, except that it was intense and, somehow, inviting. At length, she shifted slightly and smiled. "No need to apologize, Ranma," she said in a soft, trembling voice, a whisper really. She turned her head slightly to kiss his wrist, slowly returning her gaze to his, as if waiting... for...

Swallowing nervously, he eased his hand out of its hiding place and back down along her bare shoulder, the strap of her tank top... His breath left him in a sigh - when had he started holding it? - as his hand curved gently and cautiously around her breast again, realizing with quickening pulse that she wasn't wearing a bra. Akane rewarded him with a faint smile, her breath catching as their lips met again, teasing gently as he explored this new and fascinating terrain.

There was something oddly intoxicating about the tiny, choked noises she made in the back of her throat with each movement of his hands; he found himself testing, trying to discover just which spots made her gasp the most sharply, which made her arch her back and press herself more firmly against his palm. Their kisses were frantic now, broken by gasps and sighs; he found that kissing her chin made her giggle breathily, and kissing the hollow of her throat made her sigh, and kissing her _there_, just where the swell of her breast escaped the neckline of her tank top...

Akane's hands weren't exactly staying still, he realized fuzzily, but were stroking gently over the satin of his shirt, testing the contours of his chest and back, tracing delicately up his spine... When her cool fingers slipped under the hem of his shirt to stroke at his back, the feel of her hands on his naked flesh was electric, and he gasped despite himself, pressing his forehead to her bare shoulder.

Akane kissed the top of his head teasingly, and he raised his head to meet her laughing eyes. She raised her eyebrows as if in challenge, hands stroking maddeningly just above his waistband, and Ranma found himself smiling ferally in response, his fingers slipping under her shirt, across her warm stomach... She was unbelievably warm and soft under his fingers, and their lips met hungrily again. Her hands were bolder now, and his hands... He tugged impatiently at the supportive lining of her top, the elastic constricting his fingers as he made her gasp and shudder yet again, though how he could tell over the sounds of his own pounding heart and ragged breath he wasn't sure.

She shivered then, convulsively, and he snapped his eyes up to her face.

"You're cold," he said, his voice rough.

She started to shake her head in response, then smiled with a mix of nervousness and daring. "I guess so."

They stared at each other for a long moment, disheveled and breathless, his smile growing to match hers. Unspoken was the accord between them, the mutual realization that a decision had been made somewhere in the tangle of kisses and caresses. He felt giddy as he slowly reached out a hand to take hers, helping her to her feet. They hugged then, trembling bodies pressing close together in affirmation.

Akane led the way into the bunker, tiptoeing down the musty stairs with Ranma's hand in hers - as if the few staff remaining in the communications room would be listening for them. He followed her in something of a daze. When she tripped on a step and fell against him, it only seemed natural to take the opportunity to kiss; the next time she tripped it didn't seem to be much of an accident, but he didn't complain. The third time, he found himself pressing her up against the wall of the stairwell, kissing her urgently until she wriggled away, teasingly dragging him down the last few steps to the bunker's residential level.

Again by unspoken accord, they crept down the hall to the last of the rooms, closing the door behind them silently. Ranma fiddled with shaking hands at what he thought was probably a lock until it seemed to be engaged, turning to face Akane.

She was staring at the bed - a single bed, blankets piled at the foot of the bed as if the resident had just left for the day - or it would have seemed so if it weren't for the thin layer of dust over everything. He stepped up behind her, trembling, and slipped an arm around her waist; she leaned back into him with a sigh. Ranma wondered with sudden apprehension just what he was supposed to do next - the porno's Pop had shown him had always skipped through this part. Did they just take off their clothes and have at it? What did Akane want him to do?

"Let's make the bed," Akane said firmly.

Ranma frowned. That wasn't quite what he'd been expecting her to say. "We don't need to make the bed... Do we?"

"Of course we need to make the bed. I'm not... I'm not sleeping on all that dust." She cast him a hot look over her shoulder, her eyes promising something more than sleep.

Ranma pressed closer against her. "But the blankets are just as dusty as the bed," he insisted. "You'll get dusty, no matter what..." The nape of her neck was enticing; he dipped his head to kiss it, only to meet empty air as she shoved him away playfully.

"Barbarian," she said teasingly. "I'm making the bed." She shook out a sheet from the pile of blankets, sending motes of dust into the air. As she bent to tuck it around the mattress, she glanced back at him thoughtfully. "While I'm busy with this," her low voice lilted, "you could always get naked."

Ranma felt his face turning red, and for a moment he was at a loss for words. There was something surreal and dreamlike about being in this small, stuffy room, watching Akane make a bed in preparation for... for... And he had never expected her to be so, well, bold. Wasn't he supposed to be the one making all the moves now? Of course, he thought as he watched the mesmerizing sway of her hips, he didn't really _mind_ her being just a little bit bold. It must have been part of that tomboy nature of hers... He shook himself out of his reverie. She had turned her head to look at him expectantly, the second sheet clutched in her hands; Ranma smiled back at her deliberately. "Me?" he said lightly. "You're the one I'd like to see getting naked."

Akane blinked at his riposte, a slow smile crawling across her face. "Is that so..." she said quietly, feeling deliciously wanton. "In that case, shouldn't you be doing something about it?"

He reached her in two steps, taking hold of her shoulders and leaning in for a firm kiss. Akane felt her eyes flutter closed, a thrill of satisfaction tingling up her spine. Doctor Tofu had been absolutely right, she realized with an inward grin; it hadn't taken much for Ranma to come around. The events of the past... hour? half hour?... were threatening to overwhelm her - she wanted this, and wanted it badly, but at the same time she couldn't help but feel a quiver of apprehension. There was no turning back once she got in that bed, and while she knew intellectually what was going to happen there, if their encounter so far was any indication, the real experience was going to be far more intense than she could ever have imagined...

His hands were tugging at the bottom of her tank top, and she stepped back, lifting her arms to allow him to pull it off her. She watched his face flush with wonder at the sight of her, and resisted the urge to shield herself from the intensity of his gaze. He had seen her naked before, once, but there was a world of difference between then and now, and she felt suddenly vulnerable.

She ducked her head to hide her sudden blush, and stepped close to unfasten the frogs of Ranma's shirt. His hands had come to rest reverently on her shoulders, stroking slightly with his fingertips as his hot breath rustled through her hair. She had seen him naked before as well, but the revelation of his hard chest, centimeter by centimeter, was strangely fascinating. Unable to meet his eyes just yet, she softly stroked his flat stomach before pushing the shirt off his shoulders.

He seemed to be getting somewhat impatient, yanking his arms out of the sleeves as quickly as he could and cursing under his breath when one arm got caught; somehow, it made her feel more at ease, and she slid her arms around his waist and pressed close, her cheek resting on his chest.

The feel of his naked chest against hers was unbelievable; she felt she could lose herself in his warmth. Pressed this close, she could also feel without a doubt how he felt about her right at this moment, and the realization filled her with a strange sense of wisdom. She tilted her head back for his kiss, reveling in the feel of his hands and body, and the certain knowledge that he wanted her.

She reached down between them and unfastened her pants, letting them drop to the floor and kicking them off her feet one by one, taking her shoes with them. Ranma didn't seem to have noticed - his attention and his hands being rather thoroughly occupied by other portions of her anatomy - and so she pushed on, tugging at the drawstring of his trousers. That seemed to get his attention, as he froze, waiting breathlessly as she slowly pulled them down past his knees. As she rose, she played her hand up his thigh and across the front of his boxers - drawing a gasp from him - and finally resting her hand on his stomach, which lurched raggedly under her fingertips.

She wasn't prepared for him to scoop her up in his arms, and she let out a sound halfway between a shriek and a giggle as he carried her the few remaining steps to the bed, tenderly placing her in the middle. To her surprise, he knelt down beside the bed, looking down at her hand as he stroked it.

"What is it, Ranma?" she asked, her laughter fading at his serious demeanor. He raised his head and fixed her with a penetrating look.

His voice was low and strained. "Are you sure about this, Akane?"

She gazed at him tenderly, knowing just what it must have cost him to hold back at this of all moments. He wanted her - she had felt the proof of that - but she could see by the look in his eyes that if she were to change her mind, even now, he would let it go without an argument.

Not that she wanted him to.

"You idiot," she whispered, pulling him up onto the bed beside her. He responded with a kiss filled with all the passion he had held in check.

For all of his passion, though, he wasn't yet entirely sure of himself, and she found that she rather liked it that way; there was something endearing about the way his hands paused before venturing across her hips, carefully avoiding the soft cotton triangle of her panties. As she considered this, he surprised her with a sudden kiss on her hipbone, where she hadn't even known she was ticklish. He was kissing her in all sorts of interesting places now, and she found herself simply stroking his fine dark hair and his shoulders, laughing occasionally at the brush of his bangs against her sides, or other places even more unexpected.

They met face to face again, his hands stroking gently across her stomach as he questioned with his eyes, fingers teasing nervously at her navel. She kissed him fervently in response, feeling his hand dipping in lower and lower circles until his fingertips rasped against cotton, and then she couldn't think, could only clutch at his shoulders and press her face into his chest until she nearly suffocated.

He was fumbling with the elastic of her panties then, and she dazedly lifted her hips and wiggled as necessary until her panties were gone, and he was touching her again, but this time... She listened to her own voice muttering strange, inarticulate things interspersed with Ranma's name, and kissed him over and over, not caring if what her lips touched was shoulder or neck or his own soft lips, tense with effort.

It wasn't fair, she thought with sudden clarity, and then said it aloud. "You... you need to be... you, too." Her voice was rough and barely recognizable, but she knew what she wanted to say, and when he paused for a moment she tugged at his boxers until, with a deep breath, he slid them off his hips.

There was a moment of silence as each regarded the other, eyes filled with wonder and desire and anticipation. She was the first to move, gently curling her fingers around him, and he let out an agonized groan. "Akane, don't..."

"Don't what?" she teased breathlessly, fingers teasing curiously.

In answer, Ranma slid up her body for yet another kiss, but there was something reckless and rough about it that she found strangely exciting. She couldn't stop smiling, even as they kissed raggedly, even as their hands explored with clumsy abandon. This was the moment, she realized, and though the moment itself took more fumbling and giggles and groans to commence, it still seemed somehow sacred, consecrated.

She had known it would hurt, but even expecting it, the strangeness of the pain took her by surprise, and she pushed at him instinctively. He pulled back at her faint cry, an apology springing to his lips; before he could utter it, she kissed him full and deep, pulling him back to her. The pain would stop, she told herself, it would stop - and though it didn't quite stop, with each moment it faded a bit more, replaced with something just as intense, almost like pain, but something much more.

He was gasping into her shoulder, his back tense and face contorted with effort; she almost wanted to laugh at his expression, it was just so odd - but the urgent, spastic rhythm of his movements and the incredible sensations she was beginning to feel distracted her from that thought before she even finished thinking it, and she simply held him tight.

"Akane," he gritted out through his teeth, and she met his fevered eyes, expectant. "I... I can't..." In a rush, she realized what he was trying to tell her, and the knowledge filled her with a strange, womanly wisdom; she smiled, and pressed his head to her breast.

"Don't," she said softly. "It... It's okay."

Before she was even done speaking, he was crying out, his hands convulsing on her shoulders. She clutched him closer, feeling with every muscle and nerve the tremors that wracked him, feeling her smile grow with the barely-coherent knowledge that she had done this to him, that she had brought him to this point. When he collapsed atop her, sweaty and heaving with release, she stroked damp locks of hair back from his face, murmuring little meaningless endearments into the near-silence of the room.

"I'm sorry."

Ranma's voice summoned Akane back from the reverie she'd been drifting through, thinking he was asleep but unwilling to let him go just yet. Her hands stilled their motions on his brow, and she glanced in surprise at his serious expression.

"What... what for?" she asked in confusion. She was pretty sure she'd made it plain to him that this was exactly what she wanted, hadn't she?

"I... well, dammit, I couldn't... This wasn't how things were supposed to end, okay?" His eyes were filled with self-loathing, and she blinked as he rolled off of her, lying on his back beside her.

"But, Ranma, I thought... What's wrong with ending up in bed together?" If he thought she was going to let him off the hook now...

"No, not in bed... What I mean is, you didn't... You were supposed to... Look, don't tell me you got what you were supposed to get out of this!"

Akane pressed her lips together grumpily. "An orgasm, you mean?" Her voice was clipped and a bit surly, but if he couldn't get to the damn point, she wasn't going to cut him any slack.

Ranma seemed to deflate a little, rolling his eyes slightly. "Uh, yeah. An orgasm."

She shifted onto her side, propping her head up on a fist and glaring down at him. "No, I didn't have an orgasm." His guilty look intensified. "BUT," she said firmly, poking him in the chest, "that doesn't mean I didn't have a damn good time. You were... you were really wonderful. I can't even explain how much."

"I was wonderful?" He looked at her dubiously.

"Yes, you were." Akane leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. "Now, I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement, but if you'd like to... look, I love you, and I'm willing to give you another chance to do things right." She gave him a smoldering look. "Soon."

Ranma's eyes filled with relief, and he relaxed towards her, eyeing her mouth like a piece of candy. "How soon?"

Akane smiled wickedly, dipping her head down until her lips were bare millimeters from his. "As soon as you're ready," she breathed. "How soon can that be?"

As it turned out, much to Akane's satisfaction, that was very soon indeed.

Orochi Network Primary Status Display

Auxilary Control Bunker

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

15 June 3025

Lieutenant Davidge drowsed at his chair, his head tilted back over the headrest, and a snore rolling up from the depths of his throat. Captain Ninomiya, having reverted to her child-body in the interim, lay sprawled in her own chair, a snot bubble expanding and contracting from her nostril as she slept. They had been working non-stop on a way to subvert control over the primary Orochi unit without success, and even if they had been awake when Ranma and Akane fumbled their way giggling down the stairwell, they would not have noticed them.

The main display suddenly jumped, characters dancing across the screen as telemetry information was received from space. Davidge groaned, but did not stir as other displays mirrored the main.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------  
SLDF AUTOMATED ORBITAL BATTLESTATION PROTOTYPE EVALUATION

ROUTINE FOR YAMATO-NO-OROCHI CLASS, PRIMARY UNIT

-Rev 4.2.13- 08/29/2782

currentpos: Ryuugenzawa L4 Lagrange Point/76.20mym

interrupt//.00&FF/stackdump

//7AFF80&FF

//5B339A&FF

//221CC4&FA

// query/commandcom/node1/status:execute

//interrupt//awk...50012D&3F

//wait...

//report/commandcom/node1/peripherals/autointellection-OK

//report/commandcom/node1/peripherals/autoassessmentfunc-OK

//report/commandcom/node1/peripherals/threatassessmentlogic-OK

//report/commandcom/node1/sensors/passiveEMSarrays-OK

//report/commandcom/node1/sensors/activeradar-OK

//report/commandcom/node1/sensors/activelidar-OK

//report/commandcom/node1/commo/telemetryfunc-OK

//report/commandcom/node1/commo/nodecommarray-OK

//report/commandcom/node1/engineering/maindrive-56rising

//report/commandcom/node1/engineering/auxdrive-44rising

//report/commandcom/node1/engineering/reactioncontrolsys-30rising

//report/commandcom/node1/engineering/regenheatexchanger-30rising

//report/commandcom/node1/engineering/nonregenheatexchanger-50rising

//report/commandcom/node1/engineering/RXcontrolsys-OK

//report/commandcom/node1/engineering/RXcontrolcom-OK

//report/commandcom/node1/engineering/RXpowerindication-10thermal

//report/commandcom/node1/engineering/turbogeneratorcap-04

// changestate/sensors/radar/mode/RWS:execute-allnodes

//commandcom/ack/node2/ - ACK/changestate/sensors/radar/mode/RWS:execute

//commandcom/ack/node3/ - ACK/changestate/sensors/radar/mode/RWS:execute

//commandcom/ack/node4/ - ACK/changestate/sensors/radar/mode/RWS:execute

//commandcom/ack/node5/ - ACK/changestate/sensors/radar/mode/RWS:execute

//commandcom/ack/node6/ - ACK/changestate/sensors/radar/mode/RWS:execute

//commandcom/ack/node7/ - MALF/commlost-error/000000&00//reply not valid//

//commandcom/ack/node8/ - ACK/changestate/sensors/radar/mode/RWS:execute

//report/node1/statuschange/ACTIVE RADAR SET TO RANGE-WHILE-SEARCH MODE

//interrupt//commandcom/sensors/555FFAbrg:280+04/rng:3.03lightsec

// query/warbook/classify/newcontact-all:execute

//wait...

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0001:LEOPARD-III/IFF-NEG!

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0002:LEOPARD-III/IFF-NEG!

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0003:LEOPARD-IV/IFF-NEG!

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0004:UNION-I/IFF-NEG!

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0005:UNION-II/IFF-NEG!

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0006:OVERLORD-III/IFF-NEG!

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0007:HUNTER-II/IFF-NEG!

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0008:INVADER-VI/IFF-NEG!

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0009:INVADER-VI/IFF-NEG!

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0010:ESSEX-III/IFF-NEG!

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0011:ESSEX-II/IFF-NEG!

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0012:STARLORD-I/IFF-NEG!

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0013:INVADER-VI/IFF-NEG!

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0014:INVADER-V/IFF-NEG!

//report/warbook/classify/newcontact-0015:BALAO-V/IFF-NEG!

// changestate/THREATCON/THREATCON-DELTA:execute-allnodes

//commandcom/ack/node2/ - ACK/ changestate/THREATCON/THREATCON-DELTA:execute

//commandcom/ack/node3/ - ACK/ changestate/THREATCON/THREATCON-DELTA:execute

//commandcom/ack/node4/ - ACK/ changestate/THREATCON/THREATCON-DELTA:execute

//commandcom/ack/node5/ - ACK/ changestate/THREATCON/THREATCON-DELTA:execute

//commandcom/ack/node6/ - ACK/ changestate/THREATCON/THREATCON-DELTA:execute

//commandcom/ack/node7/ - MALF/commlost-error/000000&00//reply not valid//

//commandcom/ack/node8/ - ACK/ changestate/THREATCON/THREATCON-DELTA:execute

// queryclock/node1/opcommandcom/dormancy/revive

//wait...

//report/node1/OPERATIONAL COUNTDOWN: 056h59m32.78s

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

16 June 3025

Akane Tendo awoke in darkness.

She felt disoriented at first, finding herself in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar sounds and a musty odor that permeated the air in spite of the running ventilation system. A muted grunt from Ranma settled her nerves, and she looked at him with eyes that slowly adjusted to the thin shaft of red light that leaked through the doorway from the hall. She remembered where they were now, and as she watched him sleep, she remembered what they had done together.

It was an odd feeling, to know that she had finally put the last vestige of her childhood behind her. That same sense of womanly wisdom she had felt when she and Ranma had made love came to her once more, and she kissed him tenderly upon the brow while he slept. He muttered something in his sleep, the words themselves incomprehensible, but the feelings behind them clear.

She loved him - even if he acted like a dope most of the time - and her love for him grew with each affirmation of her feelings. She could not put her finger on exactly when her lingering fears and anxieties about him had been cast aside; perhaps it was when she had seen him wearing the insignia he had thrown away, or perhaps it was in the fierce hug they had shared before they entered the bunker together - when by an unspoken accord they had made the decision that now had her lying naked by his side in a bed that was too small for two people, even two people as intimate as she and Ranma had become.

She stroked his shoulder and along his smooth chin - it would be some time before he would need to start shaving on a regular basis, she determined. As she considered these possibilities, she decided at last that it really didn't matter when she had let go of her doubts. He was hers now beyond all question, and if his first performance had been short - if sweet - then his encore had firmly established him as man she would look forward to loving for a very long time. It was certainly easier for them the next time around; the passion was a little more focused, and while some of the mystery had been lost, his improving confidence made the experience even better - for both of them.

His eyes flicked open, drawing a smile from her as he scanned the room without moving from where he lay. He must have felt that same sense of disorientation that I did, she mused, and kissed him on the tip of his nose.

"Good morning, sleepy head," she said to him.

He blinked. "How can you tell?" It was quite dark, after all.

"It just feels like morning," she replied.

Ranma rubbed at his neck. "How'd you sleep?"

"Okay," she returned. In truth, her sleep had not been that great. She was naturally unaccustomed to sleeping next to someone, let alone someone who liked to sprawl out while he slumbered, and in the single bed this problem was amplified. She was sore all over from the contortions she had endured to keep from spilling off the bed, but was determined not to make Ranma feel bad about it.

"I didn't sleep that well," he replied, much to her disbelief. Ranma slept the sleep of the dead from her point of view.

"I'll go check on the time," she said to him in return, sitting up and stretching out the kinks in her back. "If it's too early to get up, we can always go back to sleep."

Ranma watched her with not a little fascination as she rose to fetch his mandarin shirt from the floor. She supposed that the red shafts of light from the hall played in interesting ways across her naked curves. She blew him a kiss before pulling on his shirt, admiring the hungry look he gave her as she fastened the frog closures. On her body, his shirt was just barely long enough to cover her where modesty demanded, and that must have made a compelling sight to Ranma.

She struck a pose for him just to let him know that she was on to what he was thinking.

"How do I look?" she asked coyly.

"You look good," he breathed, his eyes huge and dark in the dim light of the room. "You look _damn_ good," he amended huskily.

She smiled for him and padded over to the door. His hasty attempt to lock it had failed, she realized with a grin as she opened the door without pause and stepped out into the hall. There was a clock in the living area, if memory served her.

Assuming the clock was accurate, the sun was probably just beginning to poke above the horizon. This presented her with a dillemma. Should they get out of bed now, before Hinako and Davidge woke up, or should they take another hour or so to snuggle before they had to face the real world again?

She thought about the look Ranma had given her before she left the room, and decided to snuggle.

Much later - after they had snuggled, of course - they retired to the communal shower to wash up. The water was stale and dingy at first, having sat stagnant in the pipes for the last two centuries, but it soon cleared as fresh water from the bunker's well pumps reached the tiny fusion reactor's auxiliary heat exchanger, and from there, the shower head. They washed without soap because there was none, taking pleasure in rubbing down each other's bodies with their hands, and letting the hot water do most of the work since this provoked a round of smooches that threatened to send them back into bed.

They had to drip dry, as there were also no towels to be found. The best solution under the circumstances was for Ranma to sacrifice his trousers as a towel, and content himself with his boxers and tank top while Akane teased him with the sight of her wearing nothing but his mandarin blouse and her panties. Taken in this context, he didn't mind a bit, and she had to fend him off delicately as the urge to get her naked again took him.

"I've created a monster," she said, only half-joking, while she prepared tea for them in the dining area. She only wished that there was some food available. She was famished, and could only imagine how starved Ranma must have been feeling about then.

"Can I help it if you look so good?" he retorted with a smirk, his eyes straining as he tried to look up underneath the backside of the red satin blouse she wore while she leaned over the counter to fetch something to pour the tea into.

Akane set the mug of tea before him, amused by his randiness, which was in stark contrast to the reserved, almost asexual personality he had possessed yesterday. Yes, Doctor Tofu had known exactly what he was talking about when it came to Ranma and the idea of sex.

Thoughts of Doctor Tofu reminded her of what she had neglected to do for the last week...

"Drink your tea," she admonished him gently, realizing that she had not taken her birth control pills since the day she had been blasted out of the _Palomino_ by the Orochi. The doctor would not be pleased, and she felt foolish for having forgotten to return to her regimen upon her rescue, and a little scared by the idea that she could even now be pregnant. Ranma had certainly done his part to contribute to the making of a baby. "We'll have to go back and face the music soon enough."

Ranma thought about that. They were supposed to have returned to the _Palomino_ last night. "I guess so."

She sat down across from him at the small circular table, content to throw loving looks in his direction in spite of her nagging worries about pregnancy, and smiling when he flushed red in spite of his recent experiences with her. Their shared goo goo-eyed looks were starting to cross over into the realm of the inane when the sound of footsteps on the stairwell was heard.

Akane started as the door to the dining area opened, and Captain Ninomiya flitted into the room. Her astrogator followed after, looking nearly dead to the world. The two young mechwarriors froze at the sight of the two starship officers, realizing that they were sitting together in what amounted to their underwear.

"Good morning!" Hinako chirped, apparently oblivious to their relative state of undress.

"...Coffee..." Davidge groaned from behind his captain, his eyes bloodshot and weary as he shambled into the kitchen and began a search for the vital elixir.

"I think there's some instant in that cabinet," Akane managed lamely, pointing to one of the open cabinets above the countertop while wishing she were somewhere else.

Hinako jumped up into a chair and smiled at them.

"You're here awfully early," she said sunnily.

Ranma turned away uncomfortably. "We, uh, spent the night here."

Hinako looked at them as if for the first time that morning. "I see," she said with a bemused grin.

"We should probably get going," Akane added hastily, catching at Ranma's tank top and pulling him out of his chair.

Hinako gave them curious looks, but let Akane drag Ranma out of the room without further comment.

"What the heck was that for?" Ranma demanded as Akane led him downstairs to the berthing level of the bunker.

"Do you like standing around in your underwear for perfect strangers?" she returned.

"We've only been _living_ with Hinako and the Astrogator for the last six months," Ranma countered. "I don't think that makes them strangers. Besides, since when did you get so modest all of a sudden?"

"Modest?" she cried. "I'm just being reasonable, Ranma. _You're_ the one who doesn't seem to care what people think about us."

It took Ranma several moments to realize what she was getting at with her remark, and only after she had flung his slightly damp trousers at him to put on.

"So what do you care if people know about last night?" he asked her. "It ain't like it was going to stay some kind of secret."

She gave him a look that said if he valued his life, he would keep his mouth shut until further notice. Naturally, he didn't heed it.

"So what's the big deal?" he asked her. "What's really bothering you?"

Her face screwed up into a scowl.

"Do you really want to know?"

He threw his arms wide. "Yeah."

She had finished dressing by this point, and in passing him to reach the door to their room, she told him.

"I might be pregnant right now."

His jaw settled against his chest with a thud. With great inertia, he spun around to confront her on this, but she was already darting up the stairs. He was suddenly too angry with her to wonder about the validity of her statement, because what was the point of running away from him when he was her ride back to the ship?

He caught up to her at the Boomerang, where she stood pensively, trying to pretend that he wasn't looking at her. He decided not to dance around the issue.

"What exactly did you mean by pregnant?" he asked.

"What do you think pregnant means?" she shot back.

He pawed at the grass with his foot. "It, ah, means you're gonna have a baby."

"_Your_ baby, to be specific," she said with a bitter quality to her voice that stung him.

He opened the canopy for her to get into the plane. "I thought girls who were mechwarriors and such took stuff to keep that from happening?" he asked her, although now that he thought about it, wasn't Shampoo supposed to have been doing something like that herself?

"I was," she sniffed, unwilling to break and yet approaching that point with haste. "But I sort of missed a few days after we were stranded here. I just realized it this morning, Ranma."

He was thoroughly unfamiliar with the mechanism by which girls avoided this sort of thing, and knew that the one fairly reliable option guys could exercise was something he had certainly not done last night, and so he took her word for it.

"So how do we know for sure?" he finally asked her, offering her his hand to settle her in the cockpit of the plane.

"We don't," she replied as she took her seat. "Not yet, anyway."

He plopped down in his own seat. "Okay, so don't worry about it," he told her as he adjusted his throttle and choke settings for engine start. His voice started to catch in his throat. "I mean, would it be that bad if you were?"

"It's not something I would have hoped for," she retorted. She saw the surprisingly hurt look he affected in spite of himself, and softened her tone. "I mean, not right away."

Her hand drifted to rest upon his, which lay limp upon the throttle.

"I can't believe I'm saying this to you, Ranma, but someday, I _do_ want to have kids with you."

His eyes became huge with surprise.

"Y-You do?" he squeaked.

She kissed him softly on the cheek. "Of course I do. Just not right now."

His breath caught in his throat.

"You mean that?" he said quietly, almost reverently.

"Start the damn plane, already," she said with a grin. "We'll talk about this later."

Ranma let out a whoop as the engine roared to life behind them.

Genma Saotome may not have been in charge of the expedition, but he was still Ranma's father, and the one Grand Duke Tendo had entrusted the care of his youngest daughter to. He was not amused as the two young mechwarriors stepped out of the Boomerang and walked across the grass to the DropShip.

"Where the hell have you been, boy?" he demanded.

"I was busy," Ranma growled back.

"Doing what? You've only been out of radio contact for the last twelve hours. What if something had happened?"

Ranma brushed him off as Akane started up the ramp. "We were at the bunker the whole time, old man. If you needed us, all you had to do was call Captain Ninomiya."

"At the bunker!" Genma cried indignantly. "You and Akane spent the night at the bunker? Alone? Just what the hell were you two doing all night..." A strange expression crawled across his face as he continued. "All alone... in that bunker... just you and Akane..."

He regarded his son with a penetrating look.

"You dirty dog..." he growled, though there was tremendous pride in his voice.

Ranma turned crimson and pulled uncomfortably at his collar, which was all the confirmation that his father needed for his suspicions.

"That's my son!" Genma cried, clapping Ranma stoutly on the back. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he swept his son up into a manly bear hug. "At last you've become a man! You don't know how proud you've just made me!"

"Quit it already," Ranma barked. "I don't want to talk about it with you, all right?"

Genma lifted him up in the air despite his protestations. Though there were times when the elder Saotome seemed a worthless, slovenly, and sedentary man, his great strength had not been diminished with age, and he spun Ranma around in midair while laughing boisterously in some personal triumph nearly twenty years in the making.

"You can set me down now!" Ranma gasped.

Genma did so, though he would have danced a jig if his son would have permitted it. Ranma's sour look did little to dampen his spirits.The marriage was as good as done, now, just like he had planned from the beginning. All they had to do was find a way off the planet and get back to Nerima. Oh sure, they had their rough moments together, but he had faith that they would fall in love - or at least lust, which was good enough in Genma's book - eventually.

"Are you done celebrating yet?" Ranma asked him in an acid tone.

Genma retained his smug grin. "Not yet, boy."

"Then I'm outta here," he growled, and stumped up the ramp to find Akane.

Genma watched him go, his smile of pride and satisfaction welded onto his face.

Ranma bit back a curse. He was in over his head, and he knew it. If Akane was... was pregnant, then he would be a father. He had even less of a clue about being a father as he did about handling girls, and once again, his old man was not providing a good example to work from.

Was it worth it? he asked himself. Was what he and Akane had shared together worth all this aggravation? Was it worth getting saddled with a kid that neither of them were ready to have?

There weren't any simple answers to that, for he knew that if Akane wanted to sleep with him tonight, he would not - could not - say no to her. In fact, the whole morning had been a big distraction for him as he idly pondered ways to get her alone somewhere where they could...

He almost stepped on Happousai as he thought about taking Akane's clothes off.

"Watch where you're going, ya little punk!" the wizened mechwarrior barked at him.

Ranma looked down at Happousai, who barely came up to his knees.

"Who are you calling 'little'?" he asked archly.

"I'll let that slide," Happousai replied coolly. "Considering your great achievement in recent history."

Ranma didn't like where this was going.

"Start making sense, old fart," he prompted.

"Hmmm..." Happousai replied, stroking at his wispy moustache. "You and Akane stayed out all night away from the ship... You come back the next morning, and both of you have these goofy grins on your faces... And I found Akane paying a visit to Doctor Ono not a few moments ago. It doesn't take a mental giant to put these facts together and come up with what you two did together last night."

Ranma _really_ didn't like where this was going.

"What Akane and I do together is none of your business, you old geezer."

"Ah, Ranma..." Happousai sighed. "To think that all this time I thought you were gay. You gave me a little hope with the flowers bit, but even then I had my doubts. Now..." he sighed again. "Now, I can relax, secure in the knowledge that the future of the Anything Goes School is assured."

Ranma shook his head in disgust. "Does this mean you'll stop trying to change me into a girl?"

"Absolutely not!" Happousai shrieked indignantly. "In fact, now that you and Akane are so lovey-dovey, I think that this would be the ideal time to try for a threesome!"

Ranma choked back acrid bile. "Not only no, you old fart," he growled. "BUT _HELL NO_!!!" He then punted Happousai through the airtight door to the 'Mech Bay, his body shaking with nausea at the idea of him and Akane, and... and... Happousai...

"But it's every man's dream to have two girls at once!" Happousai wailed as he flew across the Bay. "Why can't you make an old man happy?"

"Is there some kind of test you can run?"

Doctor Tofu gave Akane the look of disapproval she knew to expect from him. After all, this was her fault.

"Not for a few days at the least," he replied. "But let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?"

He rose from his tiny fold-up desk in Sickbay and stepped gingerly past the medical supplies he had been going through to prepare for combat action. He rifled through a drawer that served as the DropShip's unrestricted Pharmacy and produced a small foil pack. "When did you last menstruate?"

She had to think about it for a moment.

"I finished my period right before we embarked aboard the _Palomino_ to come here," she replied.

Tofu consulted the scrap of paper that went with the foil pack and did the math.

"You're probably not pregnant then," he said evenly. "But just in case you might ovulate a little early this time around, take this. Then come back tomorrow and take another one."

He handed Akane the packet.

"What does it do?" she asked sheepishly.

"It's sometimes referred to as a 'morning after' pill," he replied dryly. "Appropriate, considering the circumstances, don't you think?" He returned to his seat. "Think of it as a super-strength birth control pill, because that's essentially what it is. It will prevent you from ovulating just like your normal prescription, but if implantation has already occured - which is extremely doubtful in your case - it won't help." His expression darkened as he thought of Shampoo, who for whatever reason, had chosen not to take that option, and now it was too late. "There are of course, other treatments at that point..."

"So I'm not pregnant?" Her relief was most evident.

"Probably not," Tofu confirmed. "But if you don't take that pill, and then come back for your followup tomorrow, I can't guarantee that you'll stay that way. And furthermore, get back on your schedule! You can probably pick up where you left off, since this megadose should about put you back to where you were hormonally."

She ripped open the foil pack and swallowed the pill dry.

Tofu rubbed at his temples. "I'm really disappointed in you, Akane," he said at length.

"I know," she returned. "I feel pretty dumb about this."

"Well, I guess we can hope that this has been enough of a scare for you that you'll take my advice more seriously, and follow your prescription as ordered."

She bowed her head sheepishly. "Yes, Doctor."

Ian Cameron Starport

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

16 June 3025

"Ryouga dearest?"

Ryouga spun around in surprise to see Akari giving him a puzzled look. He sighed with relief at finding her, having wandered across a good portion of the ruined starport complex looking for her. She and those members of her tech crew who were not engaged in repairs to the _Palomino_ were busy with the fuel processing plant.

"Uh, hi, Akari," he returned. It was difficult to meet her eyes when she was smiling at him, because it made his knees turn to jelly.

She stepped over to him, wiping her hands on a rag before presenting herself with a demure grin. He took her cue haltingly, leaning forward while wringing his hands in nervous anxiety as he gave her a kiss. It was a miracle that he could even bring himself to do it, but then as far as he was concerned, Akari was probably a miracle in and of herself.

He hated to tell her that she would have to discontinue her work on the fueling station, that it was too dangerous to remain while the battlemech forces of at least two different powers were on their way to the planet.

She brushed at his chest with her hands while he pondered a gentle way

to break the news, making him start in his boots.

"Is something wrong?" she asked him.

He looked away, his finger absently poking holes in the wall next to him. "I ah, have some bad news," he said to her.

"What's going on?"

He began wringing his hands again. "You have to stop what you're doing. An invasion force from an unknown power and one from the Jusenkyo Commonwealth are both on their way. It's been decided that we can't spare enough 'mechs to protect both the _Palomino_ and the starport at the same time."

She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the news.

"I'm staying, dearest," she returned evenly.

This was not the response he was expecting from her.

"B-But, Akari..."

She turned away from him. Several of her techs stopped what they were doing, having overheard the news. "We need this facility, Ryouga dearest, and we are almost ready to put it back on line. I can't walk away from a job half-finished."

Akari picked up her wrench and returned to her work.

"How much time do we have?" she asked him.

Ryouga shook his head in disbelief. He was in charge of the defense of the DropShip and its crew, why couldn't she understand that? "I don't understand how that matters. We need to prepare our defenses."

"How much time?" she asked again.

"Two days," he relented. "At best."

She smiled prettily for him. "I can be ready to refuel the _Nymph_ by this afternoon."

Ryouga struggled for a moment with himself before deciding that she was right.

"Okay," he relented. "But once the _Nymph_ is refuelled, you and your crew need to return to the DropShip. We have to rush the repairs to it if we don't want to be sitting ducks for the Commonwealth."

"Of course, dearest," she replied, looking him over as she finished what she was doing. "Will you be staying here for awhile, or will you be returning to the DropShip?"

"I need to return to the ship. We're having a meeting at thirteen o'clock to discuss what we're going to do."

She consulted her watch. "You're going to be late if you don't hurry," she pointed out.

Ryouga looked uncomfortable. "Um, you wouldn't have happened to have seen where I parked my BattleMaster, would you?"

Akari looked over his shoulder to the large open wall of the refueling station where he had walked in. The looming mass of the battlemech stood less than a forty meters away.

"Perhaps I should come back to the ship with you for the meeting," she said delicately.

Nerima Confederation DropShip _Palomino_

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

13:08 Local Time, 16 June 3025

"So," Ranma said to the assembled officers and crew on the Mess Deck. "What're we gonna do?"

It was a question that seemed to be on everyone's lips. Unfortunately, no one seemed to have any answers.

Hinako was the first to finally speak, standing up on a table to be seen by all.

"I'd like to take the _Nymph_ up to orbit as soon as possible then, to investigate the space station and the drydock," she declared. "No matter who might be on their way to the planet, we still need a way to Jump out of the system. It might be our only chance."

"That's assuming we can get the _Palomino_ repaired in time," Captain Grant countered. "We need at least four more days to patch eveything up."

"Can't you cut some corners?" Ranam asked in an acid tone.

Grant glared at the pig-tailed mechwarrior. "I don't know about you, Captain Saotome, but I like my two gigawatt nuclear fusion reactors to be fixed the right way when I go to light them off."

Akane rose to put a hand on Ranma's arm before things got ugly. "I understand completely, Captain Grant," she said coolly. "But at the same time, we're faced with a real dilemma. The _Palomino_ is the only ship that can transport everyone and their 'mechs into orbit - assuming that there is in fact a ship that can take us out of the system waiting for us in that drydock. The _Palomino_ is also currently in one of the worst defensible positions I can imagine against a strong invading force."

Grant sipped at his coffee, the days without sleep evident in his bloodshot eyes. "If we delay the cooldown and depressurization of the port reactor cooling loop for a little longer, I can start up, lift the ship, and put it a short distance away - and I do mean a short distance."

"Can you make the starport?" Genma asked him.

Grant shrugged. "Thirty klicks is probably about as far as we could go. We're on seriously diminished capacity right now on the port loop, and the starboard loop still has another week or two to go before we can even attempt to repressurize it and put it back on service - at a minimum."

Genma and Doctor Tofu looked over the map of the starport that Shinnosuke and his grandfather had provided for them, comparing it to the modern-day observations Yuka and Sayuri had made from the air.

"It's probably the most defensible position we've got, considering the condition of the ship," Genma conceded.

"The only problem is that the starport will probably be a likely target for investigation by the Commonwealth forces," Tofu pointed out.

"That's unavoidable," Genma returned. "Personally, I'd like to see the _Palomino_ safely on the other side of the planet, but that isn't going to happen."

"Getting back to the matter of investigating the space station," Hinako interrupted.

Akane nodded in reply. "Can your Executive Officer handle the bunker operations?"

"Commander Malloy is in charge there right now," Hinako answered anxiously.

"Then make preparations to leave as soon as possible," Akane ordered.

The diminutive captain beamed happily.

"At once, milady," she cried, and flittered out of the room.

Ranma gave his fiancee a nudge. "Why'd you say yes to her?"

"Can't you guess?" she whispered.

"Not really."

She rolled her eyes at him. "We've got too many chiefs and not enough indians around here as it is. Besides, if she does find a ship up there, she'll need time to get it ready to leave. We don't have much time before the Commonwealth gets here."

Ranma nodded grudgingly. "You gotta point."

"This is all fine and good," Grant observed, "But it still brings us back to the _Palomino_'s condition. We can't lift off for a safer location for at least two more days, and that's 'cutting corners.' We've got the Jusenkyo Commonwealth and some other group on the way. So do we fight, or surrender? I'm not much for giving up, but then I'm not in charge here."

"I'm not going to surrender without a fight," Genma declared, surprising everyone. "Even if the boy and I weren't marked for death by the Commonwealth, we all worked hard and made a lot of sacrifices to get here, and I'm not just going to roll over and let the Amazons take everything."

"We fight a holding action then," Ranma agreed. "We buy time for the _Palomino_ repairs to reach a point where we can lift the ship and make a run for the other side of the planet."

"Guerrilla tactics," Tofu added, remembering a battle he had fought early in his career as a mechwarrior where gaining time was more important than victory. Of course, he had barely escaped with life and battlemech in that fight, but his current circumstances were no different. "Hit and run. We don't have the numbers to take on any 'mechs in a frontal assault, so we keep them guessing and on the defensive long enough to finish up the repairs."

There was a general agreement at this, silenced only when Shinnosuke and his Grandfather were shown in by one of the _Dragonfly_ crew.

"My grandson told me what was happening," the old man said, taking a seat near the bug juice dispenser. Shinnosuke remained standing, his pushbroom crutch under his armpit.

"I'm sorry for bringing them to your world," Akane told him. "I feel that it's my fault."

The old man shook his head wearily. "They aren't the first to come here looking for spoils, and they probably won't be the last." He took a sip from a cup of hot tea Shinnosuke poured for him. "I discussed the matter with the people of the village before we were brought here. They won't help you fight, if that is what you choose to do, but if things go badly for you, they have agreed to take you in and hide you from your enemies."

"A bolt hole is always nice to have," Genma observed.

"We're grateful for whatever help they can offer," Akane added.

The old man brushed at his bushy beard. "So, what news of the Orochi?"

"It's due to reactivate in about thirty-six hours," Akane replied grimly.

"That's the _other_ problem," Ranma groused. "When that thing wakes up, it'll blow the crap outta the starport, most likely."

"Should we reconsider moving the _Palomino_ there, then?" Akari asked.

"We're up against the clock no matter what," Ryouga replied, knowing that his beloved technician was going to be at ground zero for any orbital bombardment from the rogue defense satellite. "And since the Commonwealth is due to get here before the Orochi satellite reactivates, we'll have to deal with them first. The starport is probably the best place we can hope to fight a delaying action."

"Let's not make this too complicated," Akane said to them. "We'll move the _Palomino_ to the starport early tonight, after Captain Ninomiya leaves for orbit. Then we'll make preparations to defend the starport."

"We need more 'mechs to even have a chance at this," Genma noted. He looked to Shinnosuke and his grandfather. "Know where we can find some?"

The two caretakers gave each other measured looks before the old man nodded gravely to his grandson. Shinnosuke faced them, his face a mask of guarded emotion.

"The SLDF 'mech garage is intact," he said to them. "I have the keys to the facilities. If it will help you, I can let you in to take a look."

"Any LAMs there?" Ranma chirped.

Shinnosuke shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think so."

"That's okay," Ranma replied. "I got a decent angle on one from the area map you gave us." Akane gave him a puzzled look, surprised at his cavalier attitude toward the matter.

"Let's get going then," Genma suggested. "If there are usable 'mechs there, we won't have much time to prep them."

"If you get lucky and find enough for all of us, don't forget Shampoo," Ranma told him.

"Shampoo?" both Akane and Genma asked incredulously.

Ranma nodded his head.

"Yeah. Shampoo. She's got even more to fear from this so-called Musk Dynasty than we do, and if I'm right and the other force is from the Combine, they probably won't be happy to see her either. We need as many 'mechs as we can put into the field, and Shampoo's a good fighter."

"I think you need professional help, Ranchan," Ukyou declared. "I wouldn't trust that Amazon bimbo any farther than I could throw her."

"I'd rather take the chance. As long as we make it clear what's going to happen, I'm sure she'd rather fight than wait it out as a prisoner. Let's make it worth her while. If she fights well, we drop the spying charges against her."

"Are you insane?" Grant asked bitterly. "It's because of her that the Musk Dynasty knows where this place is!"

Ranma folded his arms across his chest. "That's in the past. Right now I'm trying to make sure we all live to see the future. Our best chance is with another 'mech. You don't like it, we'll put her out at the bunker. They need protecting too. Konatsu can keep an eye on her until it's time to mount up."

The kunoichi stood and bowed for him. "I would be honored to accept such an assignment, sir."

Ukyou gave him a nudge. "Careful, honey, she's a slippery one."

"Fair enough," Genma conceded impatiently. "Any other objections?"

Akane was tempted to speak, but decided to give Shampoo the benefit of the doubt.

"Other than the fact that she's pregnant right now, I can't think of any reasons," Doctor Tofu declared.

"We'll give her the choice then," Ranma declared.

"I'm outta here," Genma growled and started once more for the door.

Akari cleared her throat gently for attention.

"Pardon me, Commander," she said to him. "But it seems as if my section will be busy aiding in the _Palomino_ repairs. I don't know how much support we'll be able to give towards battlemech preparation."

Genma waved her off. "I'm sure we'll be able to handle the basics," he told her, then rose. "Time's wasting. Come on, Shinnosuke."

Ranma watched his father go and shook his head. "He's taking off in a big hurry."

Ryouga nodded in agreement. "Ukyou and I will go with him if you don't need us here."

"Go for it."

The Mess Deck cleared of people, leaving just Ranma, Akane, and Shinnosuke's grandfather.

"I wish you all the best of luck," the old man said to them.

"We'll need it," Ranma said sourly. "Thanks for all of the help."

"I've had to face some hard truths since you arrived," he replied. "The fact that the Star League is no more is the hardest. There is no more point in looking after the facilities here, so if you will do me this one favor, I would be forever grateful."

"What is it?" Akane asked.

"If you do somehow manage to escape the system, take my grandson with you."

"Shinnosuke?"

"There is nothing for him here," the old man said sadly. "Just his tired old grandfather, and who knows how long I've got left to me. No, he's better off far away from this lonely place. Take him with you back to the Confederation. He'd make a fine mechwarrior I think - it's something he's always dreamed of."

Akane took the old man's hands in hers. "I will," she said to him. "I promise."

Fort Dealy Underground Battlemech Garage

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

16:27 Local Time, 16 June 3025

Ukyou brushed back her hair from her eyes as Genma Saotome and Ryouga Hibiki strained against the armored vault door. The door bore the scorch marks of cutting lasers and several attempts at blasting from looters in forgotten decades. Shinnosuke's key had unlocked the stout portal, but the abuse it had suffered had left it jammed shut.

"Need some help?" she asked the two, knowing that their male pride would not suffer it.

"We got it," Genma huffed, his muscles bulging and sweat streaming down his brow.

"You're sure now?"

"We're sure!" Ryouga barked. The door squealed in its running track, and jerked open a centimeter.

"That's got it," Genma cried hopefully. "One more push."

The two put their all into the door one last time, driving it halfway open, before collapsing against the reinforced wall with panting gasps.

"I think I threw out my back on that last one," Genma wheezed.

Ryouga wiped away the sweat from his eyes. "So get Doctor Tofu to fix it, already."

Ukyou sauntered past them, pulling herself through the door. "As much as I like ogling big sweaty men, I'll pass up the opportunity for now and take a look inside." She smiled at Shinnosuke and Konatsu. "Coming?"

"Right behind you," Shinnosuke replied. He had always wanted to take a look inside the SLDF 'mech garage. Konatsu followed wordlessly after.

"No fair," Ryouga gasped. "We did all the work."

Ukyou's eyes adjusted to the dim lighting as she crept her way down a long sloping passageway that ended in a cavernous hangar. The smell of stale air and ancient lubricants filled the place, and the looming shadows of vaguely humanoid shapes standing in reinforced revetments made her heart clench in her chest.

"Paydirt," she whispered.

There were at least twenty battlemechs in the 'mech garage, but at least half of them were in some state of disassembly. Still, there were more than enough for them to man in defense of the starport. She reminded herself that a share of whatever they could recover here was hers.

"I'm surprised that there are so many 'mechs remaining, sir," Konatsu said to her.

"Think about it, honey," she replied, gesturing to the many empty spaces for battlemechs. "From the look of things, the SLDF cleaned out as much as they could before they left. What's here is probably everything they couldn't cram into a DropShip hold."

"How many battlemechs do you need?" Shinnosuke asked her, his eyes wide with excitement.

"One for Ranchan, one for Akane, one for Doctor Tofu, and one for Shampoo - though I think it's a mistake - at the minimum," Ukyou replied. "But it might not hurt to grab a few extra as spares."

"Shouldn't we consider taking them all, sir?" Konatsu asked. "At the very least to deny them to our enemies."

"Good thinking," Genma replied, catching up to them, with Ryuoga close behind. "The way I see things, if we're successful in fighting off the Commonwealth long enough for the _Palomino_ to slip away, and Captain Ninomiya does find a starship up in orbit that can carry us home, we can still make off with most of the loot."

Shinnosuke gave him a hard look. "Grandfather and I agreed to help you fight the invaders," he said sternly. "But you shouldn't be taking anything more than you need."

Genma shook his head. "Who else is gonna use this stuff, boy?" he returned gruffly. "You? No offense, but I don't think so. Better that _we_ have these battlemechs than letting the Jusenkyo Commonwealth have them."

"We won't be able to take more than ten of them at the most, anyway," Ukyou soothed. "The rest of them don't look like they're in any condition to travel." She placed a comforting hand on Shinnosuke's shoulder. "Face it, honey. No matter what happens in a couple of days, your job as caretaker is over. In any event, the Star League fell over two hundred years ago, so it's not like you're protecting all this stuff for anyone. It's first come, first served."

Shinnosuke looked away sullenly. "I'm sorry. You're probably right, but it's just that I take my duties very seriously."

"We haven't got time for hurt feelings," Ryouga declared, a sense of urgency strong in his voice. "It will take almost all of the time remaining to us to get these 'mechs ready for action. We need to find out what we have here."

"Two Warhammers, a Victor, three Centurions, two Catapults, a Panther, a Wasp, and an Orion," Konatsu supplied briskly. "Eleven in all that appear at first glance to be functional."

"As the Master would say, 'what a haul!'" Genma cried joyously. "I've got dibs on the Orion!"

"Say, where is that old goat, anyway?" Ukyou asked as Genma danced up and down the garage.

"I don't know," Ryouga replied. "Frankly, I don't care. He's been nothing but a headache this entire time."

"He's been keeping a pretty low profile ever since we got here," she observed. "I'll bet he's up to something no good."

Ryouga sighed and started up the gantry ladder to inspect their first 'mech. "You'll get no argument from me."

Allied Aerospace Corporation, Special Projects Division

SLDF Contractor Facility Annex

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

18:12 Local Time, 16 June 3025

The facility was in ruins as Ranma passed overhead in his Boomerang. The three standing buildings had obviously been looted at some point by the stranded colonists, or perhaps by bandits from the Periphery who were marooned by the Orochi network. Bad weather and general neglect had done the rest. There didn't seem to be much point in landing, but Ranma set his flaps to full and swooped in for an approach.

"Are you sure about this?" Akane asked him.

Ranma didn't answer at first, his mind preoccupied with setting them down in one piece. There seemed to be a large clearing near the buildings, grass that had overgrown much of what looked to be a concrete runway. Seeing the ruins of a runway gave him hope.

"I just want to take a closer look," he said as they taxied to a halt.

Akane could understand his desire. She had a Warhammer once again, and while there might have been other battlemechs in the SLDF garage, none of them were Phoenix Hawk LAMs. With both an unknown but presumably hostile power, and the Musk Dynasty that Shampoo spoke of to worry about, Ranma could do the most good in a machine he was comfortable using, and after losing his 'mech to save her life, she would be happy to see him find another LAM.

They searched the buildings, finding little of value. Anything that hadn't been taken by looters had been damaged by the elements over the past two centuries. The conclusion of their search was that the above-ground facilities were little more than offices for the Allied Aerospace Corporation, serving the bureaucrats, lawyers, and functionaries that worked with the SLDF's engineering and evaluation staff to meet the Army's battlemech and aerospace fighter needs.

What Ranma was looking for was the 'mech garage. Allied Corp must have had their own staff of engineers and technicians working on their prototypes during the evaluations, and even their own garage space to work in. Since there did not seem to be any such facilities on the surface, they were either at the ruined starport, or else underground nearby.

"What are we looking for?" Akane thought to ask him as he opened every door remaining in the place. Looters had long ago done away with the need to force the ones that might have been locked.

"The basement," he replied, abandoning his fruitless search indoors for an access outside.

He inspected the grounds to no avail.

"Now what?" Akane asked. She felt bad for him not finding what he wanted.

"Back to the Boomerang," was his curt reply.

She followed him in silence. Rather than admit defeat, Ranma seemed to be paying a lot of attention to the hard flat surface of the concrete runway where he could see it through the riot of grass and weeds. He stopped short of their little scout plane, then began a slow spin, his eyes fixed in the distance.

"There," he said, stopping abruptly, and pointing to the slope of a low hill at the far end of the runway from the complex.

Akane examined the hill. Even with its lines broken up by the trees and the unchecked vegetation, she could see that its shape and its position relative to the runway were a little too ordered to be natural.

"I see what you mean," she replied, and followed after him as he trotted with mounting anticipation towards the hill.

The hill was in fact man-made, as they suspected. Once they were close enough to notice, they could see the outline of a large hangar door, its surface too uniformly coated with grass to be anything other than an intentional feature of the design, that apparently led into the depths of the hill.

There must have been some kind of regulation from the SLDF in regards to the environmental impact of the various facilities, Akane decided. Everything was underground and out of sight. Planets habitable by humans were fairly common in the galaxy, if the Inner Sphere was any example, but terran planets were still rare enough to kill for. A planet as lush and beautiful as Ryuugenzawa deserved to have its glory preserved wherever possible.

"Now comes the hard part," Ranma observed. "Getting inside."

"I don't suppose this place has any power left to it?"

"Probably not."

They searched around some more before coming across a man-sized door whose access was partially blocked by the gnarled and exposed roots of a tree that had sprung up on the sloping side of the hill in the intervening centuries. A good kick forced the door part of the way open, and from there, Ranma was able to wedge himself into the opening and force it the rest of the way by using his back against the tree trunk for leverage.

He pulled himself through the opening, disappearing into the darkness for a moment before reappearing at the threshold with an outstretched hand for Akane.

"Coming?"

She considered the dark, dank, and narrow opening for a moment before giving him her hand. Once she was through, Ranma produced a pocket-sized flashlight and switched it on. They were at the top of what looked like a sloping reinforced concrete ramp that led down into the interior. The ramp served both the personnel door and the hangar access, apparently. The smell of lubricants and old synthetic rubber was strong enough to overcome the musty scent of age that filled the place. Indigenous rodents the size of sewer rats with whiplike tails and large floppy ears scrabbled along the wall - startled by the light - to run down into the interior.

Akane cringed when she saw Ryuugenzawa's evolutionary answer to the rat, but did not voice her concerns to Ranma, who was emboldened by his success and started eagerly down the ramp. She followed after him, keeping certain to stay within arm's reach of her fiance, and away from the wall.

The interior was a large open space, with cranes, motorized chainfalls, and an extensive system of gantry catwalks. Large crates with shipping stencils dating right up to Kerensky's Exodus sat in one corner of the chamber, unopened, their contents untouched by human hands in over two hundred years. Ranma gaped at what he saw to be Allied's ill-fated attempt to make the popular Shadow Hawk design into a LAM. The battlemech remained suspended by cranes, with its retrofit cranked-delta wings curiously extended, over a large flatbed HEMMT trailer. Long strands of myomer bundle whose color had decayed from a bubblegum pink to a washed out beige dangled from snapped hip and knee actuators.

There was an eery sense of time at play in the chamber, as if the work had been stopped by the Exodus right in the middle of the repairs to the Shadow Hawk LAM prototype. Ranma looked around and saw other signs that this had indeed taken place. Techs were scrupulous about maintaining their tools, but he saw them scattered about various maintenance, repair, and construction projects as if they had been in use only minutes ago.

"Someone actually tried to make a Shadow Hawk into a LAM?" Akane asked aloud, trying to start up a conversation because the place gave her the creeps.

"Pretty dumb, huh?" Ranma replied, jerking a thumb towards the 'mech carcass. "The thing looks about as aerodynamic as a brick. After the Wasp and Stinger LAM conversions proved to be so popular, everyone wanted to get in on the act. Allied got the rights to the Shadow Hawk and Phoenix Hawk designs, and after the Shadow Hawk bombed, the Phoenix Hawk became their only entry into the battlemech market. It's too bad that they never got the chance to work out the landing gear and the heavy laser glitches before everything went to hell."

"Where did you hear this?" Akane asked, impressed with his knowledge of pre-Fall history.

"Mechwarrior of Fortune magazine," he replied with a straight face. "Look, I know I'm getting my hopes up here, but I gotta go look some more," he said to her as he walked away from the chamber to a row of cells set off from the main facility.

"I understand, Ranma," Akane said to him warmly. He did not say anything to this, for he had turned a corner, and stopped short, stunned.

The first thing he saw was the silvery glint of the eight-pointed Cameron Star that served as the device for the Star League Defense Force emblazoned upon the torso. The silver, white, and black-trimmed Phoenix Hawk LAM stood in Battlemech Mode; looking as new as the day it had rolled off the assembly line. Clutched in its metal fist was its rifle-like heavy laser, the protective cover for the focusing optics still fixed to the muzzle. The left forearm retained the same launch tubes of a twin SRM rack as his last Phoenix Hawk, the ill-fated T-507 he had borrowed from the Grand Duke.

"It's an SRM variant," he said half to himself. He had never been very fond of the regular models of the Phoenix Hawk LAM such as his old family 'mech, as he found the twin machine guns practically useless against an enemy battlemech, and the idea of using a 20mm automatic weapon on a person both revolting and cowardly.

He took a hesitant step towards the LAM, hoping that this wasn't some hallucination on his part, that the Phoenix Hawk was real. Only when his fingers brushed against the cold armor plate did he sigh with relief and let loose his anxiety.

"Phoenix Hawk LAM ASX-002," Akane said aloud, holding up the ancient maintenance log for the machine. "It's a prototype," she announced. "A 'Super Phoenix Hawk LAM,' whatever _that_ means."

"Who cares," Ranma breathed, caressing the machine in a way that made Akane feel incredibly jealous. "It's all mine..."

Akane shook her head and paged through the specs.

"Ranma?"

"Yeah?" he said, touching the battlemech reverently.

"Try not to drool on it, okay?" she asked coolly. "We wouldn't want the thing to rust..."

Ship's Boat _Nymph_

Approaching the SLDF Space Complex

in orbit above Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

20:21 Local Time, 16 June 3025

"Soft seal," the pilot of the _Nymph_ declared as the ship settled against an external docking port with a thunk.

"There's power," Hinako observed, gesturing out of the viewport to a series of lights on the far side of the drydock. "Either there's an active fusion plant running somewhere, or the station draws power from the recharge facility photosail full time."

Hinako was beside herself with excitement. The Orochi Network had taken no action against them as they rose into orbit, confirming Davidge's theory about what was considered a valid target. It took some of the pressure off to know that they could return to the surface with little to fear. Now if only her own theories were correct...

"Time to go take a look," she declared. Her handful of spare sailors clutched at nailguns as they filed to the ship's airlock. They each wore a pressure suit as a precaution, though there seemed to be breathable air on the other side of the hatch.

Beyond the hatch was darkness. Suit lights pierced the gloom, revealing a long corridor that led into the facility just below the drydock. On a whim, Hinako tried the light switch, and was surprised when the lights came on.

"There's definitely power here," she breathed.

They continued on, searching for a ladder well or an elevator that would take them closer to the drydock. After some time of searching, it became apparent that the station had been occupied by people other than the SLDF staff.

"Lousy housekeeping," one of the sailors remarked, gesturing to the piles of trash that littered a recreation lounge.

"It's worse than that," another said in a low voice. "Come take a look."

Hinako and the others joined the sailor, who nudged a pile of trash away from a couch to reveal a withered claw-like hand. The former captain of the Dragonfly recoilled at the sight of it.

"He's been dead for some time," the sailor remarked. "Gunshot wound to the head."

"Decades, I'd say," another sailor agreed. "The station's ambient temperature is hovering around minus ten degrees. It looks like he's practically freeze dried."

"Not much decomposure," Hinako managed, trying not to lose her lunch inside her helmet facebowl.

"With the cold, and all the radiation this place probably gets, I'm not surprised," the second sailor answered.

"No uniform, no ID," the first said. "The guy looks pretty scraggly, even for being dead."

Hinako looked him over. "He's probably someone who was stranded in the system the same as we were," she said quietly. "And decided to try his luck here."

"Just like us," the second sailor noted ominously.

"Exactly. We can't be sure that there isn't some form of automated security system in place here, so I want you all to be extra careful."

"Captain!" one of the others cried out over the radio.

"What is it?" she asked, moving towards him.

"Blood spatters on the bulkheads," the man declared. Brown stains and tiny aggregate clusters of crystals marked where blood had spilled. "It looks like your guy on the couch dragged himself through this hall from somewhere else before he croaked."

They decided to take their chances and follow the blood trail back the way the dead man had come.

"It's very strange how there'd be power and air, and yet it's so cold here," Hinako said at length.

Before anyone could reply, they stumbled across a tableaux of ancient carnage. Men in a polyglot of colors and fashions sprawled lifelessly before huge bay windows that looked out across the drydock. They had been murdered: shot to death, or hacked up with damage control axes clutched within the dead fingers of their killers.

"What in the hell happened here?" one of the men asked gravely.

"They look like pirates," another remarked. "Probably got into a drunken brawl or something."

"Or else they had something worth killing each other over," Hinako said, pointing to the windows.

They looked through the double layered duraplas, and saw the most beautiful starship in the Inner Sphere hanging at anchor within the drydock bay. A single bank of overhead lights illuminated the ship, letting them see its name and markings.

"SLDFS _Coronet_," Hinako intoned, recognizing the name from somewhere, and not quite placing it.

"Light Cruiser class," one of the sailors piped up abruptly. Hinako recognized him as the one the rest of the crew had banned from any games involving trivial knowledge. "It was General Kerensky's flagship during the Reunification War because of its speed and maneuverability. He had it fitted out with the most luxurious amenities of its time; a real scandal, if I remember correctly."

One of the sailors thumped him on the back of the helmet.

"So tell me, smart guy, if this is such a great ship, why didn't the General take it with him wherever it was that he went?"

The sailor shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine, but there it is."

"We need to investigate," Hinako said to them. "Whatever happened with these people here is a mystery for another time."

Nerima Confederation DropShip _Palomino_

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

22:40 Local Time, 16 June 3025

"That's my report at this time," Captain Hinako said to Akane over the radio from orbit. "We have a ship in drydock here, but it will take a week at the minimum to prepare it for space. Any engineering crew you can spare us will reduce that time."

"I'm not certain that we can spare more than a few techs right now," Akane replied. "We have taken possession of several Star League 'mechs and are preparing them right now."

"That's good news," Hinako agreed. "We're still limited by the _Palomino_'s readiness then, in any event. At least now we have a little hope of leaving this system, and perhaps with some of its treasures as well."

"I think your news is better, Captain Ninomiya," Akane returned.

"Good luck, milady. I'm off to continue the inspections of the ship."

"The same to you. _Palomino_ out." Akane said warmly, and switched off the commo.

"Well?" Ranma asked her. "What do you think?"

Akane threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly.

"That good, huh?" he replied, his voice muffled.

"We've got hope again, Ranma. It's something I thought we had lost for good."

"Aw come on, things ain't _that_ bad. Whoever these clowns are, they still gotta get through the Orochi Network. Who knows? They might all get themselves wasted in the process."

"Now that's too much to hope for," Akane countered, kissing him on the cheek. "We have to assume the worst. Anything else than total disaster will then become a pleasant surprise."

"Rig for failure, eh?"

She gave him a crooked smile. "Something like that." Then she settled into his lap. "Have you eaten yet?"

"I've been busy with the LAM," he admitted. "Why? You got dinner plans or something?"

"Dinner for two," she declared, reaching down to the deck, where two prepackaged survival meals awaited them. She handed him one of the entree pouches and a plastic spork to go with it. "I realize that the light of the Flight Deck control panels isn't quite the same as candlelight, but I suppose it probably suits the two of us better."

"This'll be the best meal I've had all day," he said dryly.

"That's because it's the _only_ meal you've had all day."

He dug his spork into the pouch. "Yeah, well, I haven't had much appetite lately."

"That's a surprise," she remarked. "The way _you_ inhale food..."

"I've been pretty busy today. Eating just never came up." He took a bite and made a face. "Besides, no offense, Akane, but this ain't exactly what I call quality chow."

She turned her head up to give him a thoughtful look. "Well here's to hoping that you'll enjoy dessert a little more than dinner."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked after a moment.

She took another bite before responding.

"I'm not pregnant, Ranma."

He chewed on that for a moment. He was relieved to hear the news, but why she had chosen this particular point in time to bring it up, he had no idea. "So what's that got to do with dessert?"

She turned around in his lap, sitting up straight so that she could leer down at him.

"Has anyone ever told you that you were denser than lead?"

He looked up at her, perplexed, but amused with by her soft tone of voice.

"Usually you, though not in so many words."

She leaned in for a lingering kiss, surprising him with its intensity.

"Figured it out yet?" she asked him at length.

He looked up at her, admiring the way the lights were reflected in her eyes.

"Maybe you should explain it some more. I'm pretty dense, remember?"

NCWS _Tautog_

Approaching Geosynchronous Orbit

Planet Ryuugnezawa, Ryuugenzawa System

17 June 3025, 23:33 Local Time

"No, wahine, your hands, dey must _flow_ wit de music."

Nodoka Saotome tried to assimilate this instruction from Shogun Kuno.

"Like this?"

The Shogun of the Furinkan Combine shook his head slowly, his tanned face wrinkling in abnegation.

"No, wahine. De hands, dey tell de story. You gotta move like you tellin' de story, yes?"

He stepped in front of her, his hips swaying and his hands moving with a hypnotic sureness as the steel slide guitars played. Several of Kuno's hula girl retinue joined their lord in the cramped confines of the starship's activity room, and Nodoka watched with utter fascination as they completed the dance.

He looked at Kasumi as the music stopped. "How 'bout you, eh, wahine?"

"No thank you, your Eminence," she demurred.

Kuno cocked his head at her. "Why de long face? We gonna be makin' planetfall soon. Dey say this place got strong tides. I say, we have us a big luau and spend de week surfin'."

Kasumi regarded him for a moment before her father stepped through the airtight door. The two _Tang_ crewmen detailed as security for the Shogun snapped to as he entered.

"Bad news, I'm afraid," he said to open the conversation. "We've been unable to locate the _Dragonfly_."

"Dat's no good, bruddah," Kuno agreed. He placed a coconut filled with the last of his dwindling reserve of rum punch in the Grand Duke's hand. "We don' find your daughter, we not gonna be able to settle dis ting between us."

Soun took a drink from the coconut and nodded his head absently.

"I still don't understand why you insist on taking this course," he said after a moment. "As the Shogun, you could order your son to desist in his actions. After all, you've told me a thousand times that you have no interest in continuing the war."

Kuno shook his head. "It not so simple. De reasons we fight go back long before you and me, bruddah. If I had my way, we'd settle dis whole ting wit' a limbo contest, but dere too many people who want dis ting to go de way it been goin'."

"Including your son," Soun pointed out, a rebuke that had once colored their dialogue and now had little of its original venom.

"He's young," Kuno observed. "De boy, he got brains, but no sense. I tink he gonna figure tings out sooner or later, like his old man, but dere be other brahs who stand behind him, tell him what dey expect for de support o' de country. Dey never gonna figure tings out 'cause dey want dominion too much. We Kunos, we be de Big Kahunas O' de Combine, but we not all powerful, eh, bruddah? De Daimyo want war, dey want spoils; dey gonna get 'em, or else dey find demselves a new Shogun, no shit."

Soun stroked at his chin. "It keeps coming back to that."

Kuno clapped him on the back. "What you gonna do, eh, bruddah? Dese tings, dey work demselves out..."

Kasumi looked on with mild amusement. A rapport had developed between her father and the Combine Shogun. After two centuries of conflict, to even dream of the leaders of two Successor States sipping rum drinks, dancing hulas, and actually talking about the problems between them was nothing short of incredible.

The day that Shogun Kuno had set down his neurohelmet and picked up a surfboard had been a pivotal one for the Confederation. It had given her country a full ten years to recover from war - before the Shogun's son Tatewaki again took up the crusade of the Succession Wars.

"One day, Tachi gonna be de Shogun," Kuno said at length, his voice losing its usual merriment, and taking on a sober tone. "If he gonna be First Lord, too, he gonna hafta earn it. He no get it from me. He gotta pay price for rule, and dat price, it ain't cheap, bruddah. He pay in blood, yah, an' not jus' de blood of his troops. He gotta bleed for it if he want it. He gotta sweat for it, sweat 'til he drop to his knees. An' he gotta cry for it to; de tears flowin' down his face at de pain he cause and de pain he endure."

Kuno folded his arms over his chest.

"If de boy can do all dat, den he deserve to get de throne." His sober expression widened into a grin. "Me, I know de price too much. It ain't worth de blood, sweat, an' tears to be First Lord o' de Star League." His hand slipped around the waist of one of his hula girls, who squealed coyly. "Me, I jus' wanna drink beer, eat roast pig, dance de hula, and catch de surf, no shit."

Soun opened his mouth to agree with the Shogun's sentiment, and was interrupted by the 1MC.

"MAN BATTLESTATIONS!"

The General Alarm klaxon sounded; seventeen gonging tones that foretold of disaster in the making.

Kasumi looked to her father, who started for the door. Shogun Kuno reacted calmly, gathering up his retinue of hula girls, musicians, and beefy Polynesian warriors to return to their segregated berthing compartmentdeep within the corvette. This had nothing to do with him, as far as he was concerned. He took Nodoka's hand calmly and led her away with the rest of the party.

Out in the main passageway of the Grav Deck, organized pandemonium reigned. With over half of the crew of the _Tang_ aboard as well as the Shogun and his retinue, the ship was crowded. Many of the sailors had been pressed into damage control parties; those with small arms experience formed up a repel boarders/prize crew team. She watched as they began pulling pressure suits out of storage crates that had been bolted into place along the bulkheads, the soft sigh of nylon and synthetic rubber whispering against flesh as they squeezed into their suits.

The overhead lights flicked to half power as hydraulic sounds deep within the ship echoed through the bulkheads and spoke of weapon turrets preparing to break the plane of the ship's hull stealthing to engage a foe at close range. Kasumi found herself struggling salmon-like against the tide of sailors, some of them already in armored battledress pressure suits and carrying nailguns and short, machete-like swords, to reach her father at the ladder well to the hub. The elevator was out of the question at this point, since the crew had priority - even over the Grand Duke - in carrying out their duties.

"What's going on, Father?" she asked him as they pulled themselves up through the hatch and into free fall. The clatter of boots on the deck below them, and the hiss of life support hoses plugging into the ship's manifolds filled her ears.

"Your guess is as good as mine," he replied.

They were in the hub now, pulling themselves hand over hand up a second ladder well, this one running fore and aft along the long axis of the corvette. The shouts of men from the Torpedo Room in the large compartment directly off the ladder well to her left captured her attention, as the Reload Party reported to their battlestations and took up the herculean task of man-handling the massive Barracuda antiship missiles into position on the loading ram of the launch tubes with wooden poles and block and tackle, all to the accompaniment of a chanty from the Torp Supervisor whose origins were lost to the antiquity of a forgotten age.

The hydraulic carousel handling gear for the torpedoes must have failed again, she realized, though there was a zeal in the excited shouts and curses of those in the Torpedo Room as they did their work that made her wonder if some of them preferred it that way.

"ALL HANDS PREPARE FOR BATTLE ACCELERATION WITHOUT NOTICE!"

Knowing that the _Tautog_ was capable of up to five gravities of acceleration during battle conditions, she stepped off the ladder well and onto the landing before the Torpedo Room airtight door. Her father followed suit on the next deck up. The crew in the Torpedo Room, many of them _Tang_ crew who needed a place to go during battlestations, continued their work, ramming a Barracuda home in the Number Two Loading Ram with a war-whoop.

The thin scream of the Main Engines whistled through the deck as she watched them, the thrust of the ship ramping up with less than the usual deference to comfort. Gravity made her sag against the bulkhead as she went from free-fall to almost two-gees in under ten seconds. Two-gees became three, and she heard a man scream below her as his grip failed, and he fell to the bottom of the ladder well. He had not stepped off the ladder like everyone else.

The Main Engines were howling through the superstructure now as they climbed past four gravities of acceleration. Kasumi heard groans of pain and dismay from the Torpedo Room as the ship continued adding thrust. Her head rolled onto her shoulder under its own weight as she sank down to the deck of the landing. The sound of a wrench hitting a hydraulic header in the Torpedo Room rang with ear-splitting intensity.

She felt as if her chest were in a vice that slowly crushed the breath out of her. How long were they going to keep this up? she asked desperately. She was young and healthy, but there were civilians on this ship, Mrs. Saotome among them, who had never experienced this kind of punishment before.

"Secure that weapon!" came the tortured command of the Torp Supervisor over the din. Kasumi managed to roll her eyes enough to look through the door, where a vertically suspended Barracuda swayed just outside the secure stays of the Number Four Loading Ram. In free-fall, the Reload Party did not have gravity to contend with, only the weapon's mass. Now, that antiship missile weighed ten tons.

No one could move to follow the order. Not under five-gees. If the chainfalls and cables that suspended the weapon snapped, it would fall and crush the entire Reload Party. Worse, the weapon's liquid hydrogen fuel cells could rupture, spilling supercold fluid throughout the room and down the ladder well - where a single spark could turn the entire ship into an inferno.

One of the cables parted with a _crack_ that rang off the bulkheads. The torpedo swung lazily under the straining second cable, ready to fall, before the main engines faded out, and the cruel press of acceleration lifted. It took several moments for anyone to manage to rise to their feet and secure the errant Barracuda.

Kasumi pulled herself upright and took a hesitant look at the ladder well before deciding to start climbing again. One of the Damage Control parties at the bottom of the well was already tending to the man who had fallen, but judging from the splatter of red on the deck twenty meters below her, it seemed like there was little hope.

She looked up and saw her father looking down. He had seen what had happened, and shook his head gravely. In that moment she knew that Captain Olivera's reasons for taking the ship to five-gees had better be sound.

Kasumi took an offered pressure suit before stepping onto the Bridge with her father. Everyone on the Bridge was already suited up, though most kept their visors open. A direct hit on the Bridge that would depressurize it was probably going to kill them all outright, the way she had heard them argue it, and any other hits would give them plenty of time to drop their visors.

She noted a palpable odor of fear in the compartment, a cold sweat gone stale as it evaporated and mingled in the recirculated atmosphere. Most of the crew did not make eye contact with her, keeping their attentions firmly on their instrumentation. It made her wonder what fate they had just avoided.

Captain Hauptmann manned Fire Control as head of the Tracking Party, while Olivera was on the Conn. She exchanged looks with the former _Tang_ skipper, and knew at once that their situation was grim.

"Conn, Sensory; the weapon has lost acquisition, and is continuing on its straight track away from the ship at two-hundred KPS, relative."

Olivera looked over his shoulder at the Grand Duke before responding.

"Very well, Sensory. Keep your eyes peeled for more."

"What's going on, Captain?" Soun asked, not wanting to mince words in an obvious crisis situation.

"Someone took a shot at us with a Shark antiship missile from over the planetary horizon, your Grace," Olivera declared. He pointed to the Tactical holotank, where a fading red line arced over a representation of the planet's northern pole towards what was presumably their position. "Once we were firmly within the magnetosphere, things finally cleared for our sensors, and that was when we noticed that this place is crawling with active orbital defense satellites."

He pointed over to the Fire Control station, where the Warbook projected the Yamato-no-Orochi Class battlestation in several plan views, with commentary, and none of it reassuring.

"The only reason we're still alive is because the torp's guidance system somehow failed just before the terminal phase of the intercept," he added. "We were able to scoot out of its way." He wiped at the sweat on his brow through his visor opening before adding, "But that's not all."

He called up several more displays at his station, pointing out several interesting bits of data as he continued.

"We went to battlestations because of this: two separate squadrons of DropShips are approaching from almost dead aft of us. I say separate because their course tracks have them originating at two points in space separated by forty light seconds. Our SIGINT gear has also managed to pick out a little of what they're radiating out into space, and get this, your Grace: one group has Commonwealth protocols, and the other Combine."

Soun grappled with this even as Kasumi did. The Combine was an understood risk, but what was the Commonwealth doing here?

"A joint mission?" he asked.

"Johann and I don't think so, your Grace," Olivera replied, gesturing to Captain Hauptmann at Fire Control. "From the look of things, there is a force of ships from the Commonwealth approaching the Combine JumpShips at high relative velocity. I'd say it's an attack about to happen, say in three hours at the most."

"What about this satellite network, Captain," Soun pressed. "Could it have attacked the _Dragonfly_, and that's the reason we haven't located it?"

Olivera nodded, not wanting to broach the subject in this way. "It's a distinct possibility, your Grace. An Invader Class ship wouldn't stand a chance against one of those satellites. Right now the whole area of space around the planet is being bathed in radar energy by those things. We seem to be avoiding their attention for the moment - how I'm not sure - but it might have something to do with the defense sat that is almost directly in front of us, at a distance of fifty thousand kilometers."

He looked over to Fire Control. "Put up the telescope track on Echo Two-Zero on the main display."

A telescope image of the satellite did not put them at ease. The Orochi unit was bristling with Naval Particle and Laser Cannons that could atomize a ship as small as the _Tautog_ in just a few salvos.

"This one appears just about dead in space," he declared. "No radar, an intermittant lidar unit. No telemetry signals, unlike the others in the network. One of the others must have spotted us, and sent the Shark missile at us before it receded too far over the horizon. Hopefully they weren't able to localize us better by the plasma trail we put out trying to evade the missile, but in any case, I'm betting that the Orochi unit below us is the only thing in range at the moment."

He showed them several prospective tracks on the other units. "We've detected three units altering their orbits to intercept us, but that gives us a window of about six hours before they can maneuver into range." His finger drifted across the display to a yellow dot of light. "This is some kind of space station, with a recharge facility and what looks to be a drydock. I'm willing to guess that if we can maneuver very close to it, the programming of the Orochis won't allow them to shoot at us for fear of hitting the station."

Soun nodded in understanding. "Can we reach the station in time?"

"We can," Olivera assured him. "The only problem I can see is figuring out what to do from there. They can box us in by planting themselves in orbits that can keep them within range if we try to make a run for it."

Soun nodded once more. "You can be assured that I have no intention of leaving this system until I know what became of my daughter, Captain."

"Of course, your Grace," Olivera demurred. He knew as well as any that the entire reason they had come here was to find and return Akane Tendo to Nerima in order to unseat Nabiki.

"If this is a stealth ship, Captain," Kasumi threw in. "How can these satellites see us with radar?"

Olivera had been considering this question himself, based on the tired look he gave her.

"There are two possibilities," he replied. "One is that parts of our hull have been damaged by the solar particle emissions from the Ryuugenzawa primary, and that the energy absorbant material has been cooked off. The other is that no stealth technology is foolproof. We absorb a lot of energy with the hull, but the shape of the hull itself is designed to gather and direct reflected radar energy along very narrow paths. Most of the time, any of this reflected radar energy that gets picked up by a hostile sensor array lasts for just a moment, as our ship is in motion, and the beam path never again reaches the array. Simply put, on hostile scopes we at best show up as some intermittant radar noise, or a ghost image. Nothing you can classify or track.

"Now it's possible that a coordinated sensory network could detect us, since they would have many arrays, and could collate all of the intermittant data they received to form a coherent picture of what and where we are. It's possible that this Orochi network is capable of doing something like this."

"So we can't hide from it," Soun noted grimly.

"Not likely, your Grace. The best we can hope for is to keep close to the station, or close to that dead satellite in the network. At the station they won't be likely to shoot at us, and near the dead Orochi, they can't use it to locate us while we can use it as a shield."

Soun looked first to his daughter, then to Captain Hauptmann.

"Make it so, Captain Olivera."

Musk Dynasty WarShip _Emperor Qin Shihuang_

4.15 light-seconds from planet Ryuugenzawa

18 June 3025, 01:14 Local Time

Captain Li Xinhua of the Essex Class Destroyer _Emperor Qin Shihuang_ studied his Sensory repeater displays grimly, searching for a sign of the terrible and mighty Furinkan Combine fleet. What he saw gave him pause for both concern and elation. Where he had expected to find a fleet of starships led by the dreaded battleship _Imperator_, he found instead two Invader Class JumpShips that had apparently already launched their DropShips for the planet - easy targets for the guns and fighters of the force at his command.

Where was the rest of fleet? he wondered. He feared a trap, that these two JumpShips were bait to draw him in, and that the _Imperator_ and its escorts waited for him elsewhere, concealed by the maddening solar storms that limited the effectiveness of his radar and most of his passive sensors to almost point-blank range.

"Do we have any telescope images yet?" he demanded.

"We have resolution on Contact Victor One," his Sensory Officer replied. "Putting it up on the main display, now, Captain."

Li watched as the image pixelated onto the display. A JumpShip, definitely Invader Class, was beginning to unfurl its JumpSail. He thought that was odd, considering the levels of high energy particle flux that permeated space even this close to the magnetosphere of the planet. A few hours of alpha particle bombardment might render the precious and terribly fragile photoelectric collector useless.

"Order another radar sweep," he instructed his Sensory Officer. The beams of microwave energy from his radar were certain to be detected by the Invader at such close range, but he needed to know what else was out there before the distance between them narrowed to the point where escaping any traps was no longer possible. Given the pitiful armament of an Invader, it wouldn't matter if they knew he was out there, as they would still be destroyed quite easily.

"At once, Captain. Radiating now."

Radar data posted itself smartly on his repeater display, confirming the range and bearing of the two Combine JumpShips, and also, comfortingly, the absense of any other ships within striking distance. He waited for several more moments, knowing that reflected radar energy could still be on its way back from a target light-seconds away. The pixels of colored light on the display began to fade, with those photons of radar energy first received also fading first. The most recent data was the brightest, and by definition, indicated the great distance they had travelled from his ship, out into space, and back to the passive receivers.

At the very limits of his effective range was a small clot of targets, and they were very close to the planet.

"Conn, Sensory; new contacts Romeo Three through Romeo Six, bearing two-six-one plus zero, range; four point zero one light-seconds."

Li had his suspicions. "Classify those contacts."

He waited while his sensory section examined the data.

"Conn, Sensory; Contacts Romeo Three through Romeo Six designated as DropShips. Romeo Three and Five are mid-displacement, possibly Union Class. Romeo Four is light displacement, Hunter or some other type of small infantry transport. Contact Romeo Six is mid-displacment, possibly Overlord Class."

His suspicions were confirmed. These were most likely the DropShips the two Invaders had launched. This was some advance force for the Combine, he determined. Perhaps General Herb would get the time he needed to loot the storehouses of Ryuugenzawa for the technology that would overthrow the hated Elder Council without having to battle Prince Kuno over it.

"Communications, prepare a transmission detailing the contacts we have detected, and their intentions. Stand by to transmit it to the JumpShip _Invictus_ on my command."

"Communications, aye."

His eyes drifted back to the main display. The Invader had nearly completed unfurling its JumpSail, but with the current attitude of the starship, the sail was oriented away from the sun instead of towards it to collect energy. He called for more magnification on the sail, wondering if the Combine crew was simply incompetent, or if they meant something by this bizarre state of affairs.

The smiling image of Kodachi Kuno, almost four hundred meters across on the JumpSail, and holding out two fingers in the 'V' sign, appeared on the display. The image of the Combine Princess was surrounded by a wealth of dark grey roses with thorny stems.

"The Black Rose!" Li choked out in disbelief. The Black Rose of the Furinkan Combine was in the system! He knew that the General would need this information at once, as it changed everything.

"Communications!" he barked. "Add that we have identified the Combine ships as belonging to the Black Rose Terror Regiment. Request clarification of our orders, and transmit!"

"Communications, aye!"

He suspected that his orders would remain unchanged. Destroy the Black Rose's JumpShips and leave her stranded on the planet. He would be doing the entire Inner Sphere a great service with such an act.

He was wrong about his orders.

"Astrogation," he called out as he read the printout he had received directly from General Herb's staff. "Plot an intercept course for contacts Romeo Three through Six. Assume a high-gee transit."

"Astrogation, aye."

This is absurd! Li thought in disbelief. Attack the Black Rose DropShips when their only way out of the system was through JumpShips that he was in position to destroy without effort?

Perhaps the General is worried about facing the Black Rose on the surface, he decided. It was an unworthy fear from their great commander, casting doubt upon his will to overthrow the Elder Council. Li stroked at his chin, knowing that command of the Musk Dynasty was concentrated in one man, General Herb, and if he were to be discredited, all power could shift easily into the hands of the prepared.

A captain such as himself, one with the cachet of commanding a priceless WarShip instead of one of the more pedestrian JumpShips of the fleet, could be just such a man. And if not, then he would be a man some other worthy would have to court for support. Power was built upon the dependency of others, as he well knew.

"Course plotted, Captain. Estimated time to intercept: nine hours and twelve minutes."

Captain Li nodded silently, and settled down to wait.

Black Rose Terror Regiment DropShip _Thorn_

Forty thousand kilometers from planet Ryuugenzawa

18 June 3025, 9:48 Local Time

Colonel Princess Kodachi Kuno gave her DropShip Captain an impatient look.

"Yes, Captain? I trust there is an explanation for manning battlestations a full hour before Drop Stations?"

The man nodded.

"I apologize for the disturbance, milady, but as we cleared the solar activity we detected a network of what appear to be defensive satellites in orbit around the planet."

Tarou scratched his temple. "Would that explain why you've been unable to detect the _Dragonfly_?"

"It's a possibility," the captain conceded.

"Dispatch a few of our fighter wings to destroy these satellites," Kodachi said brusquely. "I fail to see why you have disturbed me to report this."

"Ma'am, that might be very difficult," the captain replied quietly. He directed her to the Warbook display, where the Yamato-no-Orochi class specs were detailed.

"I see your point," she replied in a whisper, her voice uncharacteristically meek, and edged with disappointment. "Is it possible that my quest for vengeance against Akane Tendo has been prematurely ended by one of these... things?"

"We are unable to determine that," the captain replied diplomatically. "However, we have detected what may be signs of human activity on the planet's surface. We have received neutrino emissions from fusion plants from at least two locations, though naturally we are having difficulty pinpointing exact positions from our detectors alone."

Kodachi nibbled on her lip as she traced her riding crop across a projection of the planet's surface below them. "There," she said suddenly. "They'll be at this group of structures here. What looks to be a starport."

Tarou leaned over her shoulder to look. She nipped playfully at his ear, her apprehension evaporating as a newfound confidence came over her.

"I feel it in my blood," she added coolly as she gave Tarou a heated look. "Akane Tendo is alive, and down there on the planet. Have my staff plan for a landing zone east of the starport. We shall set down there - providing these 'Orochis' let us."

"We may have a way around them, milady," the captain declared. "It appears that this unit." He pointed to the radar display. "Has not moved or reacted to our presence in any way since we entered the planet's magnetosphere. This is in contrast to two other satellites, which by our projections will not be able to reach us in time to attack if we continue on our current course and velocity."

"Make it so," Kodachi sniffed, unconcerned with the details so long as her goals were achieved. The secrets of Ryuugenzawa paled before her burning desire to see Akane Tendo atomized.

She turned to leave the flight deck when several alarms chirped for attention.

"Captain!" the sensory tech cried. "Hostile contacts dead aft of us; range sixty thousand kilometers! Contacts are illuminating us with active radar."

"What?" the captain responded. "Classify!"

Kodachi looked on as her crew reacted to the surprise news.

"Contacts appear to be two Essex Class Destroyers, plus GunShip escorts!"

"Essex Class?" the captain asked, stunned. "The Confederation doesn't have any ships of that class!"

"Nor does the Magistracy of Canopus," Kodachi observed coolly. "None of which matters if they destroy us. Now how did they approach undetected?"

"They must have tailed us through the solar storm," the captain answered her. We could not keep our sensors trained aft for long without running the risk of burning them out."

Kodachi was steaming with anger over being ambushed. "Prepare an attack at once," she ordered crisply.

"Never mind that," Tarou grunted. "Our first thoughts should be of landing on the planet with our forces intact. Let the Orochi network deal with them."

Kodachi was about to rebuke her lover, knowing that he wanted the treasures of Ryuugenzawa more than anything, when the captain interjected.

"He has a valid point, milady. The Orochi satellites won't be able to reach us in time, but these interlopers won't be so lucky."

"Very well," she pouted, wanting to smash them herself. "Continue the landing operations." A dark thought took her as she assessed their situation. "I only hope that we'll be able to leave this accursed planet after the Tendo witch is dead."

A beam of charged particles cut across their bow as she spoke.

"Essex Destroyer opening fire on our position!" Sensory noted. "Second destroyer charging up main batteries..."

"_Chrysanthemum_ and _Widowrose_ reporting damage," Communications added tensely.

Beam blasts continued to ripple through their formations.

"Evasive maneuvers!" the Captain ordered. He turned to Kodachi, who shot an angry look at Tarou. "Milady, perhaps you should retire to the 'Mech Bay. We shall hold them off."

"Orochi contact is preparing counter barrage!" Sensory cried gleefully.

Kodachi strapped herself in as the ship began to fire its drives. "That won't be necessary, Captain. I wish to see these ships eliminated, one way or another."

Musk Dynasty WarShip _Emperor Qin Shihuang_

100,000 km from planet Ryuugenzawa

18 June 3025, 09:56 Local Time

The face of General Herb was blocky, and frequently derezzed on the display as he transmitted through the intense solar radiation to the _Emperor Qin Shihuang_. Captain Li knew his lord General was impatient for the destruction of the Black Rose, so much so that he had dispatched the upstart, Mousse, with the entire regiment to arrive on the heels of his own establishment in orbit.

"We'll be in weapons range in five minutes, my lord General," Li assured him. His solitary tiger nature made him indisposed to such interference from others, even his superiors, and it chafed him.

"Captain," Sensory interrupted. "We're detecting an unusual amount of radar activity in the system, focused on what appears to be the satellite network that we detected earlier."

"Never mind that!" Li hissed indignantly. He bowed to the display. "Forgive the interruption, my lord."

Herb's face crackled out of existence for a moment, his words cut off even his as his lips moved to speak. When he did return, whatever it was that he had said was lost.

"Could you repeat that, my lord? We appear to be breaking up."

"Captain!" Sensory shrieked.

Li whirled on the man, his face turning purple. "Silence!" he roared. "How dare you interrupt me when I am in communication with our honorable lord!?"

The ashen faced tech bowed his head severely in rebuke. "Forgive this intrusion my lord Captain, but the reason for the communications interferance is that we are being jammed."

This had Li's attention.

"Jammed? By whom? The Black Rose's ships?"

"No, Captain, by one of the satellites. Since you have forbidden us to use active sensors during our approach, we have been putting together a composite picture of the orbital system with our passive arrays."

"Get to the point!" Li interjected angrily. Herb's face was washed out blues and greens on the display, which frequently buzzed into static. There was no audio now.

The flustered tech bowed furiously in apology. "My lord Captain, there is a danger here. These satellites are quite large, and are likely some form of defensive network. Our Warbook database is running through the data now for an idea of classification."

Li growled. He did not like complications to his missions, and this one had been full of them. "The closest satellite is well out of weapon range," he observed.

The tech was now wringing his hands nervously.

"Begging your forgiveness, sir, but they are out of _our_ weapon range, which, while considerable, may not necessarily compare to anything these satellites are carrying."

Li was not to be put off. "Continue to overtake the Black Rose ships. Do not illuminate them with active radar until we are within weapon range, or until they attempt to launch fighters at us. We shall deal with these other contacts after we have eliminated Princess Kuno's fleet."

The tech bowed deeply, his apprehension clear. "Of course, my lord."

"Conn, Fire Control; Target acquired and in range for Main Particle Beam battery salvo."

Li grinned ferally. "Very well, Fire Control. Communications to all ships: permission granted for weapons-free. Fire at will. Sensory may illuminate with active radar."

He watched with satisfaction as the first beams ripped into the Black Rose fleet. It would take several direct hits to destroy the Union Class ships, and the Black Rose's Overlord could endure considerably more punishment, but the outcome was preordained as none of the tiny DropShips had weaponry that could hit them back. It was almost a firing squad.

"Conn, Fire Control; multiple hits scored. Continuing volley fire."

"Conn, Sensory: energy surge from satellite bearing zero-five-six, minus two zero."

Li turned to look at the holotank. The satellite was over eighty thousand kilometers away!

"Nothing to be concerned about," he assured them. Eighty thousand klicks was well beyond beam weapon range.

A blinding bolt of annihilation proved him wrong, as it ripped into the flank of his sister ship, the destroyer _Wrath of Heaven._ The capital ship took the bolt amidships, huge plates of armor boiling off instantly in an expanding cloud of gas that obscured the ship from view. When it cleared the fireball, Li could see the jagged tear through the hull, which flickered with raging fires fed by leaking atmosphere.

"_Wrath of Heaven_ has dropped out of battlenet link," Communications announced.

Li's stunned look gave way to fury. "Fire Control, target that satellite for immediate torpedo attack! Helm, change course to intercept. Steer a zig-zag pattern to avoid fire as we approach. Signal the fleet to launch all fighters to attack the Black Rose ships while our GunShips follow behind us in a sphere formation!"

"Fire Control, aye; Firing solution for torpedo salvo set."

The Helmsman looked at him if he were on fire, but punched codes into his computer to comply.

"Helm, aye."

Li stood as his crew swung into action. He would not be cowed by a mindless automaton, no matter how much firepower it had.

"Fire torpedoes!" he ordered. "Maintain torpedo barrage at five minute intervals to cover our advance, but keep the last salvo in reserve until ordered otherwise."

Another bolt of particle beam fire wracked the _Wrath of Heaven_, blasting apart one of the outboard weapon pods, and sending the destroyer into a slow spin. He feared the worst until the flare of its maneuver drive convinced him that the ship was still in a condition to fight. As his own torpedoes shot away, the sister ship launched its own torpedoes in revenge.

The minutes ticked away with dreadful slowness as the Orochi satellite shifted its fire to destroy the incoming Shark and Orca heavy antiship missiles. This was the break he needed, as his own weapons were almost in range. The satellite he faced was light cruiser class, just a step above his own, but he was a human against a simple if terrifying machine. He was confident that he could destroy it and ensure the safety of the approaching battlemech regiment under Colonel Mousse.

General Herb would have to recognize his audacity in this attack, and his own power within the Musk Dynasty would increase with his reputation. As such, he was commited to destroying the accursed satellite quickly, before his fighters could finish the Black Rose and keep the glory for themselves.

"Two torpedoes have scored hits on hostile satellite, now identified as Yamato-no-Orochi class," Sensory declared. The name meant little to Captain Li. He knew of their reputation in Kerensky's War against Amaris, and he also knew that the Orochis in orbit around Earth had been defeated. These would prove no different.

"Estimate damage inflicted," he ordered.

"Target's throw weight unchanged," Sensory returned after a moment's pause. The satellite's combat firepower had not changed appreciably with the hits.

"Fire Control reports final torpedo salvo loaded and awaiting launch."

"Wait for it," Li advised. He wanted to let the Orochi have it at point blank range, where its surprisingly effective point defense guns would have the smallest amount of time available to shoot them down.

"Fire Control reports target in range with main batteries."

He could see it now on his main display, an ugly thing, bristling with firepower that now trained on his approaching ships as the last of the torpedo salvos were dealt with. A cold shudder ran through him at the sight of it, but he fought back the urge to withdraw. It would be his head on a pole, figuratively if not literally, if he showed cowardice now.

"Commence fire!" he shouted to get his courage up. "Fire at will!"

The Orochi opened up at the same time as his destroyer. Its deadly laser and particle beams sought out _Wrath of Heaven_ once again, the combined firepower at what was for the Orochi medium range proving to be more than the battered WarShip could bear. Li watched in disbelief as the destroyer exploded with such fury that the expanding fireball of superheated plasma incinerated two of his GunShip escort.

The bridge displays crashed to static for a moment as the electromagnetic shockwave of the thermonuclear explosion washed over them, disrupting their systems. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the gamma radiation counter at Sensory spike, indication that his entire crew had just been dosed with about ten-thousand millirem of acute exposure from the dying _Wrath of Heaven_.

He turned back to see the results of his own salvo. The Orochi was hit in several places, a nimbus of ionized hull armor shrouding the hated satellite in golden motes. The sight of it encouraged him, and he ordered his GunShips to attack at close range from above and below in order to stay clear of the cat's cradle of annihilation energies that crackled between the two heavies.

Now that the _Wrath of Heaven_ was gone, the Orochi turned its full might upon _Emperor Qin Shihuang_. Massive Naval Particle Beam turrets trained on them, their violet beams of light roaring soundlessly through the void to slam into the heavily armored bow. The ship rocked with each hit, but he watched his own guns selectively targeting the turrets in response, whittling down the Orochi's firepower with each salvo. It was a high energy slugfest as the two vessels approached to within five thousand kilometers on a collision course.

"'C' and 'D' Decks report depressurization of the port compartments!" Engineering called out over the din Fire Control and Sensory were making. "Fire on 'F' Deck near the Number Three Battery!"

Li was too absorbed with the gun battle to care about the damage. He saw how his weapons were picking off the Orochi's main turrets and gun directors - limiting both its throw weight and its ability to deliver fire accurately. He knew he could win.

"Fighters report contact with Black Rose fleet," Communications announced.

Li made a fist in triumph just as a lucky beam of laser light cut a swath through his bow. The ship recoilled from the expanding plasma cloud of ionized armor, knocking several main systems off-line, and bringing up his only redundancies.

"Bow armor nearly depleted," Tactical advised. "Recommend immediate aspect change."

"Are you insane?!" Li countered. "You saw what that thing's guns could do to our flank armor! Continue head-on attack. Withdraw all unnecessary personnel from Decks 'A' through 'C' instead." He would minimize casualties, but he would not give up his fight.

"Conn, Sensory; second Orochi satellite closing with our position. Estimated time to weapon range is one-eight minutes."

Captain Li blanched. Eighteen minutes! Fighting one Orochi was costing him dearly. A second was a disaster. Could he destroy this unit and still get away in time?

"Fire Control!" he shouted. "Launch final torpedo salvo!" He had to pray that it would do the job.

"Fire Control, aye; torpedoes away!"

The torpedoes slammed unchallenged into the Orochi, blasting huge chunks of hull and superstructure off the side facing his ship and setting it alight in the darkness. His guns continued to hammer the satellite, but still the Orochi returned fire. They were now only two thousand kilometers apart, and the beams were murderously accurate.

"Deck 'A' systems offline!" Engineering cried.

"Number One Gun Mount destroyed!" Fire Control added.

"No response from Deck 'B' Port subcommand. Reaction Control System not responding on port side."

The Orochi spat a final volley of fire at the _Emperor Qin Shihuang_, setting the destroyer ablaze from stem to stern before its guns fell silent. Li pulled himself up from the deck as his shattered Bridge tried to regain control over the battle. Smoke filled the compartment and soot from numerous small fires speckled his pressure suit visor. Lighting had failed, and he was left only with the illumination provided by the control and instrumention panels.

"Damage reports!" Li demanded.

"The Helm does not respond," Helm answered immediately. "Auxiliary Steering does not answer comms from the Bridge."

"Fire Control down. Weapons off-line. No response from individual gun mounts."

"Sensors down. Active radar destroyed."

"Main Computer down. Attempting reboot from archives."

"Internal communications system down," Engineering reported, explaining why they were out of contact with the rest of the ship. "All sections out of contact."

"Unable to reboot Main Computer," Astrogation updated.

They were dead in space.

Worse, they were on a collision course with their nemesis, the Orochi satellite, whose tiny point defense mounts spat ineffectually at them like little fireflies in the darkness. The blackened mass of the satellite grew larger and larger in their telescope display. Apparently it too was incapable of maneuvering.

"Can we signal General Herb?" Li asked evenly.

"Commo arrays have likely been destroyed," Communications responded quietly. "We get nothing on any channel. Not even jamming effects."

"I see," Li said wearily.

They continued to race towards the hapless Orochi. It was clear to everyone on the Bridge what was going to happen next, but no one said a word. Each member of the crew submerged themselves into the task at hand, however futile they were.

Behind a thick lining of soot, hidden from view by his crew, Captain Li began to weep. He saw at last the price to be paid for hubris as the Orochi filled the main display without the aid of his ship's telescopes.

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

18 June 3025, 10:29 Local Time

"Node Five systems offline," Lieutenant Davidge announced gravely. Though the Orochi Network kept them marooned on Ryuugenzawa, he felt a terrible loss at the satellite's passing. It had taken out both Musk Dynasty destroyers and most of their GunShips before failing, making it their ally in the battle against their enemies. "Telemetry and sensor datalinks offline."

Commander Malloy switched over to the nearest satellite, Node Four. The sensor picture of medium orbit was restored, showing the ruined Musk destroyer on a collision course with the crippled Node Five.

"Contact estimated in six minutes," he supplied dryly.

"The incoming ships are maneuvering for atmospheric interface," one of the _Dragonfly_'s sensor techs announced. "Possible landing zones include the starport facility at this time."

"Any identity?"

"I don't want to believe it, sir, but I'd say it was the Black Rose Terror Regiment."

Malloy shook his head, not wanting to believe it either. "Alert Lady Akane and Captain Grant of the _Palomino_. Give them updates on estimated landing positions and times."

Shinnosuke looked up at the cloudless sky outside the bunker while in the company of Konatsu. The kunoichi said nothing as they watched the heavens, knowing that the armies of two great powers were approaching the planet. Shinnosuke was not sure what to make of the shy but pretty girl in his company, but she seemed to exude confidence that they would prevail in the coming fight.

It was difficult to agree with her though, as the bunker's only defense rested upon the two of them and the Amazon girl from the Jusenkyo Commonwealth, who was being trusted with their only battlemech support. The rest of the 'mechs were at the starport, protecting the DropShip _Palomino_.

He wanted to fight, to drive away the invaders to his homeworld, but he was just a man, not a mechwarrior. He did not understand how Konatsu could feel so confident in spite of their enormous disadvantage in numbers and firepower. Whenever he gave her questioning looks in this regard, she returned only coy smiles that made him quiver inside.

A brilliant flash of light lit up the sky as he turned away shyly from one of her smiles, and he caught sight of a tremendous explosion. At least he assumed it was tremendous. It seemed very far away.

"One of the Orochis has been destroyed," Konatsu announced softly. Shinnosuke had almost forgotten that the pretty kunoichi had an ear bead radio receiver, and could communicate with the people inside the bunker.

"You mean that flash of light?" he asked her. He could not imagine that it was possible to destroy one of the satellites that had kept the system isolated for two centuries.

Konatsu nodded. "We can expect the Combine ships to land within two hours."

Musk Dynasty DropShip _108 Demon Princes_

Forty thousand kilometers from planet Ryuugenzawa

18 June 3025, 11:14 Local Time

Mechwarrior Colonel Mousse reviewed his last conversation with General Herb prior to his departure with the regiment. They were scant minutes away from a confrontation with the Orochi Network, the same one that had decimated Captain Li's squadron, and had only the hope that the satellite they intended to pass within a thousand kilometers of would remain dormant. The General had ordered him to the surface of Ryuugenzawa to destroy Kodachi Kuno and her Black Rose Terror Regiment, a task that the late Captain Li had failed to accomplish in his foolish decision to engage the Orochi Network.

This he would do - provided that the Orochi let his forces pass as they evidently had allowed the Black Rose to do.

"Your orders are clear," General Herb had told him. "I believe that you have a score to settle with the Black Rose from the Capra System, do you not? Take this opportunity to do so, and your reward shall be handsome."

He did have a score to settle, though killing Kodachi Kuno would be reward enough for his efforts.

"My lord Colonel," the DropShip Captain announced. Mousse looked him over, noting the faintly rodent-like appearance of the man. What the Breeding Program scientists had been thinking when they proposed a hybrid of such a nature, Mousse had no idea. Perhaps his small stature was an asset for service aboard DropShips.

"What is it?" he asked, pulling his glasses down off his brow and into place over his eyes.

"We are approaching the estimated limit of the Orochi Network's weapons," the little man declared nervously. "Contact Romeo Four continues to remain oblivious to our approach, although other Orochi units are painting us with radar."

Mousse nodded slowly. Herb had prepared a contingency plan to minimize contact with the apparently functional components of the Orochi Network.

"Launch the decoy wing, and have them attack the closest threat," he ordered, knowing within the pit of his stomach that he was sending those men to their deaths. He hoped a few would survive the attack, but he was not counting on it.

"At once, my lord Colonel," the Captain replied. He relayed the order to one of his Flight Deck crew.

"How long until Drop Stations?" Mousse asked, knowing that he would stay on the Flight Deck to supervise the regiment's approach to the planet's atmosphere for as long as possible, and yet not wanting to stay any longer than he had to.

"Fifty-two minutes, my lord," came the curt reply. "Interface in eighty-nine minutes at present velocity."

Mousse nodded, watching the streaks of plasma from one of their Leopard CV DropShip fighter carriers as the decoy wing of fighters launched on their suicide run. He followed their departure for ten minutes with his eyes - the time they remained in visual range, then watched on the radar scopes for another twenty when they had passed out of sight.

The Orochi unit they were ordered to attack stirred on the sensor scopes, pulses of light and heat from maneuvering jets were detected, as were the probing fingers of new radar beams.

"Contact Romeo Six has energized gun directing radar in X and T bands," the Sensory tech announced.

"Decoy wing reports ready to launch missiles," Communications added.

Mousse wished he could see the fight with his own eyes. The telescope images he viewed were too hazy and indistinct to capture the wing's attack, only the menacing bulk of the Orochi itself was clear.

"Decoy wing reporting missiles away."

They were carrying Barracuda antiship missiles on external pylons, a gamble on Herb's part, as they represented the lion's share of his personal arsenal. He was counting on the technology they would recover at Ryuugenzawa to make up for this costly and otherwise irreplaceable expenditure.

Almost at once the Orochi lit up in a blaze of light, but this was not the fiery explosions of missile contact, as he hoped, but the firing of the many beam weapons the satellite carried. A full array of particle and laser cannons erupted in the darkness, long lances of deadly energy that sought out the incoming Barracudas as well as the ships that launched them.

"Order our forces to maximum drive," Mousse commanded, knowing that they had perhaps a few minutes to capitalize on the distraction before the Orochi turned its long-range ordnance on them. It seemed a kind of insanity to approach the planet when there were no guarantees they would be able toleave again, but he followed his orders, trusting to General Herb to find a way to stop the Orochi Network if the planet-bound regiment could not.

_108 Demon Princes_ surged ahead on maximum drive, the force of acceleration pressing him into his seat. The rest of the regiment's DropShips followed suit, making a break for the atmosphere and what they hoped was safety. The telescope image jumped out of focus for a moment as tracking systems compensated for the sudden change in velocity. When it returned, he watched with satisfaction as first one, then a second Barracuda slammed into the satellite's hull.

Two brilliant fireballs erupted from the Orochi, swelling with heat and light until they appeared to consume the defense satellite. Mousse found himself hoping that this was so, but as the fireballs faded, the Orochi came back into view, its weaponry still blazing forth with undiminished intensity. Only two blackened holes in its hull marked the impacts, with long fingers of carbonization stretching out from them like dark stars.

"Report status of decoy wing," he heard the Captain demand over the roar of the main engines.

There was a pause while the Communications section tried to hail the wing.

"No response, Captain."

"Radar holds no contact," Sensory added grimly.

"We knew the outcome," Mousse found himself saying, though the bile stung his throat. Herb had thrown them away, and he had made it so. "Continue our approach."

Crimson beams of laser light split the void around them, visible only through backscatter off the particulate matter that littered orbit. The Orochi was shooting at them now.

"Incoming fire," Sensory updated lamely.

Only the Overlord DropShip _108 Demon Princes_ possessed the ECM gear that could screen them, and its coverage envelope was very small for such a large flotilla of ships. Mousse watched in agony as a Leopard DropShip on the fringe was vaporized by a direct hit, its crew and troops never knowing what hit it. The deathlight filled the cramped Flight Deck, momentarily blinding them.

"_Talon_ destroyed by enemy fire."

"Fighter carrier _Sirius_ reports heavy damage to drive section; atmospheric insertion is doubtful." There was a pause as another death light bathed them in its cold radiance. "Contact with _Sirius_ lost."

"_Sirius_ destroyed by enemy fire."

They were nearing the hopefully-defunct Orochi satellite the Black Rose had used as cover. Its mass loomed before them; darkness against the glowing blue-white of the planet beyond. Sensors did not register anything more than faint energy readings and sporadic bursts of radio and microwaves.

The flotilla of DropShips passed it by minutes later, coming within a thousand kilometers, as predicted. Mousse did not realize that he was holding his breath until after they had passed without event.

"Weapons fire has ceased," Sensory noted. "We are beyond the range of Romeo Six's weapons."

For the moment, Mousse knew. And there were other satellites lining up across orbital space to take a shot at them as they descended. They could not tarry in low orbit, but had to land, and quickly.

"Long Range telescopes detecting Black Rose landing zone," Sensory updated as the Flight Deck took a collective sigh of relief. They were past the immediate danger.

Mousse looked over the hastily prepared map of the surface. The Black Rose was near what appeared to be an abandoned starport facility.

"Tactical, arrange for a landing zone on the opposite side of the starport facility from the BRTR units. I want at least twenty kilometers of separation between us, and a full fighter escort as we reach the troposphere."

It was necessary to achieve some breathing room, both to ensure the security of his own landing, and to allow his forces time to form up into combat units. The loss of two DropShips and their troops would mean some hasty reorganization before committing to battle, but this could be handled by his staff without his intervention. That she had chosen the starport indicated that it possessed something of value for her, and as he was charged by General Herb to sieze Star League assets, he was duty bound to take it from her. The only unknown he faced now was Kodachi Kuno's intentions.

Why had she come to Ryuugenzawa? he wondered. Was this some sort of attempt to get back in her brother's good graces, or was it another of her defiant tantrums against him?

He did not ask how she had come by the information regarding the Ryuugenzawa System itself, because it explained little even if the most likely source of the data was her brother. She could have been sent by Prince Tatewaki, or her spies could have stolen the information from him after his meeting with Nabiki.

"Landing Zone selected. Touchdown in forty-two minutes," Tactical declared.

Mousse closed his eyes. He might never get answers to these questions, but at least he would have his chance against the Combine.

Ian Cameron Starport

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

18 June 3025, 12:03 Local Time

Senior Technician Akari Unryuu watched from the shoulder of Ryouga's BattleMaster as DropShips from the Black Rose Terror Regiment descended on columns of starflame a scant fifteen kilometers east of the starport perimeter. The two Union Class DropShips were fearsome spheres, bristling with weapons, and capable of carrying a full company of twelve battlemechs plus two aerospace fighters and a covey of small vehicles and infantry as support, but it was the massive egg-shaped Overlord that made her tremble breathlessly in terror. A full battalion of three 'mech companies could travel aboard an Overlord, and while Colonel Princess Kodachi Kuno's personal ship was believed to have been modified to accommodate her creature comforts at the expense of troop capacity, simply knowing that the Black Rose herself was aboard was enough to make Akari fearful.

Black Rose fighters peeled over the starport a moment later, and she could almost feel the probing arrays of their sensors as they searched the place for a sign of their quarry. The carbon-fiber and retinyl schiff-based camouflage nets they had spread over the _Palomino_ to protect it were screened to some degree against radar, and Captain Grant had taken care to place the vessel next to the overgrown hulk of her long-destroyed sister ship to aid in her concealment, but still Akari worried that it wasn't enough. The Black Rose would still send troops to the starport to investigate, and there was no where else they could go.

She felt Ryouga's hands settle haltingly on her waist as she watched the last of the Black Rose fighters recede over the horizon, and turned to face him. He was dressed for battle; a tank top, cold-water cooling vest, and shorts to preserve him against the tremendous heat of the BattleMaster's cockpit. His cooling vest hoses were thrown over one shoulder to keep them from dangling until he was strapped into his 'mech, when they could be plugged into the cockpit refrigeration system. His eyes were clouded with concern, though his jaw was firmly set with the determination that no Black Rose 'mech would come within weapon range of the _Palomino_ while he lived.

"You need to get below," he admonished her gently.

"I know, Ryouga dearest," she returned. Her place was with her crew of technicians. They and the shipwrecked engineers from the _Dragonfly_ had to complete enough of the repairs to the reactor plant to allow the _Palomino_ to make more than short-distance hops, and that meant at least another six hours of work. Lady Akane, Captain Saotome, Mechwarrior Kuonji, Doctor Tofu, Commander Saotome, Master Happousai, and her beloved Ryouga all had to hold back the Black Rose Terror Regiment for six hours...

She put her arms around his neck and stood up on her tiptoes. Ryouga trembled at her touch, his hands moving up her waist to her back to support her. "I want to know that you'll be all right," she whispered as she leaned in against him.

He tried to smile for her. "I'll be all right."

"Promise me, Ryouga." Her words came out like a plea, which they were, but she wanted to appear strong for him - as strong as he was for her. "Promise me that you'll be all right."

"I promise," he declared solemnly, circling his arms around her now to hold her. She buried her face in his shoulder, her lips brushing softly against the exposed flesh at the base of his neck. He gasped lightly at this touch and held onto her fiercely in response. She could feel the moisture from his clenched-shut eyes as it spilled down his cheeks to his jawline, and soaked into her hair.

They swayed together for several moments of silence. Ryouga summoned up the courage to stroke her long fall of hair, starting at the temples, and following the straight locks of pink that began there all the way down to the middle of her back. She squeezed him with an urgency borne of danger and the uncertainty that she might never get another chance.

The roar of a fighter passing nearby broke them apart, and they looked into each other's eyes. Ryouga swallowed his anxiety first, and then dipped his face to hers. Their kiss was brief and sweet, saying all that needed to be said when the words wouldn't come, and then even that moment passed.

She turned reluctantly for the boarding ladder to begin the long climb down the torso of the battlemech, then changed course for the electronics package bay mounted just behind the large bubble cockpit canopy. She knelt next to the battlemech's head and placed a hand reverently on the cold armor plating, her head bowed as if in prayer.

"Keep him safe," she whispered to the BattleMaster. The 85-ton war machine seemed to rumble a little louder in response as the turbogenerators deep within the torso completed their programmed start-up ramp to full operational capacity. She placed a tiny kiss of thanks upon the diamond hard aligned-crystal steel, then climbed down the boarding ladder, her eyes fixed upon her beloved Ryouga as she dropped out of sight.

Ukyou Kuonji watched the Black Rose fighters through her bifocal suite, and wondered what the hell she was doing here. Her only reason for joining the expedition was gone. Ranma and Akane were more than just reluctant victims of their fathers' marriage schemes now, they were lovers. She had lost Ranma once, and then lost him again. It was easy to console herself with the idea that she really hadn't had a chance the second time around, but such pithy statements did nothing to ease the hole she felt in her heart.

She felt alone, even in the company of her fellow mechwarriors. She was an outsider, having no ties to the Nerima Confederation other than having browbeaten her way aboard the expedition to find Ryuugenzawa. The only person whose allegience she could trust completely was Konatsu, and he was at the bunker with Shinnosuke and Shampoo to protect Commander Malloy and his starship crew monitoring the Orochi network for them.

For a moment, she wondered if she would have been better off back in the Federated Shiratori. The answer to that was a resounding no. Sitting on a backwards planet in a forgotten star system, while preparing to face both the Black Rose of the Furinkan Combine and a regiment of pissed-off male Amazons from the Jusenkyo Commonwealth - in a battle that would almost certainly end in her untimely death - was much better than facing Mikado Sanzenin and his vacuous Empress-bride.

She clenched a little tighter on the controls as intelligence data from the satellite network posted itself on a secondary display. She could see the Black Rose 'mechs forming up by lances at their landing zone; each war machine an angry red dot against the light green of the terrain. Malloy and his crew in the bunker were their ace in the hole against the Black Rose and the Musk Dynasty. While the invaders (Ukyou had to laugh at the term, since she and the other members of the Expedition had only been on the planet for about ten days, and hardly qualified as natives) busied themselves with trying to set up lines of communication and scout their lines of advance, she and her fellow defenders enjoyed a bird's eye view of the battlefield to see where the enemy was, predict where they would go, and subsequently the best places to attack them. Unless the Black Rose committed herself early to a mass attack - something history had shown that she was reluctant to do unless the situation clearly favored her - they would be able to multiply their meager numbers into an effective defensive force.

It was a slim hope, but the only one they had.

Doctor Tofu Ono tried to push his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose, and failed when his fingers struck the clear polycarbonate faceplate of his neurohelmet. It had been years since the last time he had been in the cockpit of a battlemech, and he had almost forgotten what it was like. With an embarrassed and nervous oath, he slipped his hand under the chin of the helmet and up inside to push his glasses into place.

His Centurion seemed a little clumsy to him, a factor of the long period of dormancy, he supposed. Like the biological muscles of a sedentary human being, the myomer bundles of a battlemech in lay-up needed a warm-up period of light activity and stretching. It must have been a curious sight for the crew of the _Palomino_ to see the 'mechs in their extremely-rump company (or was it a reinforced lance?) doing slow knee bends and isometric arm circles prior to battle.

The remarkable Star League 'mech was otherwise ready for battle. Its primary weapon was a standard 155mm heavy autocannon: a formidable piece that made up the entire right arm, and loaded with twenty discarding sabot shells in the magazine ready to tear into the enemy armor. He had goggled at the HUD display when he casually ranged in on a distant shipwreck hull and found that his battlecomp considered it a valid target well within the range of his weapon - a distance that was far in excess of an Inner Sphere autocannon of similar make.

His ten-rack LRM launcher in the left torso had a similar tale to tell. Not only were the missiles capable of hitting from a much greater distance, they also had basic guidance packages that would afford them a measure of terminal guidance when the target was illuminated with something called a NARC beacon - a device that Akane currently carried on her Warhammer. The medium lasers he mounted fore and aft were of the plain vanilla variety - not like the high volume pulse lasers Ranma packed in his LAM - but also had a range advantage over the weapons the Inner Sphere could produce.

He knew that they had to exploit their range advantage wherever possible. Getting into point blank slug-fests was no way to survive a battle where you were outnumbered ten to one or more. The problem with this idea was that any open ground that would allow them to take advantage of their superior range would also expose them to enemy fighters. Yuka and Sayuri could not hope to fight off so many foes at once, and were going to have to settle for lightning-fast raids on the fringes of the enemy's air cover.

He studied the intelligence update from the bunker, his brow furrowing deep in concentration. There was _one_ place where they could really do some damage. The Black Rose forces needed to cross a relatively flat space of ground before they reached the starport, and if they positioned themselves right inside the treeline that screened the perimeter, they could blast them with impunity.

He keyed his commo mic to tell Akane of his plan, knowing that his transition from mechwarrior to man of medicine had come around full circle. He was a soldier once again.

Genma Saotome tried to relax within the roomy cockpit of his Orion. It was the first time since Capra that he had mounted up for battle, and the first time in many years when the odds against him had been so bad. Unlike previous conflicts where he had fought for pay as a mercenary, this time he felt as if he were fighting for something that was truly his.

The quest for Ryuugenzawa had started with Chance G. King, but he had been the one to succeed where his predecessor had failed. This was his triumph, even if they had suffered greatly in getting here, and he considered the spoils of Ryuugenzawa rightfully his. The Furinkan Combine and the Musk Dynasty were nothing more than vultures trying to deny him the wealth and fame that he had struggled for all his life.

In spite of this, he knew that they could not win this fight. Their enemies were simply too strong and too numerous to defeat. Survival was their option now, and much of that rested upon the survival of the _Palomino_ as a functioning DropShip. If Hinako and her crew could restore function to the starship they had found in orbit, they would have their means of escaping the system with at least a portion of the lostech they had recovered.

Somehow, he had to come out of this on top. After twenty years of being a loser, this was his chance to finally win!

Ryouga Hibiki tried to focus himself on the job at hand. It was not easy for him, for everyone in his life that he cared about was in danger, even... even Ranma. Watching Akari climb down the boarding ladder of his BattleMaster was the hardest, though. He wanted her with him, where at least in the backseat of his 'mech he had some control over her safety.

She was needed at the _Palomino_ since they were so close to being finished with the repairs. He couldn't deny that her place was there. His fists clenched as he begged the gods to see them through this day. If they lived, he would propose to her!

He had wanted to propose to her before she left, but as usual, his nerve had failed him when he needed it most. He had to trust now to fate, and to his skill in battle to see them through to a time when he could do so without the spectre of death hanging over them. He could care less about Ryuugenzawa now. From what he had seen of the place, there would be no cure for his Jusenkyo body to be found. He could not be a whole man for Akari, at least not in his own mind, but faced with the prospect of losing her, his pig self did not matter.

There were other concerns. The Black Rose and her Terror Regiment were here, and that meant that Akane was in even greater peril. With Ranma detached from the rest of the 'mechs, it was up to him to make certain that she was protected from Kodachi Kuno. He had a terrible premonition that something dire would happen to Akane if he failed to do so, and that he could not bear.

All of the happiness he had enjoyed since joining the expedition, the love that he had found, all of it was in jeopardy. There was always a price to be paid for such things, and if he valued any of it, he must be prepared to pay that price - even in blood.

His hands flexed on the controls. He was ready to spill blood and to shed his own. He would not surrender what he had been given.

Happousai puffed on his pipe as he sat atop his Locust, concealed in a quonset hut hangar near the perimeter. It was the same hangar where he had been discovered dead drunk the day after they had been forced down on this miserable world. He had his reasons to be here, and those reasons were not for the chumps who presumed to command him.

He'd take orders from Akane any day of the week, but with those two jokers, Ranma and Ryouga, in charge, he could have cared less. The punks had no respect for their elders, and as practitioners of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts, they were certainly going about this the wrong way. A true master of the School knew that altruism had no place within his heart.

And yet he remained at the starport instead of slinking off into the forest to ride out the storm of conflict and wait to see how it ended. If by some chance the Orochi network was defeated, and ships could enter orbit unmolested, he would have his ticket off this planet - and with the treasure he had so painstakingly accumulated and secreted in a place well away from the likely points of attack. It would be no difficult task to bribe his way aboard, no matter who won in the end.

Though he thought of himself as the very Ideal of the School, he had to admit that he felt bad for them. They didn't have a chance against the Black Rose Terror Regiment, let alone the force from the Musk Dynasty. He knew of General Herb's reputation from recent wanderings in the Rim Worlds Alliance in the Periphery, and knew that he was a brutal tyrant who did not offer quarter when it did not suit him. Herb would crush them under his boot if Kodachi didn't get them first.

He didn't know exactly what it was that kept him there in the face of these threats, but he supposed that it might have been in some small way because of Ranma. He was a rotten little punk, but Happousai had seen the glimmer of greatness within him, struggling to get out - with the proper guidance, of course. Whereas his father had been a slave to his appetites since even before he had begun his training, Ranma seemed to have at least a little self-control borne of pride.

A true master of the Anything Goes School could work with that, could make Ranma into a worthy successor to the School. Happousai knew that he wasn't getting any younger, as he was often fond of pointing out, and prospective students of the School worth their salt were now few and far between. Ranma and his blockhead companion, Hibiki, were about the pick of the litter. Akane was cute, but she was ultimately wanting in that she was female. He did not consider it misogyny that she did not measure up because of her sex. To him, it was simply common sense.

He wanted to see his chosen heirs become paragons of the school, and hopefully sire lots of strong boys to fill the ranks of the Anything Goes School. (Ranma he had faith in, due to recent events, but Hibiki was still a toss-up in spite of his apparent relationship with that sweet-assed Senior Technician, Akari.) If that was going to happen, they had to survive this hopeless battle. To do that, they needed his help.

He wasn't going to play it their way for long. Sure, they had a few good ideas for their defense, but clinging to the _Palomino_ was not only moronic, it was suicidal. Telling them this wouldn't do any good. They had to discover this for themselves, and hopefully before it was too late to make a run for it into the woods. Let the Black Rose and General Herb duke it out over a bunch of worthless old buildings and a handful of Star League 'mechs, and let the Orochi wipe them both out. When the dust settled and the fires were burned out, he would have the only treasure that was worth anything to the future of the Inner Sphere, and while he would hate to see the Confederation swallowed up by the Combine, he could console himself with the knowledge that he would become a very rich and influential player in the near future.

Ranma Saotome was itching for a fight. His silver and white Phoenix Hawk LAM seemed to be aching for one as well. He squatted in Airmech Mode beside Akane's Warhammer, which was painted in a drab green and brown woodland camouflage - there simply wasn't the time or the paint available to render the 'mech in her customary red livery.

As for his own 'mech, he was glad that it couldn't be painted in time. The sight of the Cameron Star of the Star League Defense Force glittering in silver and black on his radome made him feel strangely patriotic for an army that had ceased to exist over two centuries ago. This unlooked-for patriotism had prompted him to suggest that instead of painting the proud white and purple fishcake of the Nerima Confederation on all of their 'mechs - even the ones that had survived the expedition intact from the beginning and were without insignia for the sake of anonymity - they should bear Cameron Stars as well.

Akane had taken to the idea with more enthusiasm than he had expected. It was as if his strange and sudden loyalty to a state - perhaps even an ideal - that no longer existed, had touched her in the same way. They were hardly in any position as the Nerima Confederation to claim the system, and as the planet's defenders against the Furinkan Combine and the Commonwealth faction known as the Musk Dynasty, it seemed somehow _proper_ that they bear the colors of the SLDF into this nigh-hopeless battle.

He knew their odds were bad. There was no escaping that fact. At best, they could perhaps force their two enemies back with a preemptive strike of such violence and ferocity that they could buy enough time to complete the repairs to the _Palomino_ and try to escape to the other side of the planet. The Orochi would have dealt with any starships by that point, and probably have given the surface forces a good pounding too, and then they could all be low-tech castaways on this mudball together. It didn't have a great deal of appeal for him, but at least maybe he wouldn't be dead.

As long as Akane was alive at the end of all this, he would gladly suffer the indignity of life as a farmer with her over fighting to the death against Kodachi Kuno. If Akane... didn't make it... Well, he was going to take a hell of a lot of people - the Princess of the Furinkan Combine included - with him before he followed his fiancee into the beyond.

The urge was strong in him to babysit her, to watch her like a hawk and keep her from harm. He knew that it was wrong, that no matter how much better he considered himself in the cockpit, she was a good mechwarrior, and she had beaten the Black Rose once before. He was needed elsewhere; his LAM was too fast and mobile to get caught up in a static fight - not when he could be hitting the enemy's flanks, disrupting their rear areas and nailing their ammo and supply dumps, and generally raising hell to blunt the force of any thrust.

Though he was Lance Commander, it was going to be up to Ryouga to lead the 'mech lance. Akane had the command and control gear to coordinate the battle with guidance from the bunker, so she was the strategic leader of their defense. That left him in command of just himself, the way he was used to doing things, and the way he preferred it. He just wished that he could get his mind off Akane. Mechwarriors needed clear heads to control their machines, not minds torn between conflicting priorities and clouded with doubt.

Akane Tendo, Heir to the Nerima Confederation and de facto Defender of the Planet Ryuugenzawa, took deep breaths to ease the butterflies in her stomach that always surfaced right before combat. This was almost like leading the Nerima Guards, she supposed; she was in command, with a rear area staff that supplied her with intelligence data, officers to direct, and troops to carry out her orders. Almost, except for the significantly smaller scale of her army. They weren't even two full lances of 'mechs, plus two fighters, compared to the mighty regiment she had commanded six months ago.

She told herself to get a grip on their situation. They weren't here to hold every last square meter of the starport. They were to fight a holding action until the final repairs to the _Palomino_ could be completed, and the DropShip moved to a safe haven by the time the Orochi primary satellite was fully revived. They didn't have much longer until the battleship class rogue satellite was ready to rain down death on the planet, and she didn't have any illusions about Kodachi or the Musk Dynasty being able to stop it in space.

She took another deep breath. They, on the other hand, had an option; not one that she looked forward to under any circumstances given the nature of their hole card - for it also meant almost certain death for Ranma - and all with no guarantee that it would work. Their lives were in enough jeopardy as it stood, and she was already asking the man she loved with all her heart to take enormous risks single-handedly against the invaders. If he survived his raiding actions against Kodachi Kuno, and then against the Musk Dynasty as well, it would be heartless of her, a betrayal in fact, to condemn him to death against the Orochi.

That Ranma would do it if she asked him only made the thought worse. She could not take advantage of their relationship like that. She simply couldn't live with herself.

She shuddered, driving away dark thoughts by sheer will as data posted itself on her command display. Commander Malloy and the transplanted Bridge crew from the _Dragonfly_ were making a tremendous difference with their efforts. The planet's surveillance, communications, and signal intelligence satellites were invaluable resources, and they were handling the network like career pros.

Commander Malloy's voice addressed her over the command channel.

"Red Leader, Eyes Front; be advised of BRTR advanced party in company strength approaching along the east-west roadway from LZ Black to the eastern perimeter at map reference November-Four-Four by Oscar Six-Zero. ETA: three-five minutes."

"Copy that, Eyes Front," she replied curtly.

Doctor Tofu Ono's face appeared on her HUD as Hinako's derezzed.

"Red Leader, Red Five; I have a suggestion to make regarding our first line of defense."

Akane concealed a smile from behind her neurohelmet. Tofu had served under Kasumi during the brief time when her eldest sister had commanded the 1st Nerima Guards. He had been a Mechwarrior Captain - before he resigned his commission to go into medicine full time - and had lead in combat during a fair share of battles. Since the Confederation had been fighting a defensive war for far longer than she had been alive, it was a given that Tofu's experience was often that of a commander whose force was badly outnumbered.

"Go ahead, Red Five."

"Ma'am, I'd like to recommend an attack with long-range weapons from the perimeter treeline, engaging the enemy with opportunity fire until we come into range of their counterattack, then making an orderly withdrawal by twos to our next line of defense."

She considered this. Several of their 'mechs had LRM and long range energy weapon capacity.

"What about their fighters?" she asked. The Black Rose had several Air Lances buzzing overhead as she spoke, and if not for their cautious desire to remain well above a thousand meters, the _DropShip_ might have been spotted already.

"We stay just far enough inside the treeline to give us cover," Tofu replied evenly. "If they waste their ammo trying to dig us out, so much the better once Ranma blows away their ready resupplies at the LZ."

It sounded reasonable. Hit the enemy from a distance, let them know by the missiles and other weapon fire that pounds them from well outside the range of their return fire that they are outclassed, and all without revealing their true numbers for the abysmally understrength figures that they were. She also had to admit that she was in love with the idea of bearing the Cameron Star of the SLDF into battle. It might give her enemies pause to believe that their foes were Star League.

That was a powerful psychological advantage, she knew. It would make even the elite troops of the Black Rose overly cautious to know that they could be gunned down _en masse_ by a clearly superior technology, and be helpless against the barrage. Any advantage that bought time for the _Palomino_ crew to finish the final welds, repressurize the coolant system, and commence an emergency start-up of the fusion reactor for liftoff was worth pursuing in her opinion.

"We'll go with it," she replied. She keyed up Ryouga on the command channel. "Lieutenant Hibiki, advance by twos to map reference November-Four-Four by Oscar Six-Zero. Position in the treeline to avoid exposure to their air cover, and engage the enemy at extreme range. Withdraw to the next line of defense as you begin to take effective answering fire."

Ryouga repeated his orders verbatim and gave her a grim nod. His usual warm personality seemed to submerge into secret depths of being as he took his orders, leaving only a cold and unyielding executor of her will. She wasn't sure if she approved of his transformation. He had always seemed to be a man of great passion.

The stress of battle affects us all in different ways, she supposed. She turned to her right flank, where Ranma waited silently in his Super Phoenix Hawk LAM for her command. True to form, he tossed her a casual wave through the clear armored canopy, as if sensing that her eyes were upon him even though her Warhammer did not move.

He could not see her as she put a gloved hand to her tinted armored viewport in return, wanting to touch him one last time before they were commited to battle, but perhaps he could sense this gesture, too. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him, but her sense of military decorum wouldn't allow it over the radio. Hers was a small force, and even within the intimacy of such a small band, it was still her responsibility as their leader to provide a good example.

"Red Eagle Lead, Red Leader;" she began over the tac-net. "Commence harrassing and interdiction attacks against targets of opportunity at your discretion."

She watched him throw his arms out, working the tension from his shoulders before responding.

"Copy, Red Leader," he said tersely, his voice all business. "Red Eagle Lead to Red Eagle Flight: It's showtime, ladies."

"Red Eagle Deuce; copy and affirm," Yuka cut in.

"Red Eagle Trey; copy and affirm," Sayuri followed. The two would blast from their positions well away from the _Palomino_ and give the Combine fighters something to chase. Ranma would do the same. They were to circle back at the first opportunity to challenge the air cover, hoping to distract and draw them out to keep the heat off the starport.

She watched him look over his shoulder at her as ripples of heat rose from the foot thrusters of his LAM. She could almost see his cocky grin.

"Go get 'em, Tomboy," he said to her in a soft and hopeful voice, then exploded skyward atop twin columns of plasma that seared the air and scorched the grass beneath his battlemech.

Headquarters Lance

Black Rose Terror Regiment

12:19 Local Time

Colonel Princess Kodachi Kuno scanned the Landing Zone with her Marauder's sensors. Her troops were forming up with remarkable precision considering that this was the first time a lot of them had ever worked together. The surviving officers of the regiment from the disaster at Capra were keeping things together, a good omen since almost half of her 'mechs were piloted by mercenaries.

Her lover advanced his Hunchback down the ramp from the DropShip _Thorn_. Tarou seemed antsy for some reason, as if anticipating a combat he had looked forward to for some time. She knew it wasn't Ranma Saotome that he sought. To him, Ranma was merely a calculated risk in her own bid to kill Akane Tendo.

"Looking for someone, my lover?" she asked him over the tac net.

Pansuto Tarou's handsome and haughty face appeared on her display.

"You could say that," he said tersely. His cryptic words and his coarse demeanor were making her hot, and she bit down on her lip to quell her desire.

"Anyone I know?"

"A mechwarrior known as Happousai," Tarou replied. "He claims to be the master of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts, and was the teacher of Grand Duke Tendo and Ranma Saotome's father."

She grinned at his ambition for even considering a duel with a master mechwarrior. "It sounds _awfully_ dangerous, lover," she said dryly. "Would you care for some company?"

"I would prefer to fight him alone," he said, drawing a sour look from her that he noted immediately. "Of course, he may well be in the company of the Tendo girl and Ranma Saotome."

"Say no more, lover," Kodachi said with an eyebrow raised at him. "You settle your grudge, and I shall settle mine - and woe to anyone else who dares cross our path!"

She opened up the command channel. "Iris and Lily companies shall remain on perimeter patrol. Dahlia company shall accompany me as my guard. All other companies shall carry out their preassigned searches." She laughed maniacally. "Onward, my dears!"

Musk Dynasty Regimental Landing Zone

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Test Region 4-A

13:27 Local Time

Mechwarrior Colonel Mousse marched down the ramp of his DropShip in his mint condition Crusader. General Herb had taken the liberty of having it painted in the same battle colors as his first 'mech; which was reduced to scrap on the hated world of Capra. The serpentine dragon-device of the Musk Dynasty now adorned the shoulders of his 'mech in place of the 'beckoning cat' of the Jusenkyo Commonwealth.

His mission was to secure as much of the Star League facilities as possible for General Herb's arrival, and in the meantime, he was to find and annihilate the Black Rose Terror Regiment. If possible, he was also to find out if it was possible to take command of the Orochi network, which hung over the planet with Damoclean menace. They had been fortunate to pass by a satellite that was apparently damaged or malfunctioning during their descent, but as the crews of their ill-fated Essex Class destroyers had learned - as well as two of his precious DropShips, not all of the network's units were so impaired.

His first objective was a matter of time and dispersion. Since he was now occupying the highest density of man-made structures outside of the starport, he had essentially taken most of the Proving Grounds by fiat. Whether any of these old and broken structures contained anything of value, only time would tell. It did not concern him at the moment, not with the Black Rose loose on the planet.

Destroying Kodachi Kuno and her forces would be sweet revenge for the casualties they had inflicted on Capra; his Crusader, Kima, and Joyful Cloud chief among them. While his ignominious withdrawal from the planet represented a different era from the one he now considered himself a part of, he had always respected Kima, and Joyful Cloud was simply too young to have died the way she did. The Black Rose would pay.

He considered the possibility that Shampoo was alive as he strode confidently with his headquarters unit towards the distant starport and his impending battle with the rogue Combine regiment. There had been no sign of the _Dragonfly_ in orbit, making it likely that they had been destroyed by the Orochi network, but there was that nagging possibility that at least some of the crew lived.

If some of the crew lived, and they had not seen fit to kill Shampoo, either after she had stolen the database patch which had brought the Musk Dynasty to this place, or had executed her later in a more formal setting, then it was possible that he might encounter her once more. A perverse satisfaction came over him at the thought of presenting himself as one of Herb's trusted commanders to her.

He wanted her to know that she had been the one to turn him against his elders, the very way life that he had sworn to uphold - even if he had been little more than an object of scorn and ridicule for them. His eyes may have been weak, but they were open now, and he would no longer stand for Joketsuzoku rule. He had Shampoo to thank for that, and he found himself offering up a prayer to the gods that she was still alive, and somewhere on Ryuugenzawa so that he could show her what he had become.

"My lord Colonel," one of his commo techs on the DropShip called to him over the tac net.

"What is it?" Mousse demanded, brushing away a lock of black hair from his face as his Crusader stomped through the virgin forests of Ryuugenzawa.

"We are detecting more of those signals through the local sat-comm network," the tech replied.

Mousse considered this. Someone was manipulating the planet's satellite communications network, and they were doing it from the surface of the planet. It was possible that the Saotomes had survived their encounter with the Orochi, and were now in control of the network. They might even have been the ones directing the Orochi to attack the incoming ships of his fleet and that of the Black Rose.

"I want a direction finder fix on the ground source of those signals," he ordered the man. "Relay the coordinates to me the instant you have them."

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

19 June 3025, 13:30 Local Time

Shampoo's mouth gaped open at the sound of Mousse's voice. Davidge and the communications section from the _Dragonfly_ had mastered the communications and signal-intelligence satellite network, and transmissions from both the Black Rose and Musk Dynasty forces were being intercepted, their puny Inner Sphere encryption standards cracked by the advanced computers of the Star League era, and presented to them in near-real time.Since she spoke Chinese, she had been selected to listen in on the Musk Dynasty transmissions if and until it became necessary for her to mount up in her Star League Panther to defend the bunker.

Though it disturbed her that fate would see fit to have her serving her enemies, it was even more disturbing to hear Mousse's voice over the Musk tac-net frequencies, and addressed as a Mechwarrior Colonel no less! There could be no doubt that he had betrayed the Joketsuzoku to Herb. She found herself hoping that he would find the bunker, just so that she could race out to kill him for what he had done.

The baby that was theirs seemed to stir within her at these thoughts. Though it was still almost microscopic in size at this point, she could somehow sense that her child did not approve - or was this simply the nagging of her conscience calling to her in a new voice because she was ignoring the old?

"I go prepare for battle," Shampoo said to the assembled techs in the bunker.

"Now?" Malloy asked her dubiously.

"You have choice," she replied. "Stop transmitting, and Musk no find this place, or else wait until they knocking on door - then it too late."

"Do what you have to then," he advised her, hoping that she had been telling the truth, and would not betray them to the Musk Dynasty. He had great respect an admiration for Lady Akane, but felt that she was perhaps too trusting for her own good. In any event, he was not the one to try and stop an Amazon warrior from doing what she wanted to.

Shampoo didn't wait for him to change his mind. "I go. Keep safe."

She wrenched open the control room door and stepped through, stripping off her shipsuit as she went. She paused on the habitation level long enough to pull on her cooling vest and take her neurohelm before racing up the stairwell to the bunker entrance.

The Panther stood outside the door, waiting for her. It was not the 'mech she had left behind on Tau Ceti, the one that had been her mother's battlemech, and her grandmother's before, but it would serve her just as well. Its Star League armor and weapon systems would give her the edge she needed against Mousse and his forces.

The caretaker boy and the kunoichi lapdog watched her as she climbed up the leg of the Panther to the torso, and then the cockpit hatch. She did not spare a look for them. Her fight was coming, a battle against the man she had once trusted - perhaps foolishly considering the way she had always treated him - but she had trusted him, and he had betrayed her and the rest of the clan.

_Let me win this day_, she prayed as her Panther's systems came on line. _Let me defeat Mousse, and let me face General Herb that I might destroy him_.

Furinkan Combine WarShip _Imperator_

Approaching the planet Ryuugenzawa

Ryuugenzawa System, the Magistracy of Canopus

19 June 3025, 12:57 Local Time

"Speak," General Prince Tatewaki Kuno commanded his Operations Officer.

Captain Kyle stepped forward.

"My lord Prince, we are detecting what appears to be a pitched battle in orbit above the planet."

Tatewaki raised an eyebrow at this unexpected news.

"Dost thou know the identities of the principals?" he asked.

Kyle nodded. "Based on long range telescope observation, and what we've been able to pick up through the solar interference, we have tentatively identified a satellite defense network, and what appears to be two large forces of DropShips attempting to make planetfall." He paused for a moment to let this sink in. "One force appears to be from the Commonwealth, though how they got here is a mystery."

Tatewaki's hands clenched the leather upholstery of his command chair. The Commonwealth? Here?

"And the other force?" he demanded archly.

Kyle cleared his throat uncomfortably. "It appears that your sister has come out of hiding, my lord."

"What?!" Tatewaki bellowed. "My sister is in this cursed star system?" He reeled, apparently shaken by this news. "How is this possible, and to further what foul end does she come hither to this place?"

"Unknown, milord," Kyle returned quietly.

Tatewaki placed a hand to his brow in thought. There could be only one reason for her to come to this place - he would leave the explanations for how she had found the way for another time. His suspicions were aroused at the possibility that Nabiki's hand was at work here, drawing his enemies into her nets of intrigue that they might destroy him at a distance well removed from Nerima.

"There is naught but peril here," he said slowly, letting the momentary anxiety of the moment pass through him. "We must not tarry, Kyle, lest we allow through our inaction that Akane Tendo might come to harm." He rose from the chair, aware that all the eyes of the Executive Bridge were now upon him. "Press on, man!" he bellowed. "If this day truly belongeth to Tatewaki Kuno, then it is also true that he must seize it! Let not faint heart, nor the foe's spitting cannon mouth keep the Blue Thunder from his conquest!"

Tatewaki closed his eyes in rapture as the crew raised a lusty cheer in response to his declaration. This was the climax to a long and weary campaign. This day would see his cursed sister brought to heel, Nabiki's treachery put to rout, and Akane Tendo's hand sealed forever with his in marriage.

NCWS _Tautog_

Geosynchronous Orbit

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

19 June 3025, 10:53 Local Time

"The lights are on," Hauptmann declared.

"I can see that, Johann," Captain Olivera grunted.

"Someone's beaten us to the space station, it would seem," Grand Duke Tendo observed.

"The question remains, your Grace," Hauptmann returned. "Should we put a landing party aboard to investigate?"

Soun regarded the former corvette commander for a moment before speaking. Hauptmann was chafing under the command of Captain Olivera, not for any personal reasons, but for the simple fact that he was a ship captain who had been Dispossessed. He needed command, any command, to feel like he was needed.

"I can tell by your tone that you think we should," he replied.

Hauptmann jumped at the chance to justify his position.

"Your Grace, we've been tracking the Combine and Commonwealth ships since we discovered them, and they haven't made a move for the space station. If the lights we saw around the drydock are indicative of people living

there, then it could only be survivors from the _Dragonfly_."

"There's no guarantee of that," Olivera cautioned. "Let's not rule out the possibility of an indigenous population."

"After two hundred years without outside support?" Hauptmann snapped. "That's bullshit, and you know it."

"Enough," Soun grunted. "Captain Olivera, I think Captain Hauptmann has made a valid point."

Olivera nodded brusquely for his lord. "As you wish, your Grace. Captain Hauptmann, take a detail of your _Tang_ sailors over to the station to investigate."

Hauptmann flushed with anticipation. "I've got a crew standing by to act."

Olivera shook his head ruefully and sipped at his coffee. "Chief of the Watch, make preparations to break stealth integrity. Ready the shuttle bay."

"Chief of the Watch, aye."

Soun clasped Hauptmann by the shoulder before he could leave. "I'm counting on you to be right about this," he said in a low voice.

"So am I, your Grace," Hauptmann returned.

"Shuttle Bay One outer doors indicate shut," the Chief of the Watch announced. "Superstructure realigned for stealth integrity."

"Very well, Chief of the Watch."

Soun watched the sleek black shuttle drift on tiny attitude jets towards the drydock. From their position in orbit close to the space station, the _Tautog_ remained screened from the Orochi network, whose units now seemed to be preoccupied with the invading forces from the Furinkan Combine and Jusenkyo Commonwealth. The Combine forces looked like they would escape the Orochis' wrath the same way that they had - namely using the chink in the defense system's armor created by the defunct satellite. The Commonwealth fleet seemed hell bent on doing the job the Orochi Network had been unable to manage.

What were these two fleets doing here? he wondered. The Combine force was far too small to indicate the presense of Tatewaki Kuno in the system, and the Commonwealth fleet was a hundred light-years from its own home territory. Whatever had brought them here, it was clear that neither side wanted anything to do with the other.

"Weapon directors," Sensory intoned nervously. "The Commonwealth ships have opened fire."

Soun watched the holotank as two Combine DropShips sustained hits from the Commonwealth destroyers. The damage wasn't enough to finish either vessel, but it was clear that the fight would be very one sided if it was allowed to continue.

"Contact Echo Two-Two is readying some sort of barrage," Sensory announced abruptly. "The Commonwealth force appears to be the targets."

"My God," Olivera breathed. "That thing can actually _hit_ them at that range?"

They watched through a secondary telescope monitor as the Orochi satellite blasted the distant _Wrath of Heaven_, and the sudden shifting of Commonwealth attention towards the satellite. Only fighters threatened the Combine force now.

"They're going to make it if it's just fighters against them," Soun declared.

Olivera's attention was fixed upon the holotank, where Captain Li's two destroyers bore down on the Orochi satellite. "Begging your pardon, your Grace, but I'm more concerned by what's taking place higher above us."

The two of them watched with detached horror at the tremendous display of firepower put out by the Orochi satellite, and at the near suicidal tenacity of the Commonwealth destroyers. The _Wrath of Heaven_ was destroyed, and still the other ship kept coming.

The sudden cessation of weapons fire brought them up short.

"What happened?" Olivera asked Sensory.

The Sensory Supervisor consulted with her techs. "Radar emissions from both vessels have ceased. Heat emissions are consistent with combustion. No drive outputs. No commo signals."

Soun looked at the telescope monitor, where the two vessels winked in the darkness with sudden flashes of flame.

"Have they crippled each other?"

"Quite possibly," Olivera grunted.

"Conn, Sensory; both contacts are on a collision course. Estimated time to impact: ten minutes, two-zero seconds."

Olivera nodded absently at this. "It seems that the Orochi has taken care of the most significant threat from the Commonwealth."

"In this case," Soun replied. "The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. We may still have to face other Orochi satellites when we leave."

The holotank display shifted to show the Black Rose Terror Regiment forces entering the atmosphere, having dispatched the majority of the Musk Dynasty fighters. The survivors fled to their scattered carriers as two units from the Orochi Network closed in on them.

Phoenix Hawk LAM ASX-002

Above the Ian Cameron Starport

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

12:31 Local Time

"Go get 'em, Tomboy."

Ranma didn't wait for a reply from Akane as he shoved the throttles forward to the stops. The Super Phoenix Hawk LAM shuddered for an instant as raw helium plasma spilled from the reactor vessel and into the linear magnetic accelerators that served as the battlemech's HEPLAR drive. Then it was roaring aloft on twin columns of superheated air, crashing through the tree-top canopy and bursting above the forest that surrounded the starport.

A flight of Black Rose Shilones passed overhead, their long wingspans casting shadows over him as he rose to meet them. Their attentions were focused on the dogfight that was starting to rage in the lower stratosphere as the first of the Musk Dynasty DropShips made their final descent. Despite the acceleration forces that crushed him into the base of his ejector seat, Ranma felt excited by the prospect of the battle he was throwing himself headlong into.

The Phoenix Hawk's arms stretched out claw-like as he continued his climb, rising above the two Shilone fighter-bombers. He pushed the LAM over into a shallow dive, sweeping the wings back and keeping the drives at maximum to intercept. His airspeed indicator began to flash amber, then red as he approached the sound barrier - a velocity that he dared not exceed in Airmech Mode if he wanted to stay in one piece.

The Shilones split apart abruptly as he closed the range to less than a dozen meters, and he spat out a curse for his bad luck. Either they had finally spotted him, or someone else had, and warned them. He vectored his thrust and lurched after the fighter on the right as it tried to bank away from him.

Four Short Range Missiles belched from the aft-mounted launcher on the fighter as he pursued. It was a wild shot on the Black Rose pilot's part, just something to get him off his back, but Ranma cringed inwardly as a missile sailed over his cockpit canopy close enough to make out the black and yellow stencils on the olive drab missile body. He had forgotten about the Shilone's aft missile rack, and his error had nearly cost him.

The other Shilone was pulling a punishing nine-gee turn to get to him - the mark of a pilot who was in excellent condition, and skilled enough with his craft to fly at the bleeding edge of the performance envelope without destroying himself. Ranma knew that he didn't have time to toy around. He triggered the rifle-like heavy laser in his 'mech's hand, releasing a rippling torrent of blue-green light from the muzzle that splashed across the enemy fighter from right to left, boiling off whole sections of armor and lancing deep into the thruster ports.

The effect of wielding that kind of firepower was so intoxicating to Ranma that he kept his finger on the trigger, hosing the Shilone with rapid fire bursts from the heavy pulselaser, and ignoring the fact that his heat levels were rising to dangerous levels. The Shilone pilot tried to evade, but Ranma walked the beams right back into him, blowing a wing off at the wingroot, and sending the medium fighter-bomber into an abrupt death spin that ended just as abruptly when it crashed into the treetops and exploded into a cartwheeling fireball.

His finger eased from the trigger as overheat warnings sounded in his headset. The heavy laser had shut down - a technical problem with the weapon that had never been solved, even in the days of the Star League, and one that hadn't been helped by his firehose tactics against the Shilone. He only hoped it would come back online soon, as he was going to need it against the second Shilone.

He had other problems as well. The waste heat generated by his trigger-happy excesses had caused his fire control computer to shut down the other weapon systems as well. Even with the double-capacity heat sinks his LAM carried, he was still deep in the red.

Thinking quickly, he shut down the plasma drives and settled back into cruise mode with the turbojets to bleed off some of the heat. The fast chirping of the second Shilone's RCA Instatrac XI weapons radar in his ears reminded him of the Shigunga LRM-20 rack that was about to disgorge its lethal payload in his direction, and he tumbled over into an aileron roll, transforming on the move to Fighter Mode. The Shilone launched, and the letters 'ECM' began to strobe in amber on his HUD - the Star League Phoenix Hawk had recognized the threat and had engaged radar jamming countermeasures automatically to deal with it. ECM systems were something he had never had to think about as a mercenary, as they didn't exist on the battlefield in great numbers anymore.

The missiles arced around him crazily, spoofed by his dramatic change in aspect and by the radar jamming which had confused the Shilone's targeting system into launching a much wider spread than was indicated by the tactical situation. Most of them exploded into the trees below, but in spite of his countermeasures, two out of the twenty managed to strike the LAM, and he fought through the hits for control. At high speed and low altitude, all it took was one minor but destabilizing hit to spike him straight into the ground.

The Shilone was still nine hundred meters out as he looped over into a Split-S to get his nose on the target. The Combine pilot had enough time for one more salvo with the twenty-rack at him, and at the worst possible moment, right before their paths would intersect. His weapons were still reading offline due to the heat, limiting his options.

He saw Yuka and Sayuri soaring aloft from their positions at the other end of the starport. At least the noise he had made with his attack had drawn Black Rose attentions away from them. They stood a pretty good chance of getting clear.

The chirping of the Shilone's radar warned him that the fighter had reacquired him after his maneuvers, and he weighed his options. In about four seconds they would be in range to shoot - only he didn't have anything to fire back. The override options installed on so many Inner Sphere 'mechs didn't exist on a piece of test machinery for a Proving Ground.

He decided not to turn tail and run. Not only was it asking to get shot in the back, the very concept of running from a one on one battle got his hackles up. He could survive a salvo of LRMs if the jamming system did its part and his reflexes were up to the task, and if his weapons didn't come back in time, he had another option.

"Ranma's in a bit of trouble," Sayuri noted as she and Yuka made a break for the horizon.

"Stick with the plan," Yuka answered coolly. "Saotome can take care of himself, and there are a lot of our people down there who are counting on us to draw away any fighters from the starport."

"This is no time to make this personal," Sayuri shot back in a clipped voice.

"Exactly my point!" Yuka barked. "We have jobs to do. Saotome knows that better than anyone."

Sayuri's Sparrowhawk wavered for a moment, as if sensing its mistress' indecision.

"Stay on me," Yuka commanded her in a calm yet insistent voice. "Do you think I don't know how Akane would feel if she thought we left Ranma to die? As soon as we reach our turn-around point, we'll head back to help him out, but until then we follow the plan."

This might hurt, Ranma noted as the LRM salvo rushed from the bow tubes of the Shilone. The pilot must have overridden the targeting computer's input to the launcher, for the barrage was tight in spite of the jamming.

He tugged at the transformation lever as the salvo of twenty missiles looped in at him at short range. As the Phoenix Hawk shifted from sleek fighter to bird of prey Airmech, his airspeed dropped off, extending the time to intercept by a second, and granting him a few meters of clearance as the ballistically guided weapons spread a little farther apart in their arcs. His mind buried in the deepest alpha state, Ranma threaded the gaps with his Airmech as proximity-fuzed missiles exploded around him, buffeting him and sending hot bits of shrapnel ringing off his armor.

His weapons were still reading offline as he shifted his course slightly to ram the Shilone. A crackling beam of laser fire answered his move, tearing into the port engine-pod armor before the Black Rose pilot decided to climb and evade. The Combine fighter began to soar into the sky as he transformed into Battlemech Mode in midair, boosted into a climb that would match the fighter's, and curled up tight to slam shoulder first into the port wing.

The wing shattered under his blow, blowing apart the port fuselage as heat sinks ruptured and armor spalled into critical control surfaces with explosive effect. Ranma's Super Phoenix Hawk LAM somersaulted through the hit as the fighter burst into flames behind it, his wings flaring out and his leg thrusters firing to check his fall. As he slewed around with the grace and stylings of a figure skater in midair, he saw with some relief that the Combine pilot had ejected from his stricken craft.

The sky above the starport was clear for the moment. Any dogfighting that was going on was happening much higher up than he was willing to travel, and in any event, every fighter shot down by the Black Rose Terror Regiment or the Musk Dynasty was one less fighter that he had to deal with. He was perfectly happy to let the two antagonists slug it out on their own.

In the meantime, he had a visit to pay to the Black Rose herself.

Akane breathed a sigh of relief as the Combine fighter crashed into the woods behind her position. She wanted to be angry with Ranma for being such a show off - shooting down a Furinkan Combine fighter without even firing a shot? - but in truth she felt a great deal of pride instead. He was an amazing mechwarrior, there was no doubt about that.

"Black Rose 'mechs spotted at one-nine hundred meters," Doctor Tofu advised her as they finished their march to the treeline guarding the eastern approaches to the starport.

"Hold fire until all units are in position," she replied. Genma's Orion was still a little too far back in the trees to be effective with the missile launcher. "Commander Saotome, move up five zero meters."

Genma did so, but by the way the battlemech moved, she could tell it was only reluctantly. What did he have to worry about? she wondered. They had a good thousand meters of range advantage over the Inner Sphere 'mechs, and Ranma had just removed their immediate air support!

She could see the first 'mechs clearly in her telescopic array as they advanced along the highway, keeping to either side of the cracked pavement to stagger their formation. It was a recon lance from the look of them: two Spiders, a Jenner, and a Locust. The lance beyond had a Shadow Hawk, two Hunchbacks, and a Griffin. Beyond them was the fire lance; heavy missile 'mechs like the Trebuchet, Archer, and Crusader.

"Let the Fire Lance come into range," she said tersely over the commo.

It would mean that the Recon Lance would be within five hundred meters when the shooting started, but they had little in the way of firepower that could even reach them at that distance, much less hurt them. She had a very good

reason for letting them get close, and that was to let them see that they were fighting the SLDF.

Her slender gloved hand rested over the controls for the NARC beacon that would light up the Black Rose battlemechs and guide the missiles unerringly to their targets. A shudder coursed through her body at the thought of such power at her disposal. A single regiment of Confederation battlemechs equipped to Star League standards would be worth an entire division of Inner Sphere 'mechs. If they managed to escape Ryuugenzawa, the Confederation could turn its losing war with the Combine into a expansion of territory unheard of in the country's entire history!

She checked herself at the thought. She was fighting to end the Third Succession War, not win it. She had seen enough destruction and the hardships and sacrifices her people had endured in her tender few years to know that she wouldn't wish it on anyone else - even her enemies. There had to be a way to convince the Kunos and Gosunkugis and even the Shampoos of the Inner Sphere that fighting over the ruins of the Star League was a shameful waste.

But first, she had to live through this day.

Her hand lifted the red safety cover over the enable switch, and she flicked it into position. A green box appeared on her HUD, and she thumbed it over with her stick's tophat control to cover the smudge of black and grey that was Black Rose Archer over a fifteen hundred meters away. She squeezed the trigger on her control stick, and the box became red, and subtitled with the ominous jargon word 'ILLUM.'

The NARC beacon was painting the Black Rose Archer, telling the missiles that would follow exactly where to hit.

"Commence LRM fire," Akane said quietly, and waited.

Doctor Tofu's Centurion and Genma's Orion spat a volley of long range missiles from the treeline. After the flash of the weapons leaving the tubes, Akane noted that their propellant was surprisingly smokeless, another advantage of Star League technology over the cheap and simple solid propellant used by Inner Sphere munitions factories. The missiles arced like normal unguided LRMs at first into the sky, then with uncanny precision began to close ranks and ride the invisible NARC beam straight into the distant Archer.

Halfway to the target, the Combine 'mechs noticed the barrage and began to scatter, but the NARC beacon tracked the Archer's movements with a clinical precision that terrified Akane. She could not imagine what the Black Rose mechwarrior must have been feeling as all his efforts came to naught.

The missiles struck precisely where she had aimed, the right torso LRM-20 launch door. Through her telescopic camera she watched as each missile screamed down upon the hapless Archer, blasting apart the armor plating in under a second. The ready-fire missiles loaded in the rack below the ruptured armor exploded an instant later, and from there, the rest of the magazine.

The Archer was ripped in half by the blast, its severed right arm flying high into the air as the ruined torso was blown to the ground in scorched heap. Missiles corkscrewed crazily from the left-side launcher as the ammunition cooked off with the tremendous heat released from the breached fusion reactor. In a final insult, the severed arm came down hard on the cockpit of the battlemech, crushing the pilot to death if he had somehow escaped immolation by the ammunition explosion.

Akane didn't watch after the first explosion. Instead, she swallowed hard and thumbed the NARC box over to the next Black Rose 'mech on her HUD. More missiles flew from Tofu's Centurion and Genma's Orion. The Fire Lance Trebuchet was obliterated as quickly as the Archer. Again, she did not watch the battlemech's fiery death throes as she turned the cruel NARC beacon on another Combine target and gave the order to fire.

This was pure slaughter, she realized. Nothing to feel proud about. The rest of the company was rushing the treeline, desperate to find and fix their hidden assailants under their guns before it was their turn to die. It was Ryouga's job to hold them off, and Master Happousai's job to pursue any stragglers that might escape the BattleMaster's attack.

The thunderclap of a PPC bolt marked Ryouga's first attack. The Spiders had charged at the onset of the missile barrage, and now one caught the hit square in the center torso. Armor boiled off in a fraction of a second as the blast penetrated into the vital internals of the recon 'mech. The spindly war machine teetered drunkenly for a moment as its gyro failed, then toppled over to divot the pavement.

Akane returned her attention to the NARC beacon. It had taken a second barrage to cancel the Fire Lance Crusader, as the pilot sacrificed his mech's left forearm to stop the salvo aimed at his shoulder LRM launcher. Doctor Tofu had twenty four volleys in his launcher, but Genma had only sixteen, and it was their combined missile barrage that made them so deadly. They would have to conserve their ammo wherever possible.

She selected the Shadow Hawk next, as its autocannon would be the first significant weapon to come into range. More missiles leapt out of the launch tubes. The Shadow Hawk fired its jump jets to escape, but the NARC beacon held its track, and enough of the missiles retained sufficient reserve energy to alter their arcs in time to connect. The result wasn't as precise as the previous barrages, but the midair pounding was enough to make the enemy mechwarrior lose control over his jumping war machine and crash head first into the ground. The 'mech did not make any attempts to get up.

Ryouga blasted the second Spider as it jumped at him in a near-suidical death from above attack. The beam blew off the arm, but did nothing to stop the leaping strike until Ukyou stepped in with her Hatchetman. Her battle-spatula swung through a full arc to rip apart the thirty ton 'mech at the waist in a shower of sparks and billowing clouds of spilled liquid nitrogen coolant. As the crippled Spider tumbled impotently at Ryouga's mech, he caught it up in his metalshod hands and sent it flying out of control over his shoulder to crash into the trees behind the BattleMaster.

"Thanks, Ukyou," he panted at her.

"My pleasure, honey," she returned. Her Hatchetman then pointed to the left. "Heads up now!"

Ryouga turned his attention towards the indicated direction. The hulking assault 'mech then turned its pistol-like PPC on its next target, a Jenner whose SRM launcher was firing at Doctor Tofu's Centurion. The bolt slammed into the pod-like left arm, obliterating the pair of medium lasers as Tofu answered the missile barrage with his autocannon, tearing apart the identical weapon pod in the right arm. The Jenner pilot quickly established his situation as untenable, and fired his jump jets to scoot clear of the shooting.

"Let him go," Akane admonished them. "Don't break ranks."

Happousai was busy dueling with his opposite in the other Locust, having ignored her orders in favor of showing the Black Rose pilot who was master and who was student. Rather than shoot it out with the Black Rose 'mech, the wizened little pervert cut inside his opponent's high speed turn and lashed out a spindly armored chicken leg to _trip_ the enemy Locust, which subsequently tumbled over into the soft ground. A single laser blast to the cockpit hatch ensured that the Black Rose pilot would not be up for a rematch.

There were only the three 'mechs in the command lance now, plus the sole surviving recon lance Jenner, and these were turning tail as fast as they could. Akane lined up one of the fleeing Hunchbacks in her HUD, but didn't have the heart to light him up.

"Be careful, Akane," Tofu admonished her gently over the tac net, apparently realizing what she had chosen not to do. "You'll face him sooner or later today, and the next time he might be in a better position to fight back."

"But," she began, and let her voice drop.

"This is survival," Tofu replied. "This isn't martial arts. Fairness and honor have nothing to do with living to see tomorrow. Think of seeing Ranma again soon, and remember that."

"You're right," she said. By now the Combine 'mechs were out of range. "Withdraw to our second line of defense," she ordered. Commander Malloy would feed them with updates to the Black Rose's next move. She only hoped that the slaughter she had just inflicted upon them would be enough to persuade Kodachi to be more cautious. Caution bought the _Palomino_ time to finish its repairs and escape.

Headquarters Lance

Black Rose Terror Regiment

12:47 Local Time

Kodachi Kuno was beside herself with rage.

"What do you mean, you encountered heavy resistance at the starport?" she demanded of her Snapdragon Company commander. "Tendo's forces don't equal more than a lance at best. An hour ago you had an entire COMPANY at your disposal."

"Mistress, they were Star League 'mechs!" the frightened officer replied. "They tore us apart! Missiles that didn't miss their targets! I saw them!"

"You saw what, exactly?" Kodachi asked him archly. Her Marauder's derringer-like forearm weapon pods trained in his direction threateningly.

"The Cameron Star!" the captain protested in a high voice. "They bore the SLDF's colors!"

Kodachi considered blasting him in disgust for his cowardice.

"He could be telling the truth," Tarou put in abruptly.

"The Star League Defense Force?" Kodachi snorted. "After all these years?"

"It could be remnants of the original garrison," Tarou declared. There was a hunger in his voice at the thought of possessing 'mechs with the kind of firepower that ruined a veteran company while suffering no losses of their own. "It might explain why we received such a warm reception from the Orochi Network as well, if they were somehow directing it."

"I don't like it," Kodachi said at length. Her voice wavered between anger and concern. "I'm here for Akane Tendo's head, not to lose my precious battlemechs to a phantom force of centuries old Star Leaguers who don't like strangers."

She returned her attention to the captain. "As for you, reorganize what's left of your unit and report to Captain Merril. You are to serve as the shock troops for his follow-up attack, and if you are lucky, you won't live to answer to me this evening." She gave him a harrowing look over the monitor. "Have I made myself clear, captain?"

"C-Crystalline," the mechwarrior replied haltingly.

The Griffin saluted and beat a hasty retreat from Kodachi.

"What next?" Tarou asked her.

"What else?" Kodachi snapped. "Captain Merril will lead a force to attack from the east."

"Is it wise to attack from the same direction as your last attack?"

Kodachi favored Tarou with a wilting look, a sign of how angry she was at the moment. "Merril will be instructed to keep up the pressure without committing himself to a full attack. That is what that coward Lassiter is for. Whilst these so-called SLDF 'mechs are busy with them, you and I shall slip around from the south."

"What if Tendo isn't at the starport?"

Kodachi cackled scornfully. "That is not your concern, lover."

Sasuke appeared on both of their monitors.

"My Mistress, I bring news of the Musk Dynasty's landing."

"What of it?" she demanded. "How many DropShips did we shoot down?"

"None, I'm afraid," Sasuke replied calmly. "Our fighters were heavily outnumbered."

"Excuses!" she railed at him. "Why must I be hobbled with the excuses of my subordinates?"

"In all fairness, Mistress," Sasuke countered gently. "Our pilots were able to shoot down thirteen Commonwealth fighters at a loss of only four of our own, although two more are unaccounted for, having last reported over the ruins of the starport."

"The starport," Kodachi noted with icy calm. "Why, perhaps if either of the dolts who disappeared yet lived, they might tell a story of Star League fighters that could outfight an entire squadron single-handed."

"Mistress?"

"Never mind, Sasuke," she snapped at him. "Direct our fighters to continue harassing the Commonwealth landing zones, and leave the mystery of the starport to me."

SLDF Drydock

12:50 Local Time

"Point that thing somewhere else before I shove it straight up your ass, sailor."

Captain Hauptmann brushed aside the muzzle of a flechette 'nailgun' that tapped against the side of his pressure suit visor as he said it. The _Dragonfly_ crewman who held the weapon lowered it slowly, not sure if he should believe his wondering eyes.

"C-Captain Ninomiya?" he called into his suit radio as the rest of the _Tang_ boarding party spread out in the vestibule that linked the _Coronet_'s quarterdeck with the drydock. "I think you should come down here, ma'am."

Hauptmann didn't wait for a reply from the other end. "We're here to rescue Lady Akane," he said to the sailor. "Is she here?"

"She's on the surface," the man replied. "Trying to buy time for the other survivors to repair the _Palomino_."

Hauptmann remembered the two landing forces that were probably already on the planet by now. Olivera and the Grand Duke needed to know what was going on if they were going to do something about it. Captain Ninomiya was probably the best source for answers to his questions, but until then...

"What happened to the _Dragonfly_?" he demanded.

"The Orochi got us," the sailor answered. "Blew the hell out of the ship, even got a piece of the _Palomino_, which is why they need to repair it."

Captain Hinako Ninomiya appeared as he spoke, looking grubby and worn in her child body. She had been forced to endure the indignity of being an eight-year-old because her small size allowed her to reach into tight spaces to conduct the start-up procedures for the _Coronet_.

Hauptmann had heard about Ninomiya and her _difficulties_, but he had never met her face to face. The insular environment of the corvette community kept him away from most JumpShip commanders.

"Captain?" he asked haltingly.

"That's me," Hinako chirped. "It sure took you long enough to get here!"

"What exactly are you doing up here?" Hauptmann asked. "Shouldn't your crew be down on the surface repairing the DropShip?"

"To go where, silly?" Hinako asked, poking him in the chest with each word. "No JumpShip means no way to leave the system."

The former _Tang_ captain looked around him. "You mean this ship is operational?"

"Not quite," Hinako countered. "We're at the point where we can light off the reactor, and the main computer is already up and running, but I can't make any guarantees about anything else."

"How long?"

Hinako gave him a funny look. "We could start the reactor within the hour. After that, I guess it's a matter of how well everything holds up after being in layup for the last two-hundred years."

"The weapons?"

"Haven't even looked at 'em," she admitted. "Why? You have plans for my ship?"

Hauptmann frowned at the idea that the ship might belong to this little girl, even if she was a decorated Confederation Navy captain. He had come to the drydock to make the _Coronet_ his!

"It might be necessary to shoot our way out of the system," he declared. "The corvette we came here in is no match for the Orochi Network, and there are other powers in the system."

"I know," Hinako chirped. "We were planning on letting them kill each other, and sneaking out while they were busy doing that." She yawned wearily, having had no sleep in the last thirty-six hours, and poked him in the chest again. "You need to get in touch with Lady Akane. I have commo frequencies that will allow you to communicate with my XO, who is currently in the Orochi Control Bunker on the planet. He can patch you through to her from there."

"Control bunker?" Hauptmann asked. "You mean you're controlling the Orochi right now?"

"We wish," Hinako snorted, a gesture that was terribly amusing when coming from an ersatz eight-year-old. "We don't have the access codes. About all we can do is observe, but it also means that we can see everything that the network can right now."

Hauptmann pulled out a notepad and stylus. "Give me the codes and freaks, and I'll get them over to the _Tautog_. The Grand Duke will probably want to speak to his daughter personally."

"Oooo!" Hinako squealed with excitement. "His Grace is _here_?"

"It's a long story," Hauptmann said, nodding. "Suffice it to say that things have not gone well for the Confederation since your ship left the Capella System."

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

13:12 Local Time

Commander Malloy could not believe his ears.

"Say again?"

The reply was clipped, but the voice was unmistakable.

"This is Grand Duke Soun Tendo, in orbit above you aboard the Confederation corvette, _Tautog_. I wish to speak to my daughter at once."

Malloy looked at his transplanted _Dragonfly_ bridge crew, who returned with equally surprised expressions.

"A-At once, your Grace," he replied. "Patching you into the commo net now."

"They're coming in from the east again," Happousai reported. His Locust bore a black scorch mark from a lucky laser hit.

"How many?" Akane asked, wondering why Malloy hadn't updated her with this bit of news. Was he having problems with the network?

"Sixteen there, Sweet Cheeks," Happousai returned. "A company plus what looks like the surviving chumps of the company we spanked a half-hour ago. I recognize the Jenner at least."

Akane brushed his insulting nickname for her aside as Doctor Tofu's admonition came back to her. They were indeed fighting the same 'mechs she had let escape, and this time they had another full company to back them up.

"I don't want to hit them in the same place as last time," she said at length. She consulted her map display. "Let's draw them in to this complex of ruined buildings to the southeast. There are lots of good crossfires in there, plus a few fire lanes where we can hit them with long range missiles."

Happousai brushed his Locust against the hull of her Warhammer in a catlike show of affection that scraped the paint on both 'mechs down to bare metal. "Oh, Akane!" he sighed. "I love it when you get all tactical on me!"

"If you don't cut that out, I'll start getting medieval on you instead!" Akane fumed angrily.

Ryouga raised his BattleMaster's fist threateningly at the Locust. "Why don't you make yourself useful and go back to scouting!"

"Fine!" the wizened master mechwarrior sniffed. "I'll do that!" The Locust sprang away into the woods to the west, kicking petulantly at trees as it went. Curiously, he did not turn around and start heading east, where it might be expected to encounter the enemy, but continued west, towards the starport.

"The Master seems awfully upset," Genma cautioned from his Orion.

"I don't know about that..." Ukyou countered. Her Hatchetman's sensor head turned to watch the retreating Locust. "He seemed awful eager to leave. I don't think he's turning coward, but it makes me wonder what he's up to."

Akane considered asking Ukyou to keep an eye on him and quickly decided against it. They were short on numbers as it stood, and while Happousai was an excellent mechwarrior, his relatively puny Locust could only do so much against Black Rose heavies. They wouldn't miss him that much, she concluded.

Commander Malloy appeared on her display as she turned her Warhammer towards their next ambush site.

"Eyes Front to Red Leader," he called to her. "You're not going to believe this, ma'am, but I have an urgent commo dispatch for you from your father."

"What was that?!" Akane returned. "My father? Here?"

"Soun?" Genma chirped.

Grand Duke Tendo's face took the place of Commander Malloy on their commo displays.

"Akane," he said to her, his face drawn with concern. "What is your current situation?"

Akane was flabbergasted.

"Dad? Is it really you? How did you get here?"

Soun shook his head. "That's not important right now. I'm here, and so is Kasumi. We're here to evacuate you from the planet before Prince Kuno's fleet arrives."

"He's on his way?"

"That is correct," Soun replied. "Our sensor operators aboard the _Tautog_ have detected the approach of his fleet. We have less than two and a half hours before they get here."

Akane thought about her last progress report from the repair crews.

"We need at least that long before the _Palomino_ can be made ready to lift off, Dad."

"If necessary, we'll take everyone off the planet in shuttles," he said. "Pass the word to Captain Grant that it may be required of him to abandon the ship where it is."

"B-But, Tendo!" Genma spluttered. "We have Star League technology in our possession. We can't just leave it all behind."

"I know that, Saotome," Soun sighed. "But my daughter's life is more important right now. Furthermore, the very future of the Confederation rests in returning Akane to Nerima to unseat Nabiki as Regent before she manages to surrender everything to the Furinkan Combine."

"Nabiki?" Akane cried. "Regent?!"

"Again, there's no time to explain," Soun said to her. The radio transmission broke up for a moment. "We're starting to enter the atmosphere now. I'll speak to you more when we arrive."

"You're coming down?" Akane asked her father. "I can't recommend that, Dad."

"You need all the help you can get to fight off the Combine and the Commonwealth forces until the repairs can be completed," he said to her. "I'm told you have a few 'mechs to spare for your sister and I."

Akane choked back a sob. How long had she dreamed of this moment, to prove herself as a leader to her father, to fight alongside a man who had at one time been a great mechwarrior serving the Confederation?

"We'll be waiting for you," she managed. He gave his acknowledgemnt as the transmission broke up into static with the shuttle passing through the ionosphere.

She flicked her commo over to the _Palomino_'s radio frequency. "This is Red Leader, what's the status of the repairs?"

Petty Officer Tad Howard's voice came back to her in reply. "Wait one, ma'am, I'm calling down to them now."

The harsh strobe of welders lit the cramped confines of the Reactor Compartment in flickering blue-white light, hissing and crackling over the sound of portable forced draft blowers supplying the repair parties with fresh air from outside. Even then, the hot smell of melted metal and the acrid tang of ozone filled the space.

"We're way behind schedule, Captain Grant," Akari lamented, watching as one of her techs suspended himself upside down from a run of coolant piping to reach the back side of the main header welds. The man strained with the effort, knowing that he had to lay down a steady, even bead to properly rejoin the ruptured main coolant loop to the heat exchange circuit. When he finished on his side of the weld, he gingerly passed the hot electrode to a tech below him, who completed the weld on the opposite side.

The work was tedious, but vital. The header had to remain tight at a pressure of hundreds of atmospheres and at temperatures up to a thousand degrees Kelvin. They had already cut the last corner they could - the twelve hour 'temperature soak' of the pipe with electric heating strips at 400 degrees Kelvin that was recommended for welding on the high-yield alloy, and they had foregone the use of the inert argon gas 'tent' as well for the time it took to set it up and take it down between welds. Akari knew that even if they possessed the radiography equipment and the time to inspect the completed welds, that they would never pass. That wasn't her concern. As long as the header held tight for just a few hours, that was all that would matter.

"There's always Plan 'B,'" Captain Grant said to Akari without a hint of enthusiasm. He referred to the use of thermite-welding techniques on the last two welds that remained. In theory, the welding process itself would take about thirty seconds as the thermite burned at five thousand degrees to fuse the sections of header together, and the pipes themselves could be ready to fill and press up in under thirty minutes, but the process had never been attempted before by anyone on the ship. The battle with error was already an uncertain one as it stood.

"We can repressurize the header in twenty minutes once we finish the welds, sir," Akari said, knowing where the captain was going with his statement. "There's no time for a proper hydrostatic test, but if it passes the static drop test, then I think we can make it." She resisted the urge to wipe at the sweat that beaded on her brow and matted her bangs together under her bright yellow anti-contamination hood. Instead, she gripped a stanchion with her rubber gloved hands and tried not to think about the discomfort.

"Do we even have time for a drop test?" Grant asked her.

"If we do it while you begin the pre-liftoff checks and auxilliary equipment startups, sir, we should have about ten minutes to watch the pressure gauges to see if it will hold." She shrugged in resignation. "If it doesn't hold, I don't know what we can do. Unless the leak is gross enough to pinpoint easily and tack down with a blob of weld bead, we won't have time to grind down the welds and start over."

The sound of a distant series of explosions rolled into the cramped and crowded Reactor Compartment, reminding all of them of the urgency of their repairs. Ryouga and the others were out there, fighting to buy them time. Akari closed her eyes briefly and thought of her beloved and his battlemech. Captain Grant reached for the ringing telephone that was probably the Flight Deck demanding a status report.

"Two hours?" Akane repeated worriedly. She knew the answer to her next question, but found herself asking anyway. "Tad, is that the best they can do?"

"The skipper tells me they're doing everything they can, ma'am," he replied.

Akane understood. Still, it was going to be a closer call than they had anticipated.

They were at the next ambush position, a series of ruined buildings that flanked the southeastern approaches to the starport proper and provided for two lanes of NARC-assisted LRM fire to soften up the Black Rose attack. Even as she rechecked her observations of the place, the ominous red pings of Musk Dynasty forces moving in from the northwest gave her pause. Should she split her meager army in two to engage both adversaries at once, or pray that she could turn the Black Rose's next push in time to prepare for the first Musk attack?

The scream of fighters overhead made her start in her ejector seat, until she recognized them as Yuka and Sayuri doing turns and burns over the starport as they duelled with a pair of Black Rose fighters. The two Confederation pilots had caught their enemies by surprise, and their combined attack had nearly creamed one Black Rose Slayer. Now all four fighters wheeled above her, striving for shooting position. Storm clouds loomed beyond the dogfight, threatening a cloudburst that would render their orbital observation satellites next to useless.

Doctor Tofu's Centurion cast a worried glance around. "Has anyone seen Ryouga?"

"He was supposed to be with you," Ukyou pointed out.

Tofu's battlemech shrugged. "I know that," the doctor replied curtly. "He was just here. Now I can't find him on my scopes."

"Marvelous," Ukyou muttered. "Of all the times for him to wander off."

"Red Leader to Red Two, respond please," Akane called over the commo.

The tac-net was silent.

"Ryouga, come in please. Where are you?"

"He's in a BattleMaster," Genma observed at length. "How hard could it be to lose track of something as big as that?"

"In these woods," Akane remarked. "Not that hard at all. Ukyou, do you think you could look for him?"

"I don't mind it," she replied. "But is that a smart idea? The Black Rose 'mechs will be here any minute now."

Akane looked crestfallen on the display. "You've got a point, but I still want you to look. Don't move more than a few klicks from our position, and if we call for you, come running."

"Will do, sugar."

The Hatchetman stalked off into the woods, leaving Akane to wonder what had happened to Ryouga. And where the heck was Ranma? she wondered. It had been too long since she had heard from him.

"Red Eagle Lead, this is Red Leader," she called on the tac-net. "Respond please."

There was no answer. She tried again to no effect. Still nothing. She then tried another tack. "Red Eagle Deuce, Red Leader, respond."

Yuka's strained voice came over the airwaves as she gutted out a turn.

"Eagle Deuce copies," she replied. "Wait one."

An explosion in midair marked the destruction of the wounded Black Rose Slayer. The other Slayer, finding itself suddenly outnumbered, made a break for the horizon.

"Red Eagle Deuce standing by, Red Leader."

"Yuka," Akane called to her friend. "Have you seen Ranma since he took off?"

There was a strained silence. "No."

"He hasn't reported in," Akane returned, her voice cracking slightly. "If you spot him, could you let me know?"

"Y-Yes, ma'am," Yuka replied, her own voice taking on a guilty edge that almost made Akane question it. Instead, she tried to reach him again. "Ranma?" she called out into the ether. "Answer me!"

"Ran-chan?!" Ukyou chimed in worriedly, realizing that there were now two missing mechwarriors. "Are you there, honey?"

Genma's Orion moved from its position.

"The boy's probably just busy," he said, trying to believe it himself.

"Come on, you piece of crap!"

Ranma wrenched at the access panel to his LAM's heavy pulselaser rifle, finally getting the recalcitrant portal to open. The weapon should have reset by this time, but something was holding it back. Worse, the shutdown was forcing certain weapon interlocks that kept the rest of his armament offline. Ranma suspected that there was a safety disconnect open within the pulselaser's power electronics, something that he would have to land and dismount to fix. The LAM now rested in Airmech Mode in a tiny clearing that did little to screen him from the air. He peered inside the pulselaser's innards as rolling booms of thunder and exploding battlemechs surrounded him. A tangled mass of coolant piping and power conduit revealed itself, and he had to go by touch to figure out which was which. He leaned into the access, hissing with discomfort as the heat from the weapon's components remained high in spite of the liquid nitrogen cooling system.

At last he spotted what he thought was the failed disconnect. The component would have to be forced back into position, though he saw with some relief that it could be locked shut to keep it from popping open the next time he got a little too eager on the trigger. He reached in to get a grip on the throw switch, and cursed when he couldn't quite fit far enough inside the weapon to touch it.

A thunderclap overhead startled him, and he slammed his head against a coolant pipe. Still cursing, he fell out of the access hatch and landed on the ground. It was going to rain, he saw, and very soon. The steady thud of battlemechs in motion made it clear that if the rain didn't get him, they soon would. He could see the treetops swaying in the distance as they pushed through the woods to reach the starport.

The first sprinkling of rain began to fall as he realized that he had no tools on him that could reach inside the weapon. Finally, in desperation, an idea came to him, and he looked up at the sky with shaking fists.

"Rain, dammit!" he yelled. "I dare you to rain on me!"

A cloudburst opened up over his head with a flash of lightning and the peal of thunder, granting his request, and turning him into the buxom redhead that had been his curse for the last six months. The enemy 'mechs were close now, close enough to see them through the sudden rainy gloom.

Ranma wasted no time, pulling herself back inside the weapon, where her smaller body could squeeze into a position to reach the disconnect. She grasped the handle tight and forced it shut with all her strength. The disconnect slammed shut with a _bang_, and the weapon began to hum with power once again. She cried out in triumph, barely remembering to pin shut the disconnect in her excitement before wriggling clear.

A Black Rose Rifleman loomed overhead, its Garret radar array spinning slowly over its head as it searched for enemy fighters. Ranma could tell that its mechwarrior's attention was focused on the sky, and not on the Phoenix Hawk LAM at its feet. It was easy enough, since if the Black Rose pilot had noticed it, she would be dead by now.

She pulled her helmet back on as she scrambled for the open cockpit. The Rifleman couldn't miss her for long, and there were other Black Rose 'mechs stomping around who might recognize an easy kill when they saw one. The canopy locked closed with a hiss as she adjusted her seat straps for her smaller body. As the last strap locked into place, she pivoted the Airmech on its heels and brought up the heavy pulselaser.

She squeezed the weapon trigger and held on, sending streams of blue-green laser light into the Rifleman's right knee joint. The coruscating beams were quickly lost in wispy clouds of steam from vaporized rainfall, but not before cutting through the battlemech's thin leg armor to the fragile knee actuator beyond. The Rifleman's twin-cannon arms flailed wildly as the pilot lost his balance, and with a shove from the pulselaser muzzle, Ranma toppled it over into the trees.

She goosed her thrusters even as it pitched over, blasting into the sky while the other Black Rose 'mechs trembled in surprise at her sudden appearance. A wild volley of LRM fire exploded behind her, throwing shattered trees into the air as she fought for altitude. Laser beams from an entire company sizzled through the air, discouraging any further attacks from her.

Ranma muscled her way through the low hanging storm clouds and pondered her next course of action. It had taken far longer than she had hoped to fix her weapon systems, and there was no telling how far the Black Rose and her troops had advanced to the starport. She needed to put some pressure on their landing zones if she was going to put them off balance.

The small Electronic Warfare panel on her right lit up with ambers, blues, and reds as it detected and identified the radar beams and commo arrays of a half-dozen Black Rose DropShips obscured from sight by the rainstorm. Glyphic symbols scrolled across her HUD as she put her nose on target and boosted into supersonic flight, haloing ASX-002 in its own sonic boom. The Super Phoenix Hawk LAM bit into the cool air with a vengeance as it tore through the cloud bank with a lightning bolt cracking in its wake.

The egg-shaped Overlord Class DropShip _Thorn_ was the first thing she saw as she broke through the clouds and dove into the rain. She aimed for the deployed communications array at the very top of the ship, and loosed a pair of Streak SRMs at it as she passed overhead. The two short ranged missiles were self-guided, needing no external radar illumination to reach their mark.

The missiles' aim was true, and Ranma noted with some satisfaction that an entire band of color faded abruptly from the Electronic Warfare panel, marking the sudden loss of the DropShip's commo link. She hoped that Kodachi was in the middle of talking to someone back at the Drop Zone when it happened.

The Phoenix Hawk LAM dropped down to the deck as battlemechs in the security detachment shook off their surprise and began to shoot back at her. Ranma transformed to Airmech Mode, the most versatile of the three modes for hit and run attacks, and rocketed back at them with the heavy pulselaser at the ready. She all but ignored the enemy battlemechs as she ranged in on the crates of ammunition staged for ready use by returning units seeking to reload, and let loose with a full salvo.

The laser beams tore into the crates, detonating the ammunition in a blinding fireball that raged against the falling rain. Ranma shot through the roiling cloud of smoke and steam to spoil the aim of the enemy battlemechs, then transformed back to fighter mode to make her escape. Though she could have tangled with them for a little while longer, her purpose was terror and disruption, and that purpose had been fulfilled. She was needed back at the starport now, before her tomboy fiancee got in over her head.

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

13:35 Local Time

"Mark time to shuttle arrival," Commander Malloy ordered.

"Any time now, sir," a commo tech replied. "The pilot wants to make a quick scan of the surroundings before he puts down."

Malloy nodded anxiously.

"Uh, sir, this doesn't look good," Lieutenant Davidge declared abruptly as he manned the main display.

"What is it?" Malloy demanded.

"The primary Orochi unit is making an orbital insertion burn," Davidge replied, scrolling through line after line of command code and calculations. "It's hauling ass, sir; a full burn with its plasma drive."

"Where's it going?"

Davidge scribbled some numbers furiously on a notepad as the other _Dragonfly_ bridge crew called out updates to Black Rose and Musk Dynasty positions. "High orbit, roughly eighty thousand klicks altitude, right smack dab over our heads. ETA is one hour and ten minutes."

"Unit Three is illuminating the surface with radar," one of the former sensor operators announced. "Looks like it's gonna light up someone's life."

"Warn Lady Akane," Malloy ordered. He turned back to Davidge. "Any idea of the Big Guy's intentions?"

"Yeah," Davidge replied as the ground shook around them. "He's gonna blow the hell out of us."

"Beam strike near Musk Landing Zones," the sensor operator declared. "Damage assessment impossible due to the cloud cover."

"Better them than us," someone intoned.

Musk Dynasty Regimental Landing Zone

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

13:37 Local Time

The particle beam bolt split the dark sky in a convincing imitation of the wrath of God. When it struck the ground, the planet seemed to shake with the force of the hit, and a terrible shock wave rolled out from the impact point with the force of a gale. Cries of panic from the men led to their battlemechs casting furtive glances to the clouds above, dreading the next strike.

Mousse steadied his Crusader as falling chunks of the ground pelted his pristine white armor. He turned his mech's head to see a steaming crater to the west, near one of his assembly points. The hole was at least forty meters deep, and of the lance of 'mechs that had been standing there, only red hot bits of metal remained, pattering down with the tortured clods of earth uprooted by the energy of the blast.

Orbital bombardment had gone out with the First Succession War, and with it the defensive tactics that could have spared those men. Realizing that this battle was not going to be like anything he had ever experienced before, he gave orders to his commanders to disperse, and commanded his DropShips to lift off to safety. Black Rose fighters were nothing to be feared compared to another blast like that one.

This is suicide, he thought darkly. He had nothing that could engage the Orochi satellite responsible for that costly attack.

"Send to General Herb," he called to his signal group. "Inform him that the Orochi network is subjecting us to bombardment from orbit. Humbly request his permission to withdraw from the planet until a way can be found to neutralize it."

General Herb's face appeared on his display even as the commo officer repeated back his orders.

"There will be no withdrawal," the serpentine Musk commander said to him. Mousse was surprised by the lack of interference in the transmission. "My ship will be landing within an hour, Colonel. If you feel that you are incapable of carrying out your orders, I will personally relieve you."

Landing within an hour? Mousse wondered. Herb must have decided to proceed to the planet himself not long after dispatching the main force to Ryuugenzawa. Had he not told him of his departure out of mistrust, or was it a spur of the moment decision on Herb's part?

"That won't be necessary, honored lord," Mousse demurred. "I was about to investigate a curious group of signals from the surface that might be the control center for the network."

Herb's eyes lit up. "Capture it intact, if you can," he commanded him. "We can always use the Orochi against Prince Kuno when he gets here."

"Prince Kuno, my lord?"

"He's on his way, according to the fleet. It should make for a very interesting battle."

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

13:41 Local Time

Shinnosuke watched from a position of cover against the rain as the black shuttle from the _Tautog_ flared out into a hover, and settled down on the muddy meadow with the scream of turbojets. The nose ramp dropped down, and men in battledress carrying rifles fanned out to either side of the action. Though Konatsu had told him of the coming arrival of the Grand Duke of the Nerima Confederation, he was taken aback by its matter-of-factness. Shampoo's Panther tracked the shuttle with its PPC arm for a moment, then, apparently satisfied with its identity, stomped off on another circuit of the bunker's surroundings.

The kunoichi ran out to meet them, ignoring the readied weapons aimed at her and bowing deeply for the Grand Duke and his entourage. Shinnosuke decided to follow after her, a little shamed by her courage. He bowed as well for them as they took their first steps onto Ryuugenzawa soil.

"Your Grace," Konatsu said in his breathy voice.

Soun studied him for a moment, seeking recognition in him and not finding any.

"Where is Commander Malloy?" he finally asked.

"Please forgive him, your Grace," Konatsu replied. "Given the current tactical situation, he was unable to meet you on the surface. He is still below in the bunker."

Soun grunted acknowledgement. "That's fine," he replied. "Kasumi and I have to join Akane at the starport. We're only here to put off some non-combatants." He gestured to an attractive middle-aged woman with a striking resemblance to Captain Saotome, and to a deeply-tanned man in a floral pattern shirt with a Polynesian entourage.

"My lord?"

"The _Tautog_ is about to engage the Orochi network," Soun explained. "A space battle is no place for civilians."

Konatsu bowed again, at last understanding what the Grand Duke expected of him.

"I would be honored, your Grace," he said in reply.

"Take good care of them," Soun said. "The Shogun is my personal guest, and his entourage are to be treated with the utmost respect and courtesy." He turned to Nodoka and the Shogun. "With luck, we'll be seeing you again very soon."

Nodoka bowed gracefully for him, then kissed Kasumi's cheek. "Both of you be careful, and when you see Ranma, give him my love."

"You'll see him soon enough, Mrs. Saotome," Kasumi replied with a wan smile. She did not relish going back into combat so soon after the Battle of Oni, but again, duty called.

Shogun Kuno gave him the 'hang loose' sign. "Take care, bruddah." He and his entourage stepped off the shuttle and into the rain. "De sooner we get dis over with, de sooner we go surfin'."

Konatsu placed a gentle hand on Shinnosuke, making him blush. "You should show them to the bunker while I make another round."

The caretaker stammered agreement, and turned to lead the civilians away from the shuttle. The middle-aged woman produced an umbrella from her kimono, though Shinnosuke's eyes were drawn to the curious bundle tied to her back with a length of silk. It looked rather like a sword.

The Shogun led his hula girls and beefy Polynesian men towards the bunker while Shinnosuke found himself on Nodoka's arm. As soon as they were clear of the shuttle, the ramp closed and the engines spooled up. The group paused to watch it lift off, and then nose away to make a high-speed, low altitude transit to the distant starport.

"We get out o' dis rain, ya bruddah?" the Shogun asked Shinnosuke.

"Right this way," he replied, feeling useless and a little put off with having to shepherd a bunch of offworlders - even supposedly important ones.

Happousai hadn't intended on coming to this place until well after the fighting, but his greed had gotten the better of him. He needed to check up on his trove just one more time to feel secure. The service pit in the reinforced concrete floor of the quonset hut was lined with old sheets of armor plate, making it about as secure as one could get on such short notice. Within the pit was an armored and padded case, the lining shielded against electromagnetic interference.

He opened the padded case with care, as if the contents would crumble to dust at the slightest mishandling. It wasn't true, but considering what he had, a little caution was never a bad thing. His eyes lit up at beholding the Treasure of Ryuugenzawa, and a thin line of drool cascaded down his lips.

"How beautiful," he sobbed.

Overcome by the emotion of the moment, he stood back from the case, trying not to cry. The Inner Sphere would never forget him after today. He would be a savior, a messiah, and the way he figured it, and with few exceptions, most messiahs did pretty well in the booty call department.

"When did you plan on telling the rest of us about this?" a gruff voice behind him demanded.

Happousai spun around to see Ryouga looking down at him. It was clear by the angry scowl on his face that he had seen everything. A thunderclap outside the quonset hut punctuated the man's angry glare, and rain began to fall.

"R-Ryouga," he cried out greasily. "Didn't hear you coming."

"I know," the fanged mechwarrior growled. "I followed you after you left us."

Happousai did a double-take. Since when was Ryouga even able to walk a straight line?

"So," Ryouga continued. "Are you going to answer my question, or do I have to beat it out of you?"

Happousai edged back to the case and shut the lid, while keeping his eyes fixed on Ryouga. "I was going to tell everyone," he replied. "Honest I was. The timing just hasn't seemed right, that's all."

"I may not know much," Ryouga snarled. "But I've learned to tell when you're lying, Happousai."

"O-Oh yeah?" the wizened mechwarrior replied, looking for an opening to make his escape. "How's that?"

Ryouga's eyes narrowed to burning slits. "Your lips move."

Happousai took a slow and deliberate step towards him. "Now take it easy, Ryouga," he soothed. "There's no need to get angry. I'm willing to cut you in on this."

Ryouga eyed him warily. "Go on."

Happousai's face turned up into an easy smile, surprised at Ryouga's reaction to his offer. "We both know how much the contents of this case are worth. I'm willing to share the take with you if you keep your mouth shut about it." He stepped up to Ryouga and gave him a conspiratorial nudge. "Think about it for a moment. A girl as beautiful and sweet as Akari deserves a good life, and with even a fraction of what I'm offering you, you can give her everything she's ever wanted. A nice mansion on a landed estate, the most expensive fashions, gorgeous jewelry from across the Inner Sphere. Hell, you could build her her own little 'mech workshop and let her tinker to her heart's content for the rest of her life."

He looked away for a moment. "Think you can do that for her as a lousy lieutenant in an army that's gonna end up on the Furinkan Combine payroll someday? Or as a wandering mercenary?"

"No..." Ryouga replied sheepishly. "No, I guess I couldn't do all those things for her if I was one of those."

"So whaddya say?" Happousai cried, offering up a wrinkled hand. "Share and share alike?"

Ryouga took Happousai's hand in a firm grip. "I could never give her those things as a lousy lieutenant in the Nerima Confederation Army," he said to him. "Just like I could never live with myself for betraying the people who have come to mean so much to me if I do what you say!" He threw Happousai down to the ground and gave him a savage kick.

"What was that for?!" Happousai wailed.

"You -" he spluttered at Happousai, who cowered at his feet and whimpered. "You incredible bastard! Doesn't Akane mean anything at all to you!? Or Grand Duke Tendo!? Or even Ranma!? You'd sell them all out for the contents of that case!?"

"You idiot!" Happousai howled as Ryouga pinned him with a foot. "Don't you understand what a Library Core is? Everything, I mean EVERYTHING the Inner Sphere lost to the wars is in that case. That knowledge and technical information is the greatest treasure in the galaxy! A ransom for a thousand star systems!"

Ryouga grabbed Happousai by the scruff of his neck and held him up to his face.

"You won't get one C-bill of it!" he shouted, spittle flying off his lips and into Happousai's eyes. In his rage, he threw the little mechwarrior to the concrete. "Tarou was right! I should have helped him kill you on the _Dragonfly_!"

His fist plunged down at Happousai, intent on crushing the very life out of the twisted little man. Happousai turned the blow aside with a casual flick of his hand, dropping Ryouga's fist into the concrete with a crash. Chunks of the floor exploded around them, battering Ryouga and stunning him long enough for Happousai to make his break.

"Come back here, you!" he called after Happousai.

Happousai dashed for his Locust, which was parked outside the hut. It was a fortunate circumstance, for Ryouga's BattleMaster was also outside. He couldn't chase after him without turning into a pig in the rain.

He hated to do this, but there was no choice. Barring a lucky shot, he would be forced to bring down the hut on Ryouga. When the fighting was over he would dig out the rubble for the case, which he was confident was protected against any collapse. Ryouga had seen too much, and more to the point, had refused to play along.

Ryouga watched Happousai flee into the rain and stopped short of following him. As a pig he would be defenseless. The little bastard was running for his Locust, though his intentions beyond escape were unknown. It did not occur to him that Happousai would actually try to kill him, even in spite of what had just passed between them.

When the Locust's turret-like medium laser projector pivoted to bear on the hut, he knew he was wrong.

A rippling beam of laser light cut across him to blast apart a section of wall on the opposite side of the hut. Though the beam had barely missed, the heat was tremendous, searing his skin and nearly blinding him with its intensity. He staggered backwards, his vision filled with painful blotches of color. The water-filled cooling vest on his torso spat out a jet of hot liquid from the safety relief, reminding him of how close he had come to being fried.

Happousai sent another beam at him, tearing up a trench in the concrete floor and blasting shards of it into the air. Stinging bits of the stuff pelted him, and he covered up instinctively against the barrage. Still half-blind, his watery eyes groped for a place where he could take cover.

A third blast ripped into the hut, though now it was clear that Happousai was no longer trying to hit him. He was going for the quonset hut's supports instead. The ancient building groaned in protest as a section of the struts that held up the curved roof were evaporated.

Rain began to spill through the holes in the roof that Happousai had made, and Ryouga tripped clumsily around them as he staggered for the only shelter he could think of. A fourth blast took out an entire corner of the quonset hut, and the tortured metal shrieked as it failed. The building was collapsing on him, and all he could think about was Akari.

Happousai took no satisfaction in watching the quonset hut fall in on itself. He blamed himself for his clumsiness in being followed, even for his weakness in wanting to take another look at his treasure. He took a calming puff on his pipe as wisps of steam from rain evaporating on superheated metal wafted up from the uneven pile of debris.

It was possible that Ryouga had survived the collapse. He was a tough one, and the idea of stomping on the rubble with his battlemech crossed his mind. When the time came to dig out the debris to recover the Library Core, Ryouga was much better off being dead. Especially if by some miracle, the Confederation managed to pull off a victory.

The scream of distant weapons fire distracted him from his internal debate. Akane and the others were probably mixing it up with the Black Rose forces again. For a moment he considered himself to be on Akane's side, and knew he was needed there. He let it pass. A true master of the Anything Goes School knew when to cut his losses, and this was that time.

The Locust turned and began trotting south with the intention of skirting the fighting and waiting out the battle from a safe distance. The Library Core wasn't going anywhere now that it was buried under a few tons of rubble. As he fled, he felt a pang of conscience, the first he had felt in decades.

Ignore it, he told himself. You've never needed it before. No need to start now.

SLDF Drydock

14:02 Local Time

"We have approximately half an hour before the primary Orochi satellite takes up a position above the starport," Captain Hauptmann said to an freshly adult Hinako Ninomiya on the _Coronet_'s quiet Bridge. The _Dragonfly_ sailor who had made the brave sacrifice of energy for his captain floated in peaceful unconsciousness in free-fall nearby.

Hauptmann could see that the auxilliary systems were online, though many of the stations were unmanned as the crew finished up preparations for launch. "The _Tautog_ will do what it can to distract the damn thing, but that won't be much. We need to launch this ship."

"I'm not so sure that we'll be able to make much of a contribution," Hinako replied. "We don't even know if we can leave drydock, much less use the ship's weapons."

"What about the torpedo systems?"

She shook her head. "The torpedoes were offloaded before the ship went into drydock. They were probably put on some tender in orbit, and that ship probably joined Kerensky in the Exodus."

Hauptmann didn't want to give up. "The spinal mount, then," he said.

The _Coronet_ was one of the few Star League ships to carry a particle beam cannon so massive that it was laid along the very backbone of the vessel for support. Such weapons were known as spinal mounts, drawing their power directly from the fusion reactor. Though they were the most powerful energy weapons known to man, they required that the ship itself line up with the target, making them difficult to use in battle. It was one of the primary reasons why they weren't very common in the SLDF fleets.

Hinako rolled her eyes. "There doesn't seem to be any reason why the spinal mount won't function, aside from the fact that the reactor hasn't had to answer that kind of instantaneous power demand for over two hundred years. We could knock out the entire electrical generation and distribution system trying to fire it."

"You're right," Hauptmann snorted. "We should just sit here and watch the planet get blasted by the Orochi."

"That's not what I'm saying," Hinako retorted, her sultry voice taking on a hard edge.

"Then what _are_ you saying?" the former corvette skipper demanded.

Unlike most men Hinako had known, he seemed to be immune to her many charms. She regarded him for a moment before replying. "Believe me, no one wants to see Lady Akane and the others safely off the planet and out of the system more than me. I simply don't see how we'll be doing them any favors by facing the Orochi in a ship we have no experience with, and one that might not even function in battle."

"We don't have time to debate this," Hauptmann countered. "In thirty minutes this discussion becomes academic." He gestured to the viewport, where the planet below shuddered with another particle beam hit from Unit Three. "One of the smaller ones is already pounding on them. The big Orochi has ten times the firepower."

"All right!" Hinako cried angrily. "I'll order the countdown for launch. But for the record, I think this is a terrible mistake."

"I'm not going to concern myself with it," Hauptmann replied. "If it is a mistake, none of us will be alive to regret it."

NCWS _Tautog_

14:05 Local Time

"Tommy, what have you got for me?"

Captain Olivera watched his Executive Officer make a last check of his information before replying.

"Well, skipper, the lesser Orochi satellites have these sensor/commo nodes running through the vertical axis in the dorsal and ventral quarters. If we hit them both, it should knock out all but their low-frequency radar and some low bandwidth radio links for backup commos and telemetry."

"Will that make it blind and deaf?"

"Mostly," the XO replied. "With the LF radar it will still be able to detect targets, and our stealthing is particularly vulnerable to LF and VLF radar frequencies, but the lack of resolution will make it very difficult to target anything with its weapons systems, and the low bandwidth commo links will make it difficult for other Orochi units to provide it with targeting data."

"Sounds great," Olivera remarked. "What's the catch?"

"The catch, sir," Tommy replied. "Is that both nodes are relatively small targets versus the bulk of the entire hull, and both are ringed with a dozen point-defense gun turrets."

"But you have a way around that, don't you."

The XO opened his helmet visor to wipe away the sweat. "If we get really close, and I mean close enough to see chipped paint without a telescope, we can get off a volley of torps at point blank range that might get past the turrets and knock out the nodes. If we use our laser turrets, we'll have better odds of hitting, but we'll expose ourselves to detection from the other Orochi units closing in, and we'll have to be almost as close."

Olivera was nodding his head as the XO spoke. "We'll have to put our most vulnerable quarter to the planet and creep up on attitude jets. That damn Orochi unit has to go before it starts targeting parts of the planet we care about."

He thumped his XO on the arm. "I'll leave the approach to you, Tommy. In the meantime, we need to brainstorm a solution to the primary Orochi satellite."

"That might not be necessary, sir," the Sensor Supervisor declared. "The main Furinkan Combine fleet is on a course to intercept. Estimated time to weapon range is four-two minutes."

Olivera looked at the holotank. "I never thought I'd be glad to see the Furinkan Combine, but I'm sure it'll pass soon enough."

Near the Starport

14:11 Local Time

Ukyou screamed into her commo mic as her battle-spatula cleaved through the hull of a Black Rose Wolverine that had nearly gotten the drop on her. The enormous 'mech blade severed the enemy battlemech's left arm in a shower of sparks and flame and dug deep into the torso armor, knocking it off balance. Crying out in a frenzy, Ukyou wrenched at her controls, bringing her Hatchetman's knee up to strike the Wolverine as it teetered, and sending it to the muddy ground with a crash.

She pulled at her embedded battle-spatula to free it as more Black Rose 'mechs appeared through the gloom. Cursing to herself, she let the weapon go, and fired her jump jets to spoil her enemies' aim. A cat's cradle of laser fire cut through the air around the Hatchetman as it sprang airborne under the shriek of fusion heated turbojets.

Knowing that it was dangerous to do so, and even more dangerous not to, she lined up a Black Rose Phoenix Hawk in her gunsight and fired her hip-mounted heavy autocannon in midair. The recoil sent her tumbling, and she fought her battlemech into a somersault, putting all of her martial arts intincts to the test to land upright. As she touched down and prepared to fire another round, she saw that her shell had hit its mark, blowing the enemy battlemech's head apart in a shower of smoke and flames.

There was no time to gloat over her marksmanship though, as the Wolverine she had cleaved pulled itself to its feet. The six-pack SRM launcher on its shoulder spat a volley of missiles at her, and she threw herself into a copse of trees to avoid them. Missiles exploded into the tress and cratered her armor in three places as she called out for help over the radio.

She had gone looking for Ryouga, and had found a Black Rose reconnaissance lance instead. Now she was outnumbered and cut off from the rest of her companions.

"Anybody out there?" she cried into her radio once more. The Wolverine crunched over the fallen Phoenix Hawk towards her, its hand-held autocannon spitting out a hail of shells that chopped down the trees in front of her with murderous efficiency. Her battle spatula was still embedded in its armor. Beyond the Wolverine was a Griffin and a Valkyrie. The Griffin tracked her with its PPC, waiting for a clear shot.

"What is your position?" a voice, Akane's, called out over the commo in return.

Ukyou's eyes flicked to the map display for a second as she ducked and weaved her Hatchetman between trees to avoid fire from the Black Rose 'mechs. "Three klicks southwest of you," she managed. A PPC bolt carromed off her shoulder, lighting up the woods for a moment as some of her precious armor boiled off into hot gas.

"Can you disengage?"

Ukyou spat out a curse before answering her. "If I could do that, I wouldn't be begging for help!"

"We can't break away right now," Akane returned, her voice just as urgent. The sounds of battle were clear enough over the commo to let Ukyou know that Akane was in the middle of a tremendous fight. "Avoid contact if you can, and try to work your way back towards us."

Ukyou knew then that she was truly on her own. The Wolverine and Griffin were working in tandem while the Valkyrie protected the rear, each covering the other's advance while she stumbled on through the woods trying to escape. The only problem with her strategy was that she would enter a clearing on her present course, giving them an unobstructed shot at her while remaining in cover themselves.

She needed a better plan, and she needed her battle-spatula back.

The Hatchetman stopped running and turned around. She fired the autocannon to keep their heads down, then triggered her jump jets. The 'mech lurched into the air as the Wolverine shrugged off the cannon hit, its ball-turret medium laser tracking her arc through the sky.

The laser blast bit into her Hatchetman's torso, but the armor held. The Wolverine raised its autocannon too late to gun her down, and she crashed into the 'mech feet first. The crunch of armor and the groan of actuators filled the rain soaked woods as the Wolverine crumpled and fell to the ground once again.

This time she wasn't going to let him get up. The autocannon barked, blowing the Wolverine's head clean off. The Griffin that had dogged her was now too close to use its PPC or its LRM launcher, and decided to throw down in hand to hand combat instead.

Ukyou wrenched frantically at the haft of her battle-spatula as the Griffin fired its jump jets for a death from above attack of its own. The trees shivered as it crashed through the canopy on its fatal collision course. The battlefield became shrouded in mist from the steam of evaporated rainfall.

The spatula ripped free of the armor that held it fast, and she brought it up to strike the Griffin as if fell upon her. The scream of pierced metal deafened her, and the shock of impact knocked her senseless. Alarms wailed in her cockpit as the Hatchetman fell over.

When she opened her eyes, the view out of her armored cockpit visor was dark. A quick scan of the cockpit told her that her 'mech systems were still online, but the clock was reading twenty minutes later than the last time she had looked. Had she been unconscious that long?

She tried to move her 'mech, but something was keeping the limbs pinned in place.

With some trepidation, she undogged her cockpit hatch and opened it. The Hatchetman had fallen onto its back, and as she crawled out of the hatch, she discovered why she had been unable to move. The Griffin lay over the top of her 'mech, its arms splayed out to either side of the Hatchetman's head. Her battle-spatula had cleaved through the bubble cockpit canopy of the enemy 'mech, and she had to look away at the sight of a smear of blood that trickled down the blade to wash away in the rain.

Of the enemy Valkyrie, there was no sign. It must have written them both off for dead and left to rejoin its company. All that remained were the enormous footprints of its passing that filled with rainwater.

The adrenaline of combat was starting to wear off, and she wobbled unsteadily on her feet. She had never fought in such an ugly, desperate battle before. Her days as a general in the Federated Shiratori had simply not prepared her for this.

She plopped down on the muddy ground and hugged her knees to her chest. The rain continued to fall as the sounds of thunder mingled with the sounds of battle to the north. She just needed to rest for a little while, she told herself, wiping the rain out of her eyes. Then she would go back to the fighting.

Red Leader

14:19 Local Time

Akane lashed out at the Black Rose Hunchback she had let escape in their first encounter, clouting it with both PPC cannon arms. The squat, ugly war machine pitched over, its torso caved in and gouts of nitrogen gas from its breached cooling systems venting through rents in the armor. She stomped over the top of it as she drew a bead on the next enemy 'mech, blasting it with a double barrage of particle beam fire that plowed through the thin rear armor of the enemy Thunderbolt. The heavy 'mech fusion reactor exploded with such fury that it took a wounded Rifleman with it, and ended the battle as abruptly as it had begun.

She blinked away the spots that swam before her eyes. It might have been a foolish thing to meet the enemy charge head on, but the alternative was to be completely overrun. The Black Rose's troops were fighting with a fanaticism that she had never seen before - not even on Port Said.

Doctor Tofu's Centurion drew a wary bead on the tree line with its heavy autocannon as she stomped back into cover. The cannon muzzle on his 'mech glowed a dull red, even in the rain. Two ugly tears in his torso armor made it clear that he wasn't fit to be mixing it up at close range anymore.

Even Genma's Orion was battered. His instincts for self-preservation made him a poor choice for front rank duty, but she had to admit that he was a formidable mechwarrior in a pinch, having destroyed or seriously damaged four 'mechs single-handedly. Of course, he had been completely cut off from help at the time and it was fight or die, but the results were still the same.

"Still no word from Ryouga or Ukyou," Doctor Tofu said to her.

"I hope they're all right," she returned anxiously. There had been no word from Ryouga, and Ukyou had gone silent after her last transmission begging for help. Ranma wasn't answering the commo, though the reasons for this weren't clear. The situation did not look good for them, even with the Orochi network bombarding the Musk Dynasty positions and keeping them busy.

"I'm almost out of ammunition," Tofu added. "One shell left in the gun; no missiles."

"I'm out of missiles _and_ shells," Genma chimed in.

"All right," Akane panted. "We'll fall back to rearm. I want to see if we can link up with Ukyou, or at least find out what happened to her, so we'll take the southern route back to the DropShip. Keep an eye out for Black Rose units along the way."

The three battlemechs formed up into a loose wedge and moved out.

Test Area North, near the Orochi Control Bunker

14:18 Local Time

Shampoo was a hunter. Next to a lightning fast raid, she preferred nothing more than stalking her prey unawares. It was even more enjoyable for her when her prey belonged to the traitorous Musk Dynasty.

She could see them moving through the rainy gloom. The Orochi network had been unleashing deathbolts from orbit on their positions for forty-five minutes now, and they were too busy keeping one eye on the sky to watch out for a lone Panther with a mistress that was out for blood. She hadn't bothered to tell anyone at the bunker that she was leaving. In fact, she was rather concerned about becoming the victim of orbital bombardment herself, and standing next to a target like that was asking to get killed.

Now she was free. Free to hunt her clan's enemies. Free to take revenge on Mousse for his betrayal. He was out there somewhere, commanding the troops that had come to make Ryuugenzawa theirs, and she would kill him.

The Musk Dynasty 'mechs were much closer now. Their radars probed the woods around them, but with the heavy rainfall and all of the trees, it was doubtful that they could see her. Thermal sensors were almost useless.

She kept her Panther's reactor powered down anyway, content to let the lance of 'mechs pass her by. They trudged past from a distance of one hundred meters, dark shapes moving through the woods oblivious to the source of their own deaths. She breathed a silent prayer to the gods of war, then flicked the combat start-up switch for the reactor.

The fusion plant came to life with a low rumble. Two weak plumes of steam vented from her Panther's heat sinks in response. She waited until the plumes disappated, then moved forward at a crawl.

The Musk Dynasty Dragon at the rear of the file did not detect her approach. She followed it as quietly as a thirty-five ton war machine could, which when matching the Dragon's footsteps with her own, was silent indeed. As she closed the range, her PPC arm rose slowly to target a known weak spot in the battlemech's armor. It was too small for an average mechwarrior to target in the heat of battle, but for a skilled mechwarrior such as herself with the element of surprise for an ally, it was no challenge.

The PPC erupted at the touch of the trigger, sending a ball of blue-white lightning into the Dragon's back. The battlemech lurched with the hit as it annihilated the thin rear armor and blasted deep into the internals. The Dragon's autocannon ammunition exploded an instant later, gutting the 'mech in a shower of green and orange flame.

Shampoo leaped her Panther to the side, taking advantage of the steam clouds produced by the bolt and by the rain to conceal her. The other Musk Dynasty 'mechs spun around to face the apparent direction of the attack. One even began firing blindly with its autocannon. Tracers lit up the gloom as she circled around behind them once more.

She aimed once again for the weak spot, smiling to herself at how easy this was. Were these not the greatest men in the Inner Sphere? She had to laugh as she touched the trigger and obliterated another Dragon. Fools. Pretentious upstarts with no conception of what true skill in battle meant.

Again the surviving Dragons spun to face their attacker. She could almost hear their panicked cries over the radio, and was tempted to tune her commo array to their tac-net channels. Again she slipped around to attack them from another direction.

Autocannon fire streamed from their guns as they fired wildly into the surrounding woods. Several shells spanged off her armor, but she did not react with answering fire. Crouching her Panther to practically crawl through the muddy undergrowth, she crept slowly into position, and waited for them to run out of ammunition.

They were wary now, turning in slow circles that denied her a clear shot at their weak spots. Undaunted, she twisted her torso to the side while keeping her PPC arm levelled at the closer of the two. From the chest of her 'mech erupted a volley of four short range missiles. They were Streak SRMs, which was a pity to waste under the circumstances, but they had their desired effect.

As the missiles exploded into the trees, the Dragon pilots turned to face the blasts. Shampoo aimed carefully for the cockpit, which was no easy shot given the protective cover of the 'mech's oversized shoulder armor, and fired. The bolt grazed the canopy, blinding the mechwarrior, and giving her time to jet into the air.

Laser and autocannon fire pounded her late position as she sailed over their unsuspecting heads to land on the opposite side. The crash of the trees alerted them, and they lumbered around to face her once more. Shampoo was ready for them, aiming once more for the cockpit, and was quickly rewarded with the sight of one of the two turning right into her gunsight. The thick-barrelled autocannon of the Dragon spat out a single shell before running dry, a shot that carromed off her armor as she blew the cockpit to smithereens.

The last Dragon lurched after her, intent on clubbing her to the ground with its depleted autocannon. Shampoo stood her Panther up, and let the charging Dragon have a bellyfull of SRMs before jetting clear. The missiles cratered the 'mech's thick frontal armor, and the blasts obscured her from sight.

She let the foolish Dragon pilot thrash around in the woods. He would have called for help by now, and she was late to set up her ambush of the relieving forces. With luck, perhaps Mousse would be leading them.

Headquarters Lance, Black Rose Terror Regiment

South of the Starport

14:20 Local Time

Kodachi's Marauder broke out of the treeline to see the ruins of the colony town laid out before her. The place had been destroyed over a century ago, and the prolific plant life of Ryuugenzawa had quickly moved in. There was good cover here, which concerned her. It was an ideal spot for an ambush.

"What is it?" Tarou asked her.

"It's nothing," she replied. Ever since the _Thorn_ had been attacked by an unknown LAM with SLDF markings, she had been on edge. She was here to kill Akane Tendo, not tangle with the locals in a turf war.

The most curious aspect of her brief campaign was knowing that her hated rival was somewhere close at hand. Her SIGINT people had been able to identify her voice on several occasions during the past hour, and the limited Direction Finder fixes they had obtained seemed to indicate that she was east of the starport proper - where Captain Lassiter had suffered his first defeat, and then, if the lack of signals from him was any indication, his death.

In trying to reconcile the mystery of the Star League battlemechs that had mauled her precious regiment with Akane Tendo, she could only conclude that the Tendo witch had found the 'mechs in the ruins. Tarou had obviously come to the same conclusion, for he had become increasingly bold as they neared the starport. Her lover wanted a share of the spoils, and if only Akane Tendo and a rag-tag handful of Confederation pilots stood in the way, there was nothing to be feared.

"Advance," she ordered her troops. Akane Tendo and her men were too far north to reach the ruined colony town in time to set up an ambush for her.

Tarou stomped out onto the cracked pavement of the colony town's main drag. He passed several deep pools of water, taking care to note their tactical use in case they ended up having to fight in this area. He did not know that they were craters formed by orbital bombardment at the time of the town's destruction, nor would he have cared. The Orochi network was preoccupied with the Commonwealth landing zones, as the regular flashes of light and dull booms of thunder on the horizon confirmed.

As he thought warm thoughts of the Commonwealth's annihilation, the sight of a Locust tromping past his Hunchback drew him up short. The pilot of the light 'mech had apparently missed seeing him as it rounded the corner of a ruined building. From the battlemech's distinct loping gait, and the fact that a Cameron Star was crudely painted on its hull, he decided that it could belong to only one person.

"HAPPOUSAI!!!" he roared at the Locust, and fired his monstrous Tomodzuru Type 20 autocannon. The depleted uranium dart punched a neat hole through one of the SRM launcher pods projecting from the tub-like hull, and the force of the impact blasted it into glowing shards of hot metal.

The Locust staggered with the hit, but did not fall over. It turned to face him as Kodachi and the rest of the lance moved to join him.

"Well, I'll be!" Happousai replied over the commo. "Fancy meeting you here, eh, Monster Boy?"

The use of Ryouga's hated sobriquet for him made his blood boil even hotter than before.

"I'm here to kill you, Happousai!" he shouted back.

The Locust darted off into the ruins. "Take a number and stand in line, loser!" Happousai cackled.

Kodachi's Marauder fired a twin blast of PPC bolts at the fleeing Locust. The bolts burst apart a low wall just short of their target. Tarou stomped off in pursuit as she drew up alongside him.

"Is this the man you were talking about earlier, lover?" she inquired sweetly of him.

"The same," Tarou grunted.

"Would you mind if I tagged along?" she asked, eying him with an expression of faint amusement.

"Be my guest," Tarou replied tersely. "But remember that the final blow must come from me!"

She cooed huskily. "You know how hot it makes me when you talk to me like that, my dear." She then gave a shrill laugh at the prospect of fighting a master mechwarrior. "Charge into battle, my dears!" she called to her 'mechs.

The DropShip _Palomino_

Ian Cameron Starport

14:15 Local Time

Grand Duke Soun Tendo checked his cooling vest connections with the ease borne of long practice. Though it had been many years since the last time he had mounted up, he found that the old ways had come back to him as if it had only been yesterday. The sight of the Star League Warhammer and Victor standing tall under the camouflage netting that draped both the battlemechs and the DropShip filled him with a sense of exhilaration that he felt he did not deserve under the dire circumstances facing them.

He watched as his eldest daughter Kasumi received a few last moment bits of advice from the tech who had prepped the Victor for action. Soun was glad at least to be accompanying her into battle. The helplessness he had felt during her ordeal on the moon of Oni had weighed heavily on him during the campaign, and even in the month of abrupt exile he had experienced at the hands of his middle daughter.

He did not know what to do about Nabiki. If they managed to evade the Furinkan Combine and the Orochi network, then her reign as Regent over the Confederation would be ended. After that, he was unsure. He knew that many of his advisors would recommend that she be executed for treason, but could he order the death of his own flesh and blood? More than that, she was the child of his beloved late wife. Killing her did nothing to stop the Furinkan Combine, and in the end, would it make any difference?

These were questions which preyed upon his mind as he climbed up the boarding ladder to the Warhammer's cockpit. Kasumi cast him a brief wave before buttoning up her hatch, which he returned in an attempt to convey a sense of jauntiness to the affair which bound them into a desperate battle. The _Tautog_ was about to commit itself to battle to prevent the Orochi satellite which pounded the planet from targeting the starport, and if were crippled or destroyed in the process, then only Captains Hauptmann and Ninomiya could hope to get them out of the system.

"What are your orders, Father?" Kasumi asked him over the tac-net.

"We'll wait here until your sister returns to rearm," he replied. Akane's message to the _Palomino_ stating her intention to do just that had come minutes prior to the shuttle's arrival at the starport. "Until then," he added. "We'll protect the DropShip from attack."

Kasumi Tendo studied the cockpit controls of the Star League Victor to familiarize herself with their layout. The Star League Defense Force had mandated a set of standards for control systems to minimize the costs of training mechwarriors on different models of battlemech, and so it was just a matter of learning that the heat sink status board was to the left and over her head on the Victor, and not to the right and level with the control yokes as on her Atlas. The status board itself was nearly identical in layout and function.

The weapon systems on the Victor were similar to her Atlas, lacking only the LRM launcher, and downgrading the SRM launcher to a quad rack. The massive Pontiac 100 autocannon that was the Victor's primary armament took up the entire right arm, something she was not used to with her old mech, which retained two fully articulated hands. Her Victor could also jump, being one of the few assault class 'mechs to be outfitted with jump jets.

While the capabilities of the 'mech would force her to alter her fighting style, she did approve of how neat and orderly the Victor's cockpit was. Most Inner Sphere 'mechs were untidy tangles of patchwork repair and modification, making them nightmares for technicians to service. It was a most agreeable battlemech, she decided.

Her father's order to wait she found a little harder to accept. She wanted to see Akane again. It had been hard having her baby sister away for so long, and with Nabiki's betrayal, she needed to have as much of the family together and united under a common purpose as possible. She also wanted to ask her sister how she was getting along with Ranma, but knew that any answers were best left until things were quiet again. As far as she was concerned, Ranma and his parents were already part of the family, and she wanted him to be reunited with his mother after so many years apart.

The sounds of battle rolled in the distance. None of this was possible until after the fighting stopped, and there seemed to be no way to end the fighting without running from Ryuugenzawa, the prize that had given her so much hope over the last half year. Was it right to flee from the planet after so much sacrifice and hardship? What did all of the people who died on Oni give their lives for, if only to see the Confederation routed from the Ryuugenzawa System, and Tatewaki Kuno made the final victor?

She was troubled by the answers she gave to herself, for they only generated more questions. It was so complicated, and all she really wanted to do was go home, find a sensible and hardworking young man, and raise a family with him. No matter what she wanted or deserved, Duty's clarion call would not release her to follow her dreams, and all she could look forward to in the next few hours was more carnage.

Test Area 4-A

14:20 Local Time

Ranma Saotome studied her enemies closely through the heavy brush and thick foliage provided by the local trees. The Musk Dynasty had been in disarray since the Orochi network had commenced a haphazard bombardment of their landing zones, but now it seemed as if they were starting to pull themselves together. It made her wonder if there wasn't someone important close by that was rallying them, someone that needed taking out.

Akane's urgent voice on her transmitter remote squawked out over the white noise of rain falling gently in the trees. Ranma had the volume turned down low to avoid giving away her position while she observed the Musk forces, but felt uncomfortable ignoring her. From the sound of Akane's voice, she was probably getting worried about a lack of response, but it couldn't be helped. Ranma's Scout instincts were strong, and Scouts did not give away their position with pointless radio transmissions to reassure their worried fiancees.

The absence of Ryouga was bad enough news, she supposed. She had heard Akane and the others calling for the lost boy on several occasions, all without success. Had the dope gotten lost again? It took all of her willpower not to leave her position and go looking for him, because if she could take out the guy who was in charge of the Musk Dynasty landing force, she might be able to keep them off balance for the rest of the battle - or at least as long as it took to fix the DropShip and get the hell off this mudball.

A white Crusader strode into view, bearing several marks that indicated that its pilot ranked high on the Musk Dynasty food chain. Ranma tensed for a moment, feeling a twisting in her gut that this must be the one. The Crusader halted before a pair of mobile MASH vans and a coolant truck, the cockpit hatch opening as it stopped.

She pulled out her magnigoggles and took a closer look. A young man with thick glasses perched atop a fall of long blue-black hair pulled himself out of the hatch as lackeys below him on the ground snapped salutes. Ranma shook her head ruefully. They should have known better than to salute in the field.

The man apparently did, for he berated them for their foolishness. Ranma did not understand Chinese, but she knew when someone was getting their ass chewed, no matter what language was being used. There was no doubt now that this was the guy to whack.

She didn't like to think of it as assassination as she slid down the wet grassy slope to the open cockpit of her concealed Super Phoenix Hawk LAM. Assassins worked their trade in peacetime, against political figures. This was war, and her target was an enemy military officer.

It would be her first time at it, though. Her Pop had usually handled the job in the few instances when it had come up, with herself acting as a spotter and escort. She felt a little uneasy about killing someone with a battlemech's heavy pulselaser. It felt wrong, even cowardly.

She swallowed hard and edged the LAM over the ridge. The long rifle-like heavy pulselaser projected from the underbrush. A gun-camera mounted over the focusing optics fed the targeting computer, and projected an image of the scene beyond in a window on her HUD. Centered in the reticle was the man in indigo robes and the long dark hair. He looked vaguely familiar to Ranma, and it took several moments to realize that this was the man who had arrested them on Capra, and who had been present in the jail with Shampoo.

Mousse. The man whose baby Shampoo was going to have.

Now she felt really uneasy about killing him like this. Killing an enemy was a regrettable if oftentimes necessary fact of war, but all her enemies had been so impersonal before now. Squeezing the firing stud on Mousse would not only end the man's life, but orphan his unborn child at the same time.

Ranma's finger eased off the trigger. She took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. She couldn't do it. Not like this.

Maybe she'd better go look for Ryouga instead.

Mechwarrior Colonel Mousse started in surprise as a white and silver Phoenix Hawk LAM blasted out of the treeline a scant hundred meters from his position. He dropped through his cockpit hatch without a second thought, ready to fight the intruder, when he realized that it was leaving the area at high speed. He bit back a curse and watched the LAM transform to Fighter Mode, knowing now that he had more than just the Black Rose to deal with. The Cameron Star of the SLDF had adorned that fighter, which meant that there was probably a force of indigenous mechwarriors protecting the planet - probably the same ones who directed the Orochi network, the ones whose signals his men were still trying to pinpoint. Any survivors from the _Dragonfly_ were probably helping them in their work, though he was tempted to write that thought off as wishful thinking on his part. His hope that Shampoo might yet live was clouding his judgement.

They had to be close by, as the Orochi seemed to be preoccupied with his troops and not with the Black Rose's forces in the east. What few Direction Finder fixes his SIGINT people had been able to establish supported that theory, but the lance of Dragons he had sent out to investigate had failed to find anything more than an ambush that left all but one 'mech destroyed.

General Herb's DropShip would be landing shortly, he thought to himself. He can handle the rest of the regiment. It's time I investigated these signals personally. Again, he questioned his real motivation for wanting to search, and found only Shampoo in his innermost thoughts.

"Captain Lime," he called over the tac-net.

The beefy, somewhat obdurate face of Lime appeared on the display.

"Yes, my lord Colonel?" It was obvious from his tone that he was still bitter about Mousse's rapid advancement in the ranks of the Musk, and especially because he was not a hybrid like so many others in the movement.

"Send General Herb my regards, and inform him that I have gone to investigate the signals we discussed in an earlier transmission. All units have regrouped by company, and are proceeding to their ordered objectives without contact."

Mint appeared next to Lime on the display. "What are you up to, lord Colonel?" he asked in a threatening tone.

"I follow my orders," Mousse replied curtly. "General Herb has instructed me to find and capture the source of those signals, and that is what I shall do. Now follow your _own_ orders!"

Mint saluted grudgingly, and disappeared from the display. Lime followed without a word.

The forest surrounding Ian Cameron Starport,

4 kilometers east of the DropShip _Palomino_

14:30 Local Time

"Ukyou?"

The former Federated Shiratori general opened her eyes. Akane Tendo and Doctor Tofu were kneeling at her side in the mud. The rain had slowed to a gentle sprinkle around her, though she was soaking wet.

"I'm all right," she managed. Looking up, she could see the three battlemechs of Akane, Doctor Tofu, and Genma Saotome standing over her.

"What happened?" Akane asked her, her voice filled with emotion. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Concern from her rival was not what she was expecting, but it was welcome. She brushed away wet chestnut bangs of hair from her eyes and tried to stand. The cold and damp made her joints stiff and sore, and she did so only with a little help from Doctor Tofu.

"Got in a little scrape with the Black Rose regiment," she said in a quiet voice. She gestured to the Griffin which lay over the top of her Hatchetman. "This one here fell on top of me after I took out his partner."

Tofu followed the line of toppled trees to see the steaming wreckage of a Wolverine.

"You destroyed both of them by yourself?"

"Plus a Phoenix Hawk about two hundred meters that way," she replied, pointing. "I think the last 'mech in the enemy lance left me for dead."

Akane put a steadying hand on her shoulder. "You don't look so good," she observed.

"I'm fine, honey," Ukyou replied, shrugging off the suggestion that she wasn't fit for combat. Her pride would not allow it. "I think I got a little shaken up in the fall, and I know I'm a little tired, but I can hack it. I just need some help pulling this Combine wreck off my Hachetman."

Genma's Orion, privy to the conversation with his directional mics, leaned forward to oblige. The heavy 'mech nudged the fallen Griffin over with its foot. The sight of the battle-spatula bisecting the bubble cockpit canopy and the blood that was splattered everywhere inside from the bisected pilot must have been a grim reminder to the elder Saotome of the hazards of operating a Griffin.

"Remind me not to get on your bad side, Ukyou," Akane joked weakly at the grisly sight.

Ukyou preferred not to be reminded of it herself. "Did you get ahold of Ranchan or Ryouga?"

"No," Akane replied, her expression dimming. "There hasn't been any word from either of them. I hope nothing has happened."

Genma clicked on his external speakers. "I don't want to be rude, but your father is waiting for us at the DropShip, Akane. We should get back and rearm before the next attack comes."

"We'll be right along, Mister Saotome," Akane replied.

NCWS _Tautog_

In orbit above planet Ryuugenzawa

14:32 Local Time

"Conn, Sensory; Contact Echo Two-Nine bearing zero-four-five, plus eight-eight. Range: four-zero thousand kilometers."

Olivera sipped from his coffee, which had grown cold since the last time he had it filled.

"Very well, Sensory," he replied in a clipped voice. He had other concerns. The primary Orochi unit would keep for just a little longer, he was certain. Unit Three, on the other hand, was shifting its orbit slightly to remain in position over the starport area, and there were ominous indications from the control bunker on the surface that it had changed its targeting priorities.

"Mark bearing and range to Echo Two-Five," he ordered.

"Contact Echo Two-Five bears zero-zero-three minus zero-four," Sensory replied. "Range to target: two thousand meters."

The Orochi satellite loomed before them, a baleful white oval on the main display. The image was without magnification. Olivera wasn't sure he wanted a closer look at it just yet.

"How much closer, Tommy?" he asked his XO.

The man lifted his head from the Fire Control station. "We need to be within five hundred meters to even have a shot at this with a torpedo."

"Damn," Olivera cursed. "That's too close."

"Conn, Sensory; Contact Echo Three-Zero now bearing zero-four-nine, plus eight-nine. Range: one hundred-thousand kilometers."

Olivera's eyes swept over the holotank as the first of Prince Kuno's fleet entered the fray. They were going to take on the primary Orochi satellite, which given the circumstances, they were better suited for. He wouldn't mind if they destroyed the damned thing - so long as they were destroyed along with it.

He wasn't going to bet either way. Arrayed against Prince Kuno's battleship and other escorts was the primary Orochi satellite and four of its lesser units. No matter which side won, the survivors would be hurting. The Confederation was counting on that to escape, but what if their enemies succeeded in destroying each other?

It was a heady prospect, because Hauptmann wasn't the only one who wanted to see the Confederation profit from the Ryuugenzawa System. If the Grand Duke and his people on the surface were the last ones standing, then they would win the planet by default. Nabiki and her faction of spineless traitors couldn't hope to remain in power when His Grace returned in triumph to Nerima with the secrets of Ryuugenzawa in his possession, and if Kuno and his fleet were destroyed, there would be little to threaten their country as they rebuilt with the recovered technology.

"Conn, Sensory; Echo Two-Five has fired upon the planet! The starport appears to be the impact point!"

Sensory's announcement shocked him out of his speculation. "Has the _Palomino_ been hit?" he demanded.

"No, Captain," a commo tech replied. "They are continuing to transmit to Lady Akane."

"Then what was that thing shooting at?"

"Unknown at this time," Sensory declared.

He clenched his teeth. "Dammit... Tommy, we need to take a shot now, before that thing refines its aim."

"A torp shot doesn't have much of a chance, even at two klicks, skipper," the XO declared.

Olivera came to a decision, one that might cost them. "Chief of the Watch, raise the laser turrets. Fire Control, prepare to fire Guns One and Two."

An electric tension filled the Bridge with these orders. Everyone understood that the Captain intended to take on the Orochi point blank in a slugfest they couldn't possibly win. Knowing this, they still followed their orders.

"Chief of the Watch, aye."

"Fire Control, aye."

Olivera strapped himself to his chair. "Helm, stand by to execute full evasive maneuvers. Fire Control, prepare to fire at targets selected by Commander Thompson."

The XO let out a deep exhale. "Pretty ballsy of you, skipper."

Olivera set his coffee bottle in a mesh bag at his seat.

"I'm getting tired of all this sneakin' and peekin'. If we don't make it through this, the Duke will still have the _Coronet_ to get him home."

"Turrets One and Two are locked into position," the Chief of the Watch declared. "Stealth integrity compromised."

"Targets acquired. Fire Control standing by."

"Conn, Sensory; Contact Echo Two-Five has illuminated us with active search radar in T and X bands, gun-directing radar, and ultraviolet band lidar."

Olivera snapped his visor into place. "Let 'em have it, Fire Control."

The _Tautog_'s two Naval Laser turrets spat out thready streams of light at the Orochi satellite. The beams struck the oblate saucer-shaped battlestation at top and bottom center, blasting what they hoped was its weak spots.

"Sensory, what's going on over there?" Olivera asked.

"No effect, Captain," the Supervisor announced grimly. "All radar and commo systems seem to be online."

"Well then, keep shooting, for Christ's sake!"

The whine of the turrets firing above and below them echoed through the Bridge.

The Orochi reacted to the presence of the corvette's attack as if it could feel the damage. Sensor arrays under fire trained upon the hostile ship, and with them tracked the fearsome guns in its arsenal.

The _Tautog_ shook as a bolt of particle beam fire ripped along the port side hull.

"Helm, negative three-zero degrees pitch, All Ahead Flank!" Olivera ordered.

"'F' Deck portside reports heavy damage," the Damage Control Assistant declared over the roar of shearing metal. "Engineering reports damage to Number Two Main Engine induction dampers. Maximum drive output reduced to four gravities of acceleration."

"Very well, DCA," Olivera grunted. It was better than he had feared. They were still breathing.

The ship began to accelerate, building up to punishing amounts of artificial gravity as the Orochi continued to shoot at them. A second beam creased their dorsal hull, ripping a swath through their heavy stealth-lined superstructure.

"Fire Tubes One through Six!" Olivera ordered over the noise of the engines and the strain of four gees. With any luck, the Orochi would waste some of its firepower on the Barracudas, and spare his ship some grief.

The six Barracuda torpedoes launched with loud _thuds_ in rapid succession from the electromagnetic catapult tubes aft and below the Bridge. Olivera watched the weapons on the telescope monitor as they raced on full burn towards the orbital battlestation. To his amazement, all six weapons hit the thing broadside, exploding deep into armor and blackening an entire side of the hull.

The Helmsman commenced his one minute throttle-back on the engines to take some strain off the crew, and gave Olivera a chance to review the situation. "What's happening?" he asked Sensory.

"I think we got at least one of the nodes, Captain!" the Supervisor cried.

The Orochi continued to shoot at them, but now the beams were scattered and useless.

"We must have hit the ventral node hard enough to knock it out," the XO added. "The Orochi is firing its attitude thrusters to bring the dorsal node to bear on us so that it can track."

Olivera turned to his Astrogator as the Orochi maneuvered. Beams splayed across the void between them as guns on the dorsal side of the saucer came to bear. One ripped across their bow, vaporizing a section of stealth-lined superstructure in a cloud of plasma.

"Keep us out of that thing's entire dorsal hemisphere!" he shouted, knowing that to do so, they had to come even closer to the thing. "Fire Control, what is the status of reloading tubes one through six?"

"Tubes One, Three, and Five are ready in all respects. Tubes Two, Four, and Six are pending. Port Torpedo Room reports manual reloads will take four minutes at the soonest."

Olivera understood. "Fire Control, Vertical Salvo: Tubes One, Three, and Five. Fire Two, Four, and Six just as soon as they're ready," he ordered. "How about the Gun Turrets?"

The corvette bucked as a laser beam stitched across its dorsal armor belt, sending displays crashing to static for a moment with the shock.

"Gun Turret One is knocked out," Fire Control responded when the systems cam back online. "That last hit got it. Gun Turret Two is still online."

"Good enough. Helm, put on one-hundred eighty degrees left roll." As the corvette rolled, it would put its functional turret to bear on the Orochi.

"Helm, aye."

Olivera looked at his XO. "We might live through this yet."

Ian Cameron Starport

14:36 Local Time

From the twisted wreckage of the quonset hut that Happousai had destroyed came a flicker of movement. A few pieces of rubble fell away from a secton of half-melted trusswork to reveal a small black pig, soaked with the rain and smeared with mud from crawling through the remains of the building. Its tiny grunts of pain and exertion went unheard over the patter of the storm.

Ryouga had expected to die as the quonset hut collapsed on him, but as the building fell apart over his head, a splash of rainwater had turned him into his hated Jusenkyo body. That lucky accident had spared him as the rubble fell down, the surviving trusses piling up to form small pockets of safety that a man could never have used. It had taken all of his effort to free himself from his tomb of debris, but now as he tasted the clean air and felt the wind on his face, he let out a squeal of defiance at the man who had tried to kill him.

He could see the low hill of camouflage netting that marked the _Palomino_ in the distance. It was much too far for a pig to travel, and especially so when that pig had no direction sense. He turned in a circle to see if Happousai had left his BattleMaster intact, and rejoiced when he saw it kneeling on one knee close by.

He skittered across the wet, cracked tarmac towards his battlemech, where he would find a flask of hot water that would turn him back into a human. Then he would hunt Happousai down and kill the freak.

The BattleMaster waited for him as he scrambled up the rain-slicked arm to the torso, and from there, scrabbled into the cockpit. The 'mech was still online as he fumbled with his hooves to work the flask's flip-top lid open.

Hot water spilled from the flask over his head, affecting his transformation. As he donned his neurohelmet and strapped himself into his ejector seat, he realized that he was naked. His shorts and cooling vest were still trapped under the rubble.

With a blush, he realized that he would have to continue the battle in this condition. There wasn't time to rush back to the DropShip for a change of clothes, and he couldn't bear the thought of Akari accidentally seeing him in the buff.

As the BattleMaster stood upright, he surveyed the area, looking for the footprints Happousai's Locust might have left behind. It was possible that his nemesis had fled to the south. He resolved to find out, but first there were a few things he needed to take care of.

The BattleMaster stomped over to the ruins of the hut, then began pulling the debris off and casting it aside. The strongbox that held the Library Core had looked pretty solid, and there was a chance that in its armored pit it could have survived. Happousai must have thought so when he chose to bring down the building.

He would recover the strongbox so that no matter what happened later, Happousai would not get his hands on it. It belonged to Akane, and to the Confederation he had sworn to serve, not to a greedy, murderous little monster like Happousai. He would see to that.

He found it right in the center of the pile. With excessive care, he picked it up between two fingers and brought it up to the cockpit. He opened the armored canopy enough to stay out of the rain, and lifted the heavy box from his battlemech's grasp. Once the box was securely strapped into the rear seat, he sealed the canopy.

The Treasure of Ryuugenzawa was his now. All he had to do was deliver it to the _Palomino_. Then he could go hunt down Happousai.

The Ruins of Ryuugenzawa City

14:40 Local Time

"Come on out, Happousai," Pansuto Tarou's voice grated over the tac-net. "Stop running like the spineless old weakling you are, and face me."

Happousai ignored the man's pathetic attempt to draw him out. Such a tactic might have worked on a knucklehead like Ranma or Ryouga, but he was smarter than that.

His battlemech was crouched in the burned out shell of a school building, and he watched as more Black Rose 'mechs than he cared to see stomped past him out on the street. How Tarou had stumbled into Kodachi Kuno's camp and won her over, he did not know, but it seemed clear that Tarou had taken the secret of the Ryuugenzawa System's location with him when he parted ways with the _Dragonfly_. He had to admire the man's underhandedness, if nothing else.

His best bet was to wait out Tarou and let the battle progress. Kodachi would grow weary of the cat-and-mouse game soon, and wander off with her troops to go destroy something - like the _Palomino_ - and that would leave Tarou on his own. He knew he could take the chump, even in a damaged Locust.As for the _Palomino_, well, they should be finishing up the repairs about now. He didn't think they were in all that much danger.

Kodachi gave a bored sigh. "Really, lover, if he intended to fight you, he would have done it by now. Let's go find Akane Tendo. Perhaps that will be the impetus to draw him out."

Tarou snorted in reply. "The old goat could care less about Akane Tendo. It's his own skin he's worried about."

Kodachi's Black Marauder put up its derringer-like forearms in a shrug. "Then what do you propose to do?" Her voice was edged with a touch of irritation.

Tarou pointed to a cluster of buildings. "Smoke him out." He fired his arm-mounted medium lasers at one of the structures, pumping energy into it until the ruined husk collapsed in on itself. "He's hiding somewhere in this abandoned town. If we knock down every standing structure left, he'll have to come out."

Kodachi pursed her lips in thought. "Very well, my lover. I shall indulge you. I'll send one battalion on ahead, and order the rest of my troops to begin razing the city." She arched an eyebrow at him, and her perfect white teeth nibbled playfully upon the haft of her riding crop. "Of course, it shall cost you later this evening."

The DropShip _Palomino_

14:45 Local Time

Akane studied the steaming crater less than five hundred meters from the DropShip as she and her battered lance of battlemechs stomped out of the treeline. The shot had come from one of the Orochi satellites in low orbit, the one that had been pounding on the Musk Dynasty forces. She was glad the shot had fallen well short of the _Palomino_, and wondered when the next one would come.

A Warhammer and a Victor stood with weapons ready as they approached, and her heart began to swell with emotion. The two 'mechs had to be piloted by her father and eldest sister.

"Dad?" she called out over the tac-net. "Kasumi?"

The face of Grand Duke Tendo appeared on her tac-net. He was wearing a neurohelmet, the first time she had seen him in one for ten years. "I'm here, Daughter. Your sister Kasumi is also here with me."

She didn't know where she should begin, so Akane started with the questions closest to her heart.

"Dad, you don't know how happy I am to see you and Kasumi, but why did you come, and what is this about Nabiki taking over the Confederation?"

Soun cleared his throat to speak, for Nabiki's betrayal continued to sting. "To be brief, your sister Nabiki and some of the nobles relieved my of my authority," he replied, his voice thick with emotions he had suppressed ever since the coup. "Your sister and I were taken hostage, and were then rescued by loyalists. We've come here to return you to Nerima. Nabiki's reign as Regent is only temporary; as soon as you come home, she has to step down."

Akane's eyes began to glisten with angry tears. Nabiki had gone too far. The surrender summit was bad enough, but to overthrow her own family and lock them up as prisoners? She had to escape from Ryuugenzawa and put things right!

"As soon as the DropShip is ready, we'll lift off," she declared. Her battlemech came to a halt just outside the camouflage netting, where a handful of Akari's techs were waiting with ammunition to reload them. She popped her hatch and scrambled down the boarding ladder. Genma, Ukyou, and Doctor Tofu did the same, and were followed by Grand Duke Tendo and Kasumi.

They met in the middle of the 'mech formation. Akane threw her arms around her father and squeezed him tightly, hugging him in a way she hadn't since she was a child.

"I missed you, Dad," she cried softly. "It's been hard without you and Kasumi around."

"It was even harder for me," he replied. Kasumi was the quiet strength of the family, and Nabiki had been the wise voice of reason, but it was his youngest daughter who embodied the very spirit of the Tendos. He could see how much she had grown up in the last six months, and silently thanked Saotome for insisting that she accompany them on the expedition. Genma locked hands with him, as if sensing his thoughts.

"It's good to see you, Tendo," Genma said to him.

"You've done it, Saotome," he replied. "If it ever appeared that I doubted your ability to succeed, let me dispel those doubts now."

Ukyou Kuonji watched the reunion in silence. She should have felt a little miserable at the sight of it since she was an outsider and seemingly all alone, but instead she felt a sense of pride and satisfaction. Akane and the others had shown in the past several days that she was more than simply useful baggage to them. She had become part of their team. When Akane and Doctor Tofu had come looking for her, it was because they cared about her.

Yes, she was still hurting from losing Ranchan, but by her concern, Akane had made it clear that she was a friend in spite of their rivalry. Could she turn that aside out of petty jealousy? The answer was a very obvious no. Akane and the others counted on her, depended on her with their lives, and that was a relationship born out of trust and respect that could not be broken.

The Grand Duke and his family were part of that bond of trust that had formed, and so whatever the consequences of her birth, she now considered herself one of them, a member of the Nerima Confederation, all fighting the Combine and the Musk Dynasty together. She wasn't going to stand for the likes of Kodachi and Tatewaki Kuno tearing them apart, and there was no way in hell some lousy machine menace like the Orochi was going to, either.

Akane released her grip on her father, and presented Ukyou to him as she came to that decision.

"Dad, this is Ukyou Kuonji, a friend of Ranma's." It was a bit of diplomacy on Akane's part to describe the relationship between them in that way, but she understood and accepted the reasons for it. "She's been a tremendous help in getting us the location of Ryuugenzawa."

The Grand Duke offered his hand. "A pleasure," he replied. "Although I'm sorry that we had to meet under such difficult circumstances."

She took his hand, unsure of whether she should kiss his ring or just shake hands. She decided to shake, and he seemed satisfied with that. His forthright nature appealed to her, and she decided that serving the man as a mechwarrior was the right choice to make.

Doctor Tofu Ono wrung his hands anxiously as he stepped up to speak to Kasumi. She was an angel standing there in her cooling vest, clutching her neurohelmet under her arm. She was the reason he had become a mechwarrior in the 1st Nerima Guards while a career in medicine was calling to him, and when she had stepped aside to let Akane take over the regiment, he had lost his reason to fight.

He was so much in love with her that he could not think straight, and even now, as he opened his trembling lips to speak to her, he could not think of a single intelligent thing to say. He was lost in her eyes, the faint sound of her breathing, and in her smile, so warm that it could melt glaciers away. He had promised Akane that he would tell Kasumi how he felt about her, and now here he was, unable to speak.

"Why hello, Doctor Tofu!" Kasumi said to him. Her voice was sweeter to him in that moment than anything he had ever heard before.

"Uh, hel-hello, Kasumi. Whatever brings y-you here, to, er, ah, this p-place?"

He felt as foolish as he sounded, and Akane's eyes caught him as he looked away from Kasumi in shame. She gave him a silent nod of encouragement.

He looked back to Kasumi, who seemed to sense that something wasn't quite right with the situation, but seemed unsure of what it was.

"W-Would you mind if I, er, s-spoke with you alone for a moment, Kasumi?" he managed, his voice a little higher than he would have preferred.

Kasumi responded gamely. "Of course, Doctor." She led him over to her Victor, where she opened the conversation with a thankfully safe topic. "This certainly is a lovely planet," she remarked as the rain came down in light sprinkles around them. "It reminds a little of home."

Tofu decided to run with it, and somehow work in what he had to say. "Y-Yeah, I've been thinking that too. If you throw out the rain and add a few thousand people, it's almost like the place we went together for the Spring Festival."

Kasumi smiled. "Ah, I remember that. I had such a good time there with you."

Encouraged by this, he plunged on. Or at least he tried to. "Th-There's something I've been meaning to tell you, Kasumi... Something I meant to say before I left Nerima on the expedition."

She gave him a puzzled look.

"What is it, Doctor?" she asked him.

He started to say it, and his jaw seized up. He was a master of the martial arts, of acupressure and other biomanipulation techniques, and yet here he was, completely unable to control his own body.

Kasumi gave him a worried look. "Is there something wrong, Doctor Tofu? Are you injured?"

"- heart -" he managed to blurt out.

Her eyes lit up in alarm. "You have a heart condition?" she gasped.

"S-Sort of," he croaked, fighting to say the words instead of babbling out the gibberish his tongue wanted to spill.

"What's wrong?" she asked him, coming to his side and putting her hands on his shoulders. "Is there anything I can do?" She was about to cry for help when he answered her.

"My h-heart..." he said to her, his glasses fogged and his voice unsteady and weak.

"Yes, I know," she gasped. "You have a heart condition and..."

"Th-That's not it," he replied, his hands trembling as he set them on her waist. She stiffened with surprise at his touch. "Kasumi, I... I... My heart belongs t-to..." He grimaced as the words would not come. "What I feel for you is..."

"Doctor Tofu?" she cried in a whisper, her hands falling from his shoulders to touch the hands that rested upon her waist.

"I can't..." he said in defeat. "I just can't say it... I'm a fool for even trying."

"What are you trying to say, Doctor?" she asked, drawing even closer to him. "I don't understand what you're trying to tell me."

"I'm sorry, Kasumi," he said in hoarse whisper. "You deserve better than a fool like me." ...Who was I kidding, anyway...?

He let go of her and turned away. Akane couldn't see them from where she stood, and so he could pretend to her for a little longer that he had done what he had set out to do.

Kasumi, however, caught his hand in hers as he started to go.

"Doctor Tofu, whatever it is that you're trying to tell me, I'll listen," she said so quietly over the gentle patter of the rain that for a moment he only imagined that he heard her. "If it will take time for you to be able tell me, I'll wait." He turned back to see her glowing smile and felt his knees grow weak. "I'm very patient, you see."

His glasses fogged once again.

"Ka-Kasumi..." His voice came out cracked and strained.

She brought his hand up to her breast. "You're a kind and gentle man, Doctor Tofu, and even if you don't believe it right now, I think you're very brave and strong," she told him. "Between you and Ranma, I couldn't have trusted Akane's care to any better people."

He was speechless as she cupped his hand in hers.

"If you would like to take me to another festival on Nerima," she said to him with a gentle smile. "I would be happy to join you."

Near the ruins of Ryuugenzawa City

14:45 Local Time

Yuka caught the glitter of refracted laser light in the distance as she and Sayuri swept at treetop level over the forest to the southwest of the starport. The Black Rose fighters had grouped into two formations, one attacking the Musk Dynasty positions in fits and spurts, and the other keeping jealous watch over their own landing zones. Neither location made for a good place for two small Confederation fighters to go, and that made the selection of targets slim for them.

"Did you see that, Sayuri?" she called to her wingmate.

"It looks a little far south to be ours," Sayuri replied.

Yuka gained some altitude to get a better look. "I don't know..." she muttered. "With Ryouga getting lost, he could be just about anywhere by now."

"Do you want to take a look?"

"It couldn't hurt."

The two fighters accelerated, each pilot mindful of their low fuel reserves. They wouldn't have time for more than a few passes before they would have to consider returning to the DropShip to refuel.

They made a swift pass at low altitude. Through the gaps in the trees they saw a Black Rose Shadow Hawk fall to its knees with a huge smoking hole through its armored chest, and the flash of Ryouga's BattleMaster stalking off deeper into the woods.

"We found our lost boy," Sayuri remarked as they pulled up for a steep banking turn that would take them back towards Ryouga.

"Yeah, but where's he going?" Yuka asked.

Concentrated fire from a Rifleman engaged them before Sayuri could respond; green lines of autocannon tracers stitching across the sky to slam into her Sparrowhawk. The light fighter was thick-skinned, and so she weathered the barrage long enough to dive for the deck as Yuka put her nose to bear on the offending air-defense 'mech.

"Black Rose Rifleman," Yuka grunted.

"Yeah, I saw him," Sayuri returned curtly. "Thanks for the heads up."

Yuka triggered her Corsair's lasers at the Rifleman, and lit up the woods around the 'mech in clouds of steam and golden flashes of vaporized armor. The Rifleman's Garret radar and tracking array allowed the Black Rose pilot to aim on instruments, and returned fire with both heavy lasers.

She caught the beams full on in the fuselage as she made a break turn to evade, and shuddered as damage lights came on. Her previous dance with an 80-ton Slayer had left her armor weak in spots, and now she was hurting.

"I'm hit," she said tersely.

"How bad?" Sayuri wanted to know. She made a strafing run on the Rifleman just to keep it occupied, then punched her HEPLAR drive to maximum to avoid the counterattack.

"Bad." Yuka's tone was at once cool and grave.

Sayuri craned her neck around to see Yuka's Corsair limping away. The 50-ton fighter trailed a line of black smoke, which was an unusual and ominous sign for a fusion-driven craft.

"Can you make it back to the ship?" she asked.

"I don't know," Yuka replied. "I've got a fire that the suppression system can't get a handle on. If it reaches the fuel cells, I'll explode."

"Dump your fuel," Sayuri advised. "Coast back to the ship on reactor waste heat with your turbojets."

"That's a nice idea, except that my emergency dump valves are showing up as offline on the damage control board. I think the signal links between them and my control system are severed - or burnt."

Sayuri tried to think of what her friend could do, and saw two Black Rose fighters moving in from the west. They were probably returning from attacks on the Musk Dynasty forces on the other side of the starport, and had been vectored in by the Rifleman to hunt down enemy fighters. The course they took would put them on a direct intercept.

"We've got more problems," she said to Yuka. "Two Black Rose fighters at seven o'clock high."

"I don't think I can take them," Yuka returned.

"Then it's up to me," Sayuri returned. "Head for the _Palomino_, and if things get bad - eject."

Sayuri pulled her Sparrowhawk into a steep climb for altitude. It would help her enemies spot her, but she needed the room and the energy that altitude provided if she was going to fight them. She had already resigned herself to the fact that they had spotted them by their intercept course.

The two enemy fighters were Shilones, medium fighters with long slightly-swept wings that gave them the nickname of 'Boomerang.' She could only hope that they had depleted their Shigunga LRM launchers fighting the Musk Dynasty, as her small Sparrowhawk had no long range weapons of its own, just two medium and two light lasers that she would have to get well into dogfighting range to use.

One of the Shilones moved towards her, while the other dropped its nose and banked to intercept Yuka. Sayuri knew that she had to employ the only advantage the Sparrowhawk had over the larger fighters, and that was agility. Her pressure suit inflated against her stomach and thighs as she expended precious reaction mass to accelerate through the sound barrier while rolling and turning to bear on the fighter threatening her friend.

She let go with a stream of laser fire at extreme range, the rippling bursts of light crazing the enemy fighter and lighting it up in a blizzard of glowing, golden motes. The Black Rose Shilone snap-rolled to minimize its exposure, taking the pressure off of Yuka for another few seconds. The second Shilone wallowed through a steeply sinking turn that bled off airspeed and put it firmly on her tail.

Beams of laser fire from the enemy fighter behind her burned the air around her Sparrowhawk as she jinked for all she was worth. Her foe was a persistant one, matching her maneuver for maneuver with his larger craft, and she knew that she had to do something crazy if she was going to shake him.

The only problem with something crazy, she reflected as the beams crisscrossed around her cockpit canopy dome, was that she needed fuel to pull it off. The reaction mass cells were practically empty, and when they finally ran dry, she would lose her maximum rated thrust capabilities. Her rear-warning radar screamed in her headset as she calculated her reserves; the Shilone on her back had loosed a volley of long range missiles at her, and her time had run out.

"Sayuri! Missiles in your six!" Yuka cried over the tac-net.

Her mouth went dry as she squeezed the booster studs on her throttle and fired the HEPLAR drive. The Sparrowhawk leaped in protest as she pulled up into a steep climb, and continued accelerating as the fighter bled off its reaction mass into the plasma drive. As she peaked at the top of her short loop, Sayuri rolled out upright, then slalomed left and down into the path of the oncoming missiles for the beginning of her desperate Cuban-Eight maneuver.

The first part of her gambit paid off. The missiles, denied the chance to make direct contact with her after her violent aerobatic maneuver, exploded around the Sparrowhawk as their crude proximity fuzes detonated them. Shrapnel rang off her armor as she plummeted through the fiery clouds of dying weapons, the shock waves buffeting her and making her clench her controls with a deathgrip.

The roar of the Shilone passing overhead was the signal she needed to finish her Cuban-Eight, and she climbed once more. Her drives spluttered as the last grams of propellant were expended, and she was forced to surrender the energy she had gained in her dive to complete the climb. The Shilone had lost contact with her in the fireballs, and in presuming her dead, turned to continue the pursuit of Yuka's wounded Corsair.

Sayuri completed the final loop of the Cuban-Eight, and dove back down on the Shilone's tail. She was out of fuel, running only on her fusion heated turbojets now, and she knew that she had to end the fight quickly if she and Yuka were to survive. Her lasers charged up for a full volley at close range as the Shilone pilot realized his mistake and tried to evade.

She let him have all four lasers at once, the beams streaming into the enemy fighter's thruster ports in a cascading series of explosions that climaxed in a devastating fireball of molten metal and fusion plasma. Blinded by the intensity of the blast and nearly stunned by the shockwave, Sayuri began to juke away from the dying Shilone, and was thrown against her seat straps as the nose of her fighter struck something solid. Pain flooded through her body as alarm sirens wailed in her headset.

Whe the spots before her eyes cleared, she was in a tumbling free-fall, the Sparrowhawk's nose lasers crumpled and bent. What was infinitely worse than the damage done to the fighter was the long, jagged piece of the Shilone's wing that was impaled through her canopy, and in turn, through her chest. Blood was everywhere in the cockpit; splashed with abandon over her instruments, spattered across the canopy, and fouling the HUD projectors that gave her flight control data. Her mind in a detached state of horror that went beyond panic, she realized that she could not move her left arm, and that it was agony to breathe.

Outside the starred canopy, the sky rolled sickeningly, and was frequently succeeded by the verdant ground cover of the forest. She was falling to her death, unable to eject because doing so would rip her apart as long as she was impaled. The sound of Yuka's voice screaming her name over the crackling commo was distant in her ears, and her failing consciousness struggled drunkenly to comprehend why her friend of so many years sounded so heartsick.

Her head lolled against her ejector seat as she watched the blood swirl in free-fall around her. The buzzing in her ears grew louder, and she felt herself draining away into the parachute bag that made up her seat cushion. From out of the corner of her tear-streaked eye, she saw a light flashing on one of her panels, and heard the sharp hiss of her AutoMedic injecting drugs into her veins. It was futile effort, she managed to think over the swimming dizzyness that enveloped her. Once I crash, there won't be anything left to save.

There was a sickening crunch of metal, then silence.

Yuka looked on at her HUD in disbelief as the Black Rose Shilone that she had been desperately fighting off with her rear-mounted light lasers suddenly exploded into a billion glowing fragments. She knew that she hadn't hit it that hard. Her question was answered a moment later in a flash of silver and white, and the sonic boom of the Super Phoenix Hawk LAM's passing bucked her in her failing fighter.

It was already shedding velocity as it shot past behind her, the engines howling and twin cones of plasma in blue-on-blue shock diamonds raging against the leaden sky. She watched as it rolled wing over wing into Airmech Mode, then unfolded further into Battlemech Mode, its arms spreading wide as it flew at the falling Sparrowhawk. Ranma caught the crippled light fighter, tucking the damaged cockpit under the Phoenix Hawk's arm as the LAM slid the last twenty meters to the ground feet first, and with the turbojets flaring out full braking thrust.

Yuka brought her nose around in a careful turn, noting how sluggish and unresponsive the controls were becoming as gouts of mud and foilage spurted up from the ground where the LAM touched down. Trees snapped and fell, then a cloud of steam roiled up from the forest where the LAM came to rest. Farther south from Ranma's position, a thunderclap and the bright flash of a PPC blast indicated that Ryouga had found another target.

"Saotome?" she called out over the tac-net. An alarm tone sounded as she spoke, indicating that the fire had spread to her port side turbojet systems.

The was no answer for several moments, and she called to him again. The fire was spreading, and her engines began to make an low droning buzz as coolant systems were overwhlemed by the heat.

"Yeah...?" she replied finally.

Yuka reduced her altitude as she passed over the LAM. It was sprawled out in a ruin of fallen trees and covered in mud. The wrecked Sparrowhawk was still cradled in its arms. Her own fighter was failing, and it took most of her attention to stay on course.

"Is Sayuri...?"

"I don't know," Ranma returned. "I'm gonna go find out."

"I'll be there in a second," she told him. Her Corsair was done for, and her friend needed her. She put the fighter that had served her so well into level flight, quenched the fusion reactor, and pulled hard on the ejection lever.

The force of ejecting knocked the wind out of her, and she gasped against the cold wet air as her faithful fighter struggled on in level flight below her for a few hundred more meters before pitching over into a dive and crashing into the forest half a kilometer from where Ranma had touched down. Her parachute opened fully as the fighter hit, and she began a slow fall to the ground.

Ranma retracted the roof hatch of her Battlemech Mode cockpit and pulled herself through the opening. The mech's head was tilted forward against the muddy torso, and she used it to climb down to the battered hulk of the Sparrowhawk still clutched in its arms. Steam wafted up from the hull as the drizzle evaporated on the hot metal near the engines, and she found herself hoping that the fusion reactor had shut down safely. Dying of radiation sickness was not high on her list of ways to go.

The sight of the burned wing section projecting through the polycarbonate - and the blood streaks on the canopy - did not make her feel any more comfortable. Was Sayuri already dead? The sound of Yuka's fighter crashing in the distance made her start out of surprise as she fumbled with the canopy release controls. She looked up momentarily to see her one-time nemesis floating towards the ground, steering her parachute to put her down as close as possible to the Phoenix Hawk.

Releasing the canopy was going to be tricky with the wing section stuck through it, she realized as she turned her attention back to Sayuri. She could see the pilot slumped back in her ejector seat, and the horrible wound she had sustained, and did not know if she was just wasting her time by doing this. In the complicated process of catching the fighter in midair, she had been too preoccupied to notice what had happened to the girl.

The grunt of Yuka touching down close by was followed by the rustling of the parachute canopy collapsing. She turned to see the girl running towards the wreck with her parachute trailing by its harness behind her.

"Is she dead...?" Yuka asked her with panting gasps. "Please tell me she isn't."

Ranma looked back to the cockpit. "I can't tell," she replied dully. "But it doesn't look good."

She tried moving the canopy forward in its track to let the wing section pass through the hole it made, and managed to get it halfway open before damage to the track itself prevented her from moving it any farther. It was open just enough to reach inside and check for a pulse.

Yuka looked on as Ranma leaned into the cockpit. Sayuri's face was pale, and her pressure suit was sticky with blood. It had soaked through the cloth outer liner to form a large stain on her chest around the jagged piece of metal that Ranma could already see was a through and through injury just above her left breast. The wing section projected through her back well into the ejector seat itself.

She gently turned the pressure suit helmet the half-twist necessary to unseat it from the neck ring seal, and pulled it off to let Sayuri's sweat-matted light brown hair spill onto her shoulders. She discarded the helmet with a grunt, and slipped a hand down to her throat.

"I think I feel a pulse," she said to Yuka. "It's weak and slow."

"Check the eyes," Yuka returned hopefully, shrugging out of her parachute harness.

Ranma lifted one of Sayuri's eyelids. The pupil shrank mercifully in the sudden influx of light.

"She's unconscious," Ranma declared. A brief examination of the pressure suit's surviving instrumentation confirmed her suspicions. "It looks like her AutoMedic did its job."

Yuka pulled the transmitter remote from Ranma's belt. "Come in, _Palomino_," she called out. "This is Red Eagle Deuce. Request urgent medical support at map reference Mike-Four-Four by Oscar-Five-Eight."

"Copy that, Red Eagle Deuce," Petty Officer Howard replied over the remote. "Be advised of friendly units moving towards your position from the northwest."

Ranma took the remote from Yuka as the ground shook with the footfalls of approaching battlemechs.

"This is Red Eagle Lead; You said the northwest, right?" she asked Tad.

"Yes, ma'am... er, sir," Tad replied.

Ranma checked the sky for the hazy glow of Ryuugenzawa's sun to confirm her bearings. The sound of the approaching 'mechs was from the _southeast_.

"We've got company," she declared to Yuka. She clicked the microphone button on her remote. "_Palomino_, Red Eagle Lead; that medevac needs to bring cutting tools and lots of Type-B whole blood. Red Eagle Trey is in bad shape, and you need to hurry, over."

"Copy that, Red Eagle Lead," Tad replied. "Cutting tools and Type-B whole blood."

Ranma handed the remote to Yuka. "See if you can patch this through what's left of Sayuri's console. If those are Black Rose 'mechs out there heading our way, I gotta go draw them off."

Yuka took the radio remote from her, her eyes trembling with emotion. Without a word, she reached over and kissed Ranma fleetingly on the lips. Ranma drew back in surprise from Yuka's kiss, blushing furiously.

"Wh-What was that for?" she asked.

Yuka looked away, almost as embarrassed by what she had done as Ranma.

"I know that you wouldn't have done it for me," she began. "But I can't tell you in words how grateful I am for what you did for Sayuri. She's my best friend..." Her eyes closed. "And she would be dead right now if you hadn't done what you did."

Ranma wiped away the sudden sweat that misted her brow. "Y-You're welcome, I guess," she managed. She started for her Phoenix Hawk LAM, then turned back to face Yuka. "I'm not sure you'll believe me, Yuka, but I probably would have done the same for you."

Yuka offered her a dubious smile. "Probably?"

Ranma shrugged and gave her a crooked grin. "If I didn't give myself time to think about it, anyway," she conceded.

The moment was shattered as a Black Rose Cicada leaped through a gap in the trees fifty meters away. The medium 'mech successor to the Star League Locust continued on, oblivious to what was passing between the two rival pilots on the ground.

"Get going," Yuka told her.

Ranma was already jumping up to the top of the Phoenix Hawk's torso. She gave Yuka a brief wave before dropping through the hatch and locking the sensor head into position. The LAM came to life a moment later, carefully lifting the Sparrowhawk off its lap and settling it onto the churned ground.

Sayuri gasped in pain from the depths of unconsciousness at the shifting of the metal wing section that pierced her, and Yuka prayed that she wouldn't begin to bleed heavily from it. The Phoenix Hawk picked the fallen trees off its metal body, set them down away from the Sparrowhawk, then stood up into a crouch. The heavy pulse laser was trained warily in the direction the Cicada had come from as the vibrations of more battlemechs shook the ground.

Yuka watched with fascination as the mud covered battlemech crept closer to the sound of the approaching Black Rose forces. As a second Cicada sprang from the woods on the trail of the first, Ranma exploded out of her crouch, checking the 40 ton reconnaissance 'mech, and sending it sprawling into a stand of trees with a thunderous crash. The heavy pulselaser cracked like a cannon shot in the cold, humid air, the beam etching a fading afterimage on her vision as it put the Black Rose 'mech down for the count.

A flurry of tracer fire lit up the air as more Black Rose 'mechs opened fire on Ranma. Yuka watched as the LAM boosted on its leg jets, catapulting skyward as light autocannon shells spanged off its armor, then transformed to Airmech Mode to lead the enemy away from the crash site. The Black Rose troops took the bait, and the stomping sound began to recede into the east.

Yuka turned back to her friend, whose labored breathing and pale skin spoke of her proximity to death. She took Sayuri's hand in hers and gave it a squeeze to let her know that if she was going to die, she wasn't going to die alone.

The DropShip _Palomino_

Ian Cameron Starport

14:50 Local Time

"Red Leader, this is Eyes Front, respond please!"

Akane reached for her radio remote as the techs finished loading Genma's Orion. Doctor Tofu had opted to take out one of their reserve Centurions rather than reload his damaged 'mech, and now stood beside Kasumi's Victor, ready to go. He had apparently told the eldest Tendo daughter of his feelings for her, and judging by the way they stuck together next to the DropShip, she had received his declaration favorably. Akane felt pleased about that. As far as her feelings on the matter went, Doctor Tofu and Kasumi were good for each other.

"This is Red Leader, go ahead Eyes Front," she said absently.

"Ma'am, we've located Lieutenant Hibiki on our sat-scans," Davidge told her. "He's not answering any hails, however."

"What is his position?"

"South of the DropShip, approximately fifteen kilometers. He is approaching the ruins of the colony town." Davidge let out a gasp. "Wait, there's a break in the cloud cover. Scanning..." A curse quickly followed. "There's a whole battalion headed our way, ma'am, and Red Two is right in their path."

Akane looked to her father before responding. He gave her a solemn nod in return. "We're on our way."

They scrambled for their 'mechs, knowing that time was running against them. As if to punctuate that thought, a bolt of hell thundered down from orbit from the Orochi satellite. The particle beam bolt lashed at the fuelling complex that Akari and her techs had worked so hard to restore two days ago, and the reinforced concrete structure exploded in a brilliant fireball of burning hydrogen. The sound and shockwave of the orbital blast and following secondary explosion was numbing, driving everyone not protected by a battlemech or the DropShip's hull to the ground.

Akane picked herself up from the wet concrete and looked at the _Palomino_, now doubly vulnerable to attack with the Orochi network taking potshots from orbit.

"Report on the Orochi!" she cried to Davidge over the tac-net.

"Unit Three is engaging the _Tautog_," Davidge returned tersely. "That last shot was a stray bolt aimed at them, believe it or not."

Akane wan't sure she could. "That random shot came awful close to us," she said in reply. "Tad, what is the countdown status?"

Captain Grant came on line instead of Petty Officer Howard. "We're commencing an emergency reactor start up right now, ma'am. I can get us off the ground in fifteen minutes."

"I hope so, Captain," Akane said to him. She tucked her remote in her shorts as she climbed up the side of her Warhammer. Grand Duke Tendo was preparing to move out with Genma's Orion on point, followed by Kasumi, Ukyou, and Doctor Tofu in a wedge formation.

She quickly rejoined the rest of the 'mechs as they stomped across the tarmac to the south. Several lines of black smoke were visible against the gloom, and beyond, ragged streaks of sunlight filtered down. Ryouga was taking on an entire battalion of the Black Rose's troops by himself!

Why wasn't he answering hails? she asked herself. And where the hell is Ranma?

"Red Leader, _Palomino_; urgent medevac requested by Red Eagle Deuce at map reference Mike-Four-Four by Oscar-Five-Eight. Red Eagle Trey is down. Cutting tools and Type-B whole blood are especially needed."

Akane heard Doctor Tofu's voice break into the tac-net. "What is the nature of Sayuri's injuries?" he asked.

"I don't know, sir, but Captain Saotome specifically requested those things," Tad replied.

Tofu's face was grim.

"Red Leader, Red Five; request to answer medevac."

"Granted," she responded, her heart pounding. Ranma was with Yuka and Sayuri out there. "I'll come with you."

"Stay with the lance," Soun commanded over the net. "Saotome; you and Mechwarrior Kuonji remain on point. Doctor Ono; you and Kasumi respond to the medevac."

"Daaaad!" she protested.

"This is no time for your emotions to get the best of your good judgement," he returned. "We'll need your firepower on the line if we're to hold the Black Rose back in time to let the _Palomino_ lift off."

She saw his point. Still, she needed to have words with a certain jerk who had been ignoring her ever since the battle had been joined.

"Red Eagle Lead, this is Red Leader; respond."

There was a harsh crackle of static, followed by the sound of an irate and female Ranma cursing. Red locks of hair tumbled down her brow on the display as she maneuvered, and the grey sky above her cockpit canopy was streaked with piercing rays of sunlight that made her blue-grey eyes flash with intensity.

"I'm busy!" she barked. An explosion rumbled over the speakers, and whorls of black smoke swirled around her canopy.

Akane bit down on her lip to keep from shrieking at him in anger. "Where have you been?!"

"Around!" Ranma shot back. "Can this wait?!"

"I was worried about you, that's all!" Akane spat angrily. "Excuse me for caring about you!"

"I'm with Akane on this one, honey," Ukyou added, jumping into the conversation. "You've got us worrying sick about you."

"I'm okay," Ranma hissed back, her face contorted by acceleration forces that made the sky spin around her. Another explosion sounded over the tac-net. "At least for the moment. Things are getting a little hot right now."

Akane understood. She looked to the _Palomino_ to see that one of the _Dragonfly_'s cooks was already running down the ramp from the Mech Bay with four half-liter bags of precious blood taken from Sick Bay. A tech followed after with a saw-zaw and a pouch of spare abrasive wheels. Doctor Tofu relieved the two of their burdens, then clambered back up into his Centurion to respond.

"Red Five moving out," he said over the tac-net as the 50 ton 'mech started south.

Akane tried to move her throttle to maximum, only to find that it was already there. "We're on the way," she said to him, worry creeping into her voice. "Just hold on, Ranma."

"I'll do that," she grunted. The shriek of turbojets filled the dead air that followed her voice, then the rapid cycling of pulsed medium lasers. "Akane..."

"What is it, Ranma?"

"I'm a little on edge right now," she said in a clipped voice. "Sayuri's hurt real bad. I don't think she's gonna make it."

Tofu's Centurion was already as far ahead of them as was safe, his battlemech peeling away from the lance formation as he closed on the rendezvous site. Kasumi followed close behind, covering his dash from tree to tree with her heavy autocannon. They were doing everything they could to save Sayuri.

"Ryouga's south of me," Ranma added. "The whole freaking colony town - what's left of it anyway - is coming apart, from what I can see. I don't know what's going on, but it looks like Kodachi's trying to start a firestorm there."

"Is Ryouga in the town?" Ukyou asked worriedly.

"No, he's mixing it up just north of the ruins. The moron won't answer his radio."

"Sounds like some other blockhead I could name," Akane retorted.

"Oh, ha ha. It is to laugh," Ranma growled. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go find out what the hell is going on." Her face faded from their commo displays.

Akane checked the tactical display. Black Rose 'mechs were moving in force from the south. If they didn't do something to slow their advance, they would overrun the _Palomino_'s position before it could lift off.

"Please hold," Akari prayed as the main coolant header slowly pressurized. Two of her techs monitored the pressure meters in the Maneuvering Room while the DropShip's Engineer completed his preparations for liftoff in the spaces.

"Maneuvering, report status of lift off preps," Captain Grant ordered over the 2MC intercom circuit.

Akari picked up the intercom microphone to respond. "Header pressure rising to the green band," she told him over the muted scream of the cryogenic plant scroll-compressors. "Pre-injection coolant temperatures at one hundred fifty degrees Kelvin."

They were introducing the supercooled liquid to the system gradually to minimize thermal stresses, but this also limited the speed with which they could start the fusion plant. The magnetic bottle that contained the plasma required that its attendent electromagnets have sufficient cooling to allow superconductivity under full load.

"Keep me posted," Grant finished, and signed off.

Akari brushed aside a sweat-matted lock of hair and sighed. The ship was not ready to go anywhere, and yet they had no choice but to leave. She had felt the blasts of the Orochi from deep inside the reactor compartment, and the Musk Dynasty was approaching unchallenged from the west.

SLDFS _Coronet_

14:47 Local Time

"Attention on the Bridge!" Johann Hauptmann declared to the new crew of SLDFS _Coronet_. "This is Captain Hauptmann, and I have the Deck. Captain Ninomiya retains the Conn."

"Helm, aye!" the _Tang_'s former Helmsman replied. The rest of the stations acknowledged in turn.

"Chief of the Watch, aye! The ship is rigged for space and manned for Battlestations."

"Astrogation, aye! Main Computer online."

"Communications, aye! Contact with Eyes Front established. Datalinks online."

"Engineering, aye! The ship is on internal power. The Main Engines are ready to answer all bells!"

"Tactical, aye! Orbital simulation routines linked to Orochi System BattleNet."

"Sensory, aye! All active and passive arrays online."

"Fire Control, aye! Main Gun in Preheat Mode. All batteries indicate ready."

Hauptmann turned to Hinako. "Take us out, if you would please, Captain."

Hinako gave him a curt bow and turned to the Communicator.

"Signal the Drydock to open the forward and aft doors."

"Open forward and aft doors, aye, ma'am."

The drydock doors began to open slowly as the lone _Tang_ crewman remaining on the station commanded them to operate, and then made a beeline for the connector tube that linked the drydock to the cruiser. There was no need to conduct an extensive pumpdown, as the facility had been in vacuum for decades.

"Drydock doors coming open," Sensory announced. "Drydock doors are open."

"Petty Officer Cruz is aboard," Commo added.

"Main Airlock hatch indicates shut," the Chief of the Watch declared.

Hinako looked to the Chief of the watch next. "Chief of the Watch, cast off all lines. Retract the docking tube."

"Cast off all lines, retract the docking tube, aye." He flicked a bank of switches at his station. "All mooring lines released. Docking tube is retracting into the ship... Docking tube indicates stowed. Armored shutters indicate in position."

"Very well, Chief of the Watch," Hinako acknowledged. Now came the hard part. "Helm, All Ahead Easy."

The Helmsman turned around to seek clarification from Captain Hauptmann, who refused to interfere in Hinako's operation. He didn't like the idea of having co-captains on the ship, but that was what they had come down to. Hinako outranked him, being a full Captain while his rank was only that of Commander, but he had all of the combat experience that she lacked and the ship needed to succeed. Hence, she maneuvered the ship, while he fought it. He didn't want to think about what might happen if he needed to countermand one of her maneuvering orders.

"Ma'am?" the Helmsman finally asked Hinako.

Hinako waved her hands at her. "There's about five meters of clearance on either side of that door. This isn't going to be like pulling your dad's car out of the garage, and we have no tug support, so move us out nice and easy."

The Helmsman turned back to her panel and bumped the throttle control a tiny amount. If she could skip a corvette off the surface of a moon without destroying the ship, she could pilot a cruiser out of drydock. "Aye aye, ma'am. Maneuvering answers All Ahead Easy."

The ship trembled imperceptibly as the Main Engines fired for the first time in two-hundred years. A thin streamer of plasma spilled from the aft end of the drydock as the cruiser began to edge forward.

"Two meters per second forward way," the Helmsman announced. She focused on the narrow opening Hinako had described, knowing full well that a ship as big as the _Coronet_ would not be able to turn the way the tiny _Tang_ could.

They were going to cut it close. Hauptmann felt himself pulling to one side, as if trying to will the ship to follow him.

The Helmsman was already on it, her fingers caressing the attitude thruster controls with the pluck and skill of a concert harpist. _Coronet_ began to roll and yaw, then its bow broke the plane of the drydock doors. The widest part of the starship passed through an agonizingly slow minute later, and then they were clear. Sunlight from the Ryuugenzawa primary shone undiminished on the gleaming armored hull for the first time in two hundred years, the ten meter high Cameron Star of the SLDF glittering on _Coronet_'s bow in precious silver paint.

"The ship is free to navigate," Astrogation announced.

Now it was Hauptmann's turn. "Mark bearing and range to closest Orochi satellite. Use active sensors." They didn't have time to play around with the lengthy process of gathering data from passive arrays.

Sensor data filled the holotank as the ship collected information on all objects in orbit.

"Conn, Sensory; Contact Romeo One, bearing zero-three-five plus one-zero. Range: ten thousand kilometers. Contact Romeo Two, classified as Balao Class Corvette, bearing zero-three-eight plus zero eight. Range: ten thousand kilometers."

"Olivera's in trouble," Hauptmann observed with preternatural calm. He could see the tiny corvette fighting to stay out of the Orochi's weapon arcs, and slugging desperately at in in return. "Fire Control, designate Romeo One as primary target, and slave the Helm. Prepare to fire the Main Gun."

"Fire Control, aye."

"Helm, aye. Helm slaved to Fire Control."

Hauptmann cast a glance at Hinako, who was busy crossing her fingers. The spinal mount would soon get its first test. The _Coronet_ maneuvered in space to put its bow directly on Orochi Unit Three in preparation to unleash a few quadrillion joules of hell.

"Conn, Fire Control; Main Gun aligned with primary target. Ten seconds to firing sequence completion."

"Alert Engineering," Hinako ordered her Engineer, the _Dragonfly_'s Lieutenant Fulton. There was no telling what would happen down there when the spinal mount fired.

"Very well, Fire Control," Hauptmann replied. He wished his own XO was on board to share this moment with him, but the man had family, and had been selected by Commodore Tanaka to stay behind with the remainder of the _Tang_ crew that had not accompanied the Grand Duke.

"Contact Romeo One is reacting to our presence," Tactical warned. With the codes and frequencies supplied by Hinako's Number One down in the Orochi bunker, they had an inside look into the processes that guided the network.

"Fire Control, match bearing rates and fire the Main Gun as soon as you are ready," Hauptmann ordered.

"Fire Control, aye. Firing the Main Gun!" A strident alarm hooted three times in warning, and Hauptmann and the rest of the crew found themselves wondering what in the hell they had just gotten into.

The lights flickered for a moment, and the ship trembled as a terrifying beam of energy belched forth from the cavernous muzzle in the cruiser's bow. The particle beam reached out across the void to strike the Orochi satellite amidships, haloing it in a golden ring of plasma that expanded out for a hundred kilometers before fading. Secondary explosions rocked the orbital battlestation, and it began to glow with the heat of something coming apart disasterously within.

"Neutrino emissions from Contact Romeo One becoming erratic," Sensory advised. "It's leaking x-rays like a sieve."

The Orochi satellite obliterated itself in a spectacular thermonuclear explosion a moment later. The blindingly bright blue-white sphere of plasma expanded into nothingness as instruments onboard the _Coronet_ squawked in protest.

"Goddamn..." Hauptmann breathed. "Was that a lucky hit, or is this gun that damn powerful?"

"A little of both, I think," Hinako replied.

The lights failed as soon as she had spoken, and alarms began to wail.

"Conn, Engineering; The Main Reactor has quenched on a containment field instability fault. The backup Nuclear-Heated Gas Turbine Reactor is commencing an automatic startup, but we will be without the Main Engines or primary power for at least ten minutes."

"Conn, aye," Hauptmann replied. "Shit!"

"The gun," Hinako added. "A magnetic accelerator as powerful as that must wreak havoc on a reactor's containment fields."

Hauptmann nodded grimly in agreement.

"Well I understand now why the Star League never went for humungous spinal mounts."

Furinkan Combine WarShip _Imperator_

Ryuugenzawa High Orbit

14:50 Local Time

General Prince Tatewaki Kuno was beside himself.

"What manner of vessel is that!?" he wondered aloud to his staff as the Orochi satellite's deathlight faded on the telescope monitors.

Kyle was the first to respond. "Milord, the ship appeared from the SLDF space station in geosynchronous orbit. From our preliminary Warbook interpretations, the vessel appears to be the SLDFS _Coronet_, a light cruiser class WarShip."

"THE _Coronet_?" Tatewaki cried in astonishment. "Kerensky's own flagship?"

"Yes, milord. We believe it used its Spinal Mount particle beam to destroy the Orochi satellite that had been bombarding the planet. Based on their neutrino emissions, they currently seem to be suffering some sort of reactor malfunction - perhaps a side effect of firing their main gun. We know that such super weapons were historically plagued with reliability issues."

"This vessel," Tatewaki said slowly. "To whom doth it swear allegience? Be it my hated sister's churlish rabble, or could it perchance be to our mutual enemies, the thrice-damned Amazons of the Commonwealth?"

Kyle consulted the data that scrolled across his Operations displays.

"Indeterminate, my lord Prince," he replied. "While the ship did attack the Orochi satellite which was bombarding the Commonwealth landing zones, the communications protocols we've intercepted appear to be based on ancient Star League Defense Force codes."

Tatewaki looked to Hikaru Gosunkugi, who floated pensively by his side. The Heir to the League of Five Nails was carrying an armload of occult paraphenalia, ostensibly to ensure both the success of the Combine's mission, and to break whatever foul hold Ranma Saotome had on Akane Tendo and the Pig-Tailed Girl.

"Soothsayer," he addressed the frail scion of the House of Gosunkugi. It pleased him to think that he had such an important man for a personal servant. "Speak of the omens and portents surrounding yonder vessel? Should the Blue Thunder attempt to capture the ship, shall he make it his own?"

Hikaru consulted the best augury he had on the matter, a small black sphere that had served him well in the past.

"'Signs point to yes,'" he intoned gravely.

Tatewaki's eyes lit up in delight. "Captain Kyle, dispatch a company of Marines with fighter escort to seize yonder starship. It shall become the Prize of Tatewaki Kuno, First Lord of the Star League, and he shall rename it _Bin Sen_!"

"At once, my lord Prince," Kyle responded, then after a diplomatic pause added, "What of the Orochi satellites approaching our positions, my lord?"

Tatewaki made a dismissive wave of his hand. "Dispose of them." He narrowed his eyes at the prospect. "Thy orders are to shake the very heavens, Kyle. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly, sir. We're running simulations now, and the results look promising."

Tatewaki looked on as his ships assembled into formation to attack the first of the Orochi subunits. He had assembled the entire complement of the Furinkan Combine's WarShips in a bold gambit to ensure success in taking Ryuugenzawa for himself, and now had no regrets with his decision.

Shake the very heavens indeed!

"Prepare my landing force," he told Kyle. "The destruction of the Orochi network is an operation for the Fleet. The destiny of the Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine awaits him upon the surface of the planet."

"It is done, my lord prince," Kyle replied. "Though I must recommend caution in approaching the planet within range of the Orochi units."

Tatewaki whirled upon him, incensed. "Thy job, Kyle, is to ensure that those cursed automatons are occupied solely with this fleet, ere their total destruction!"

Kyle bowed his head, abashed. "Yes, lord."

Hikaru turned away from the two men and tried not to snicker. The Mystic Eight-Ball in his hand reflected the true prophecy, the one he had not given to his oppressor. Glowing faintly in the dark blue fluid, the oracle's response was an answer Tatewaki would not find so inspiring.

'MY ANSWER IS NOT ONLY NO, BUT HELL NO,

SO DON'T BOTHER ASKING ME AGAIN LATER.'

His oracular inquiries had made it very clear that he was going to be very close to Akane Tendo soon, and he had no intention of having the situation come to pass as Tatewaki Kuno's servant. The more trouble the Furinkan Combine prince encountered, the better it suited Hikaru Gosunkugi. Now all he needed to do was find a way to the planet, where he was sure to find Akane.

"My lord," he called to Tatewaki, his voice quavering with a mixture of fear and anxiety. He hated his oppresser, and yet he had great need of his favor.

"Speak," Tatewaki ordered him.

Hikaru prostrated himself before the Prince of the Furinkan Combine, no easy feat in free-fall. "I beg to accompany you to the surface, my lord."

Tatewaki gave him an indulgent nod. "Of course. I shall have need of thy services. Prepare thyself at once."

Hikaru raised the armload of scholarly and occult materials, most them prepared to inflict the maximum amount of harm upon his captor, but there was no way for a neophyte like Tatewaki Kuno to realize this. "I have all I need, my lord." He tried not to smirk as he said it.

Revenge!

Musk Dynasty Regimental Headquarters Company,

Approaching the western perimeter of Ian Cameron Starport

14:55 Local Time

Mechwarrior General Herb strode purposefully over the low chain-link fence that segregated the starport from the surrounding woods. His Grand Dragon mirrored his mood in its motions; it was cool, alert, and full of importance. He was taking the entire Star League complex under his control, and as soon as Prince Kuno and the Orochi network wiped each other out, he would be master of this world.

How soon he would be able to parley his victory into more substantial terms, he did not know, nor did he particularly care. It was enough that the Orochi satellite that had been bombarding his positions had been distracted by a small spacecraft, presumably of Combine origin, and that he now had a free hand in his operations. Cologne was teetering on the brink of her rule's end, and in the mad scrabble by the Elder Council to fill the inevitable power vacuum, his Musk Dynasty would quietly grow strong enough to topple them all.

There was one issue that he needed to address right away, and that was Mousse's inexplicable desire to abandon his regimental command duties in order to search the wilderness in the northern portion of the Proving Grounds. It was unlike him, since he was the type of creature who followed orders to the letter, knowing how tenuous his claim to mechwarrior status was with his poor eyesight. In fact, Mousse had only ever disobeyed him once before.

The realization stopped him cold, and the other 'mechs in his personal guard spun around to face him, expecting trouble.

"Shampoo..." he whispered. Somehow, he has discovered that Shampoo is here on this planet. Or at least has reason to believe it...

Could it be possible? he wondered. Of course it was possible, another part of his mind answered for him. The only question that remains is Mousse's motivation.

Was the fool overcome by her again? He did not know, but he suspected it. Shampoo was a most alluring, magnificent, and dangerous animal, as he well knew. He had risked Cologne's wrath quite needlessly by trying to keep her posted to his garrison on Lightoller, and all because of the desire she had stoked within him. A weak-willed man like Mousse was simply putty in her supple hands.

"Captain Mint," he said over the tac net.

"My lord!" Mint replied.

"Take Lime with you, and find Mechwarrior Colonel Mousse," he ordered the little man, whose eyes lit up at the veiled implications behind that order. Herb did not disappoint him. "If by chance you should find him with Shampoo, arrest him at once. If he resists, kill him."

Mint raised an eyebrow at the mention of Shampoo.

"And if I should in fact find the lord colonel with Shampoo, most exhalted one, what shall I do with her?"

Herb hardened his heart. He wanted to possess her body and soul, he wanted it deep within his being, both for the pleasure of it and for the agony it would bring to Cologne, but he knew how dangerous Shampoo could be to his ambitions. She had destroyed Mousse with her beauty, had turned him against his oath of loyalty to the Commonwealth, and if she had turned him against his new master in the Musk Dynasty, then she had destroyed him twice over. He did not need such a poisonous influence close to him, no matter how much he desired her.

"You are to kill Shampoo on sight," Herb replied, then added, "Do not hesitate in your duty, Mint."

Mint's teeth gleamed over the tac net display.

"I shall obey, my lord General!"

The Ruins of Ryuugenzawa City

15:01 Local Time

Happousai waited inside his Locust as the ruins burned. Tarou was destroying what was left of the town, and with it his source of concealment. In spite of this, he snickered to himself as he sucked on his pipe. In trying to smoke him out, Tarou was playing right into his hands.

The fire and smoke would screen him from prying sensors, allowing him to slip out with being detected. Once he reached the edge of the town, the superior speed of his Locust would see him swiftly past his enemies. It was almost too easy.

He extinguished his pipe with a swat from his hand upon the bowl and shrugged back into his seat straps. A Black Rose Wolverine roared past him without pause, and he waited to see if any others would follow. When no other 'mechs did, he advanced cautiously out of the burning hulk of the school building.

The street was completely engulfed with flame, making his heat sinks ineffective. He would have to go easy with his laser should he need to use it. Fortunately for him, that meant Kodachi's troops would be likewise impaired.

He made his way through the tortured ruins of the former colony town carefully, mindful not to stumble into any Black Rose 'mechs that might be searching for him. The fires were fully involved now. When they were finally extinguished, there would be absolutely nothing left but char marks and ashes.

At last, he reached the smoldering outskirts of the town. He throttled up his Locust and made a break for it, stomping for all he was worth to reach the line of trees that marked the southern edge of the woods cordoning the starport.

"It's about time, Happousai," Pansuto Tarou's voice echoed over the tac-net. "I was ready to go in after you."

A depleted uranium long-rod penetrator howled over the top of the Locust as Happousai spied his nemesis waiting for him in those very same sheltering woods. Kodachi's black Marauder was by her lover's side, and she laughed shrilly at the sight of him.

"You think you're so smart," Happousai barked, putting his Locust into an abrupt turn as more Black Rose 'mechs opened up on him. It was harassing fire, meant to turn him back towards Tarou, but he had no illusions about them sparing his life if he pressed them.

_So be it_, he decided. _Time to teach the little punk a lesson in respect_.

The Locust hopped away from the sizzling beams of laser fire and turned back toward Tarou's Hunchback.

"Think you've got enough friends to back you up?" he taunted his enemy.

"They're only here to keep you from running away, Happousai," Tarou growled back. "Now it's time for you to pay for what you did to me on Lightoller, and then Capra after that."

"Capra?" Happousai asked shrilly.

The Hunchback stepped out of the woods. "Don't play games, old fool," Tarou said icily. "Do you really think that I wouldn't guess who had sold us out to the Commonwealth? You were their agent, Happousai, and you knew we were on Capra."

Happousai remembered his offer to give up the two to Cologne.

"So what?" he shot back. "Nothing came of it." He brought his Locust to a halt at a distance of a hundred meters to face Tarou.

"No thanks to you," Tarou intoned.

"You already took your best shot at me, punk," Happousai returned. "I fondly recall the feel of your knife in my back. I'd say that makes us even."

"Hardly."

The Hunchback fired its Tomodzuru autocannon, but Happousai, mindful that the 'mech had an automated bracing routine for its myomer bundles to contain the weapon's massive recoil, was watching for the sight of it tensing up. The ultradense projectile slammed into the ground well behind him as he hopped clear.

"I don't see why we're fighting," he observed as Tarou's arm-mounted lasers sliced the air around his Locust to no effect. "I'm willing to make you a deal."

"You have nothing to offer me!" Tarou cried, advancing his Hunchback menacingly. "Nothing at all but your death!"

"You knucklehead!" Happousai shot back, swiping at him his turreted medium laser. "I have the most valuable treasure on this entire stinking mud ball in my possession! Do you think I just sat here for a week and a half waiting for you to show up?!"

He judged by the momentary pause in the Hunchback's motion that he had struck a chord with Tarou, and eased his thumb off the firing stud for his remaining twin-rack SRM launcher.

"How about it?" he asked, making a wary circle of the fifty ton battlemech, which stood silently in the clearing between the burning town and the woods.

"Depending on what it is," Tarou began slowly. "I might consider it worth the price of letting you live a little longer."

The Locust stopped behind the Hunchback, its turreted laser pointed between the 'mech's shoulders. Kodachi levelled her Marauder's twin derringer weapon pods at him from the woods, ready to annihilate him should he prove untrustworthy once again. The laser slowly lowered in its mount to the ground, and she relaxed.

"At last you're being reasonable," Happousai purred.

"Start talking," Tarou replied, pivoting to face the Locust once again.

"Can you trust him, lover?" Kodachi asked in the pregnant pause that followed.

"No," he replied. "But he knows when a situation is untenable. Happousai is the Inner Sphere's premier survivor - no matter how many bodies he has to step on to do it."

"I'm flattered," Happousai said sourly.

"You have seconds in which to live," Tarou growled back. The autocannon trained squarely on the Locust. "Spend them wisely."

Happousai tsk'ed. "It so happens that I've come across an intact Library Core," he said diffidently. "For safe passage off this mudball and an end to this ridiculous vendetta of yours, I'm willing to cut you in on half the profits I'll get in peddling out the data to the highest bidders."

"Comstar would kill to keep that kind of information to themselves," Tarou muttered. "I'm not certain that I want that kind of attention, old fool."

"I'll make you and the lovely Princess Kodachi my silent partners," Happousai said greasily. "Comstar doesn't have to know a thing about you."

"It _is_ a tempting offer," Kodachi put in, thinking about how such extravagant wealth would go a long way towards replacing the day's mounting losses, to say nothing of buying enough favor with the Daimyo to make her immune to her brother's wrath and allow her return to the Furinkan Combine.

"As you said, time's running out," Happousai added. "What's it gonna be, Tarou? Shall we let bygones be bygones and enter into a fresh start between us, or would you rather risk the chance of dying for nothing?"

Tarou snorted contemptuously at the notion of perishing at Happousai's hands.

"Convince me that you have this thing," he said coldly. "And I'd be willing to overlook your past transgressions. Pop your hatch and show it to me right now."

"I don't have it on me!" Happousai replied. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

"Do you take for some kind of fool!?" Tarou countered. The Hunchback began to tense up.

"Mellow out, already!" Happousai shrieked. "I hid it somewhere safe."

"Where?!" Tarou demanded.

"Back at the starport. Once you secure the place, I'll show you, but you'd better hurry, because the Musk Dynasty aims to be in charge of all of Ryuugenzawa's real estate by nightfall."

"That's what I've been saying all along, dear," Kodachi said to Tarou. "Shall we consider this a truce for now?"

Tarou made a low growl in his throat. It was clear that he wanted to kill Happousai now, while he was bracketed in his sights, but the promise of exactly the thing he had come to Ryuugenzawa for was too alluring, even from a liar and a thief.

"You will march in file directly ahead of me at a distance of fifty meters," Tarou said to his mortal enemy. "If you deviate from this or exceed sixty kilometers per hour at any time, even if we are attacked, I will blow you away without a second thought."

Happousai knew that Tarou could do it. One hit from the Tomodzuru autocannon into the center mass of his Locust would completely destroy the battlemech, and himself with it. Still, he liked the opportunity he had been given, not only to live a little longer, but to learn more of the relationship between Tarou and his new lover.

Kodachi was the unknown variable in their shaky alliance. From what he knew of her, she was capricious with her partners, throwing them away at the first hint of a cooling relationship. It would be to his advantage to find out ways to gain her favor, and thus leverage over Tarou.

The problem being with that was that the Combine princess seemed truly smitten with Pansuto Tarou. While Happousai considered himself devilishly handsome, seducing Kodachi might not be as easy or as useful as he might hope. He shrugged, knowing that a one-night stand with her would be reward enough.

"You've got a deal," he replied. "Let's get cracking." A pang of what well-adjusted people might consider a conscience wracked him for a moment, because the _Palomino_ had not yet lifted off. In leading them back to the starport, a confrontation was inevitable, and his two leading lights in the Anything Goes school, Ranma - and now Akane, since Ryouga was dead - would be in the thick of it.

_Why doesn't the damn DropShip take off already?_ he lamented. Having them gone would make things much easier for everyone involved, and quiet that uncomfortable nagging in the back of his mind.

"There isn't going to be any deal," a haggard voice snarled over the Combine tac-net channel.

Happousai, Tarou, and Kodachi turned to see a BattleMaster standing at the edge of the woods, a crushed recon lance Stinger dangling limply by the neck in its massive left fist. The Cameron Star of the Star League Defense Force was painted upon its charred and muddy hull, and the double-barreled PPC in its right hand glinted with wordless malice as a ray of sunlight broke through the cloud bank to illuminate the dreaded assault 'mech.

Steam and wisps of smoke swirled from the Black Rose battlemech as Ryouga tossed it to the ground before him with a heavy thud.

"Who do you think you are?!" Kodachi demanded of him.

"...Ryouga..." Tarou grunted to himself.

Happousai was stunned. The lost boy was alive!? It wasn't possible! Not even someone as thick-headed as Ryouga could have survived a collapsing building!

"Ryouga! How did you...?"

"There isn't going to be any deal," Ryouga intoned once more, the BattleMaster shaking with rage that translated from his mind to the machine it controlled. "Because _I_ have the Library Core now... If you kill me, you destroy it."

"Ryouga," Tarou said calmly, surprised and dismayed to see his former comrade. He had expected to in the course of the fighting, but even expecting it had not prepared him for this encounter. "I'm warning you right now not to do anything rash... Now what exactly do you want?"

Ryouga Hibiki; naked, battered, physically exhausted, filled with hatred and a heartsick rage that could not be extinguished, and weary to the core of his soul with the fighting he had endured, slowly closed his finger around the commo 'talk' button on his control stick. The motion of his taut muscles made an audible crackling sound over the radio channel before he drew breath to speak, and an ominous and expectant tension filled the air. Heavy drops of sweat splashed off his brow and down his chin to dribble down his bare chest and then puddle in between his naked thighs, chafing him and making him grit his teeth in discomfort. The BattleMaster's turbogenerators made a deep basso rumble in the base of his spine, serenading him with their dark oaths to invoke fiery death at his command.

He had not expected to meet Pansuto Tarou on Ryuugenzawa - not in a million years. That he was in the obvious company of Kodachi Kuno, the Black Rose of the Furinkan Combine, only meant that he had betrayed the expedition at the very first opportunity. He was sick of the backstabbing, sick of the betrayals and the lies, and most of all, he was sick of the suffering his friends had been put through. He had heard Yuka's plea for assistance, and knew that Sayuri was probably dying somewhere in the woods. He knew that if Tarou and Kodachi were allowed to continue - with Happousai leading them - the _Palomino_ would be destroyed, and the woman he loved with all his heart would die too. Ranma and Akane as well, and Ukyou, Doctor Tofu... They would all fight to the last breath. All his friends would die.

"I'm here to kill you, Tarou," he said quietly into the microphone. The fearsome BattleMaster raised its PPC as he took in the sight of the many Black Rose 'mechs that watched him with dread. A low and urgent tone sounded in his ears as the six-rack SRM launcher acquired its first target. The hot smell of his cockpit filled his nostrils with its acrid fragrance. "I'm here to kill every last one of you..."

The Ruins of Ryuugenzawa City

15:10 Local Time

The thunderclap report of a Particle Projection Cannon filled the cool damp air as Ryouga opened fire. The bolt of lightning slammed into Happousai's Locust even as the flight of six short range missiles burst from his launcher and into Tarou's Hunchback. Both 'mechs reeled from the hits, with Happousai's Locust bursting into flames and tumbling to the muddy ground as motes of fire coruscated from its spindly, flailing legs. Happousai's yelp of surprise and alarm was cut short in a squawk of static. The Hunchback caught most of the volley square in the turret-shaped head, blasting away the armor in orange clouds of flame.

Kodachi shrieked at Ryouga as he charged at her, the four laser projectors in the BattleMaster's torso flaying the armor of her black Marauder in white hot streams of yellow-green light. She answered his salvo with a double PPC blast of her own, the thunderbolts crisscrossing with the laser beams in a cat's cradle of annihilation that made the air shiver and tremble between the two battlemechs.

Ryouga felt the bolts cutting into his torso armor through his neurohelmet link with the battlemech. The armor was thick, as thick as any 'mech short of an Atlas, and he knew it would hold up against the continued onslaught of Kodachi's Marauder - at least long enough for him to rip her apart limb from limb. The BattleMaster dropped its shoulder for a collision with her as she realized too late that he wasn't going to stop.

The impact sent her Marauder staggering backwards, the derringer forearm weapon pods turning mad circles in the air as the Black Rose fought to control her machine. She toppled over onto the ground, knocking down several tall trees as she fell. Ryouga pivoted the eighty-five ton BattleMaster smartly as the rest of her troops shook off the mesmerizing carnage he had inflicted in just a few seconds, and began to bear down on him. Their beams and bolts buzzed chaotically around him as he took careful aim with his own weapons, consumed with a cold fury that meant the deaths of anyone foolish enough to stand their ground against him.

He was firing every weapon in lethal salvos at his enemies, expertly maneuvering his monstrous battlemech with the determination to bring his next target to bear and then destroy it. Black Rose 'mechs staggered and fell under his onslaught, and a haze fell over the wooded battlefield from the tremendous heat released from the weapons and pouring from his heat sinks. The Black Rose forces, mostly Federated Shiratori mercenaries recruited to Kodachi's banner with the promise of easy wealth and fame, began to break and run under the barrage of the lone BattleMaster and its homicidal pilot.

Ryouga pursued them, his mind lost in the moment, wanting only to annihilate his enemies before they could hurt anyone else today. Only one 'mech stood its ground, a Black Rose Grasshopper whose laser arrays were steaming with heat from wild, panicked fire.

The BattleMaster's metalshod fist crushed the weakened torso armor of the Grasshopper as it tried to cover the retreat of its fellows. The arm sank into the enemy 'mech up to the elbow as Ryouga felt his battlemech's hand grasp the fiery fusion heart of the seventy ton Grasshopper, and with a savage snarl that carried over his external speakers to the entire forest clearing, he ripped the reactor from its mounts in a spray of liquid nitrogen coolant and plasma flame. The reactor fused itself into a lifeless grey lump of steaming metal in the BattleMaster's hand as Ryouga held it up for the fleeing Black Rose 'mechs to see.

He turned slowly to face Tarou, who had righted his battlemech next to the burning hulk of Happousai's Locust. Ryouga grinned ferally at the handiwork of his PPC. The last time he had shot Happousai with it, on Capra, the bolt had just missed hitting the center of mass and all of the battlemechs' vital internals. This time, his aim had been true, and the Locust was all but obliterated.

Tarou was in better shape, but only just. The Hunchback's head had been blasted wide open by his missiles, and he could see his former friend and companion through the blackened rents and streamers of smoke. The rest of the 'mech was hardly touched, however, and the Tomodzuru autocannon was aimed right at him.

"Damn you," Tarou said to him, his voice wracked with pain, and taut and drawn with smoke inhalation.

"Is that all that you have to say to me, Tarou!?" Ryouga returned. "'Damn you?'"

"We could have worked something out," Tarou replied with a cough, the Hunchback moving slowly to circle the BattleMaster. Ryouga rotated to follow the 'mech, not trusting his one-time friend for a moment. "Happousai was my enemy too, or have you forgotten that?"

"You were ready to cut a deal with him!" Ryouga shot back.

Tarou laughed bitterly. "Do you think for one moment that I would have honored a deal with that inhuman piece of shit?"

"I guess you're right," Ryouga said evenly. "But then, you didn't keep your promise to Akane either."

The Hunchback tensed for a moment - a mental flinch translated through Tarou's neurohelmet to his battlemech. Ryouga noted the reaction with a scornful grunt.

"That's right," Tarou admitted at length. "I've always looked out for Number One, Ryouga. I've never hidden that fact about me from you."

"There was time when you were my friend, Tarou," Ryouga returned, his voice losing some of its scorn for a softer, regretful tone. "We may not have seen eye to eye on things, but we always looked out for each other on the battlefield. Were you looking out for 'Number One' then, too?"

Tarou was silent for a moment before responding. "What do you think, Ryouga?"

The BattleMaster, its hull blackened and trailing wisps of smoke from its savaged armor plating, wavered for a moment.

"I want to believe that there was a time when you actually cared about someone other than yourself and your petty revenge," Ryouga replied.

"Don't talk to me about petty revenge!" Tarou snorted. "You were ready to tear Saotome's head off over a stupid bread feud when we ran into him on Capra! How long did you nurse that grudge, Ryouga? Seven years?"

"I got over it!" Ryouga snarled back, his fingers tensing on the weapon release triggers the way he knew Tarou's must have been. "I've made my peace with Ranma, and worked to make the Expedition a success! You sold us out the first chance you got! You broke your promise to Akane, and by bringing the Black Rose to Ryuugenzawa, you've hurt and threatened people I care about!"

He almost expected Tarou to fire in that moment, and with his weapons aimed at the Hunchback's head, the exchange would have been instantly fatal to both of them. Instead, the Hunchback lowered its arms and stood silent before him.

"It doesn't have to end like this, Ryouga," Tarou said quietly.

"If you and Kodachi leave this planet, it won't," he returned.

"We can still make a deal," Tarou pressed. "You need us to fight off the Commonwealth. If we join forces, we can still escape the system with the Library Core. Think about it, Ryouga."

Ryouga wanted to squeeze the triggers, but his fingers wouldn't move that last millimeter.

He did not see that Kodachi's Marauder had risen to its cloven-hoofed feet behind him, the forearm weapon pods poised to strike him down in twin bolts of particle beam fire.

Tarou, however, did.

"Aim for the legs!" he cried, throwing his Hunchback clear as Ryouga realized too late that Kodachi was behind him. "We need that Library Core intact!"

The bolts slammed into the backs of the BattleMaster's thighs. The armor held, but the double impact sent him staggering forward, the aft-mounted medium lasers of his 'mech firing wildly at her in return. He twisted as he stumbled forward, bringing his own PPC to bear on Tarou, as more bolts of particle beam fire struck him in the back.

His guns fired at Tarou, striking the Hunchback square in the chest and just low of his intended target - the head. Then he was toppling over to fall face-first onto the ground. He fought his controls as he tried to roll upright and continue the struggle, all with Kodachi cackling maniacally in his headset.

"What's the matter, dear?" she chortled with mock-sweetness. The Marauder loomed over him as he rolled onto his back, the twin weapon pods aimed low at his battlemech's torso and the vital gyroscope mount that maintained his stability. "Did we fall down?"

"Give us the Library Core," Tarou added. "It's all we want. When we get it, we'll lift off and never visit this mudball again."

"Speak for yourself, lover," Kodachi snorted. "As long as I'm here, I want to kill Akane Tendo."

"Never," Ryouga spat before Tarou could rebutt his Combine mistress. "You'll have to kill me."

"If necessary," Tarou returned.

"Let's be done with this," Kodachi sniffed. "He's caused more damage to my regiment than I care to think about." She dropped one of her weapon pods down at the BattleMaster's bulbous cockpit canopy until it was touching the clear polycarbonate armor, the medium laser mounted just beneath the PPC emitter aimed squarely at Ryouga's lower cockpit seat. She could burn through the canopy and fry him without risking harm to the armored strongbox in the other seat.

"Don't you touch him!" a girl's voice cried out over the tac-net. The voice was followed by the staccatto crackle of a heavy pulselaser, and brilliant flashes of coherent light slamming into the hull of Kodachi's Marauder.

The Black Rose pivoted on her heels to face Ranma in her Super Phoenix Hawk LAM.

"Do I know you?" Kodachi asked her, her voice dripping with menace.

"That's Saotome!" Tarou cried. "Kill him!"

"Ranma Saotome?" Kodachi asked incredulously. The voice she heard over the radio sounded nothing like the man who had defied her attempt to kill Akane Tendo on the planet Capra. "Are you joking, my love? THAT'S Ranma Saotome?"

"It's him!" Tarou confirmed. "Trust me!"

Ranma goosed her jets, her LAM leaping into the air as Kodachi hesitated. She soared overhead to land behind the Black Rose, and hammered her once more with pulselaser fire from her engine/weapon pod. Tarou let fly with a wild shot from his autocannon, the depleted uranium dart clipping a chunk of armor off the pod before sailing on uselessly downrange.

"You okay, Ryouga!?" Ranma asked worriedly while hosing pulselaser fire back at Tarou.

"Leave Tarou to me, Ranma!" Ryouga snarled, drawing his BattleMaster up to its full height, and stomping towards the misshapen battlemech while it was busy fending off Ranma's barrage.

"No argument, man," Ranma returned. "Good to see you're still alive."

Kodachi interrupted them with a long burst from her autocannon, the shells howling around Ranma's Super Phoenix Hawk as she juked and dodged wildly to avoid them. As she gained altitude in Airmech Mode, she saw that the rest of Kodachi's forces were rallying near the burning ruins of the colony town, and were starting their return to the fight.

"We've got more company on the way," she cautioned Ryouga.

Ryouga didn't respond, because he was busy attacking Tarou. The Hunchback bobbed and weaved to avoid his blasts meant for the battlemech's vulnerable head, and in turn Tarou was handicapped by the need to cripple his foe without risking the destruction of the library core. The two 'mechs spiralled around each other, firing madly as they went.

"It ends here, Tarou!" he barked.

"I've worked too hard for this to let you stop me!" Tarou returned fiercely. A shell from his autocannon slammed into the BattleMaster's knee, blasting apart the armor and damaging the actuator. The assault 'mech staggered with the hit, but not before the final missile volley from its six-rack SRM launcher slammed home into the Hunchback's torso.

Both battlemechs went down, obscured by smoke and flames. Ranma cried out Ryouga's name, and was answered only by another burst of autocannon fire from Kodachi. The shells spanged off her armor, gouging craters in the precious ferro-fibrous plating that protected her, and haloing her in a nimbus of golden sparks.

"That's about enough outta you, sister!" she yelled at Kodachi, and put her LAM into a power dive. Kodachi raised her derringer weapon pods to blow her away with a double PPC barrage, only to lose an arm at the elbow joint as the Super Phoenix Hawk swooped overhead, grabbing the limb, and ripping it out of its ball-and-socket connection.

"How dare you!?" Kodachi shrieked indignantly at Ranma. "Assaulting the Black Rose of the Furinkan Combine?! Such impertinence!"

The Phoenix Hawk LAM cast the severed limb aside as it banked for another pass.

"Yeah, what do you think I was gonna do, lady? Let you shoot me?"

Kodachi was wroth, and it showed in her voice. "It's the least you can do, peasant!"

"Man," Ranma snorted. "You sound just like your idiot brother."

Kodachi gasped in disgust at the idea. "You horrible creature!" she cried angrily. "To think that I once desired you!"

Ranma tried to suppress a cold shiver at the notion that Kodachi wanted her. It was too sick to think about.

The Black Rose fired another long burst at Ranma with her autocannon, which succeeded only in chewing up the forest around the agile LAM as it boosted clear.

"Hold still, you!" she cried impatiently. "At least try to die with some dignity and grace!"

Ranma gave her a wet raspberry over the tac-net as she raced away from the battle in the hopes of drawing the Black Rose away from Ryouga and Tarou. The BattleMaster didn't look like it was up to a two-on-one confrontation. She did not see how the two combatants had knocked each other over as she fled with Kodachi in hot pursuit.

"Hold on, Sayuri," Yuka begged her friend, who was growing paler by the moment.

The thump of heavy battlemech feet made her look up with a mixture of hope and dread. A Centurion burst through the trees, its heavy autocannon probing for the enemy. When she saw that it was Doctor Tofu and not an enemy, Yuka waved and yelled frantically for its attention.

Tofu dismounted at once with his medical kit and a portable cutting torch in hand. A Victor stomped into the small clearing formed by the crashlanding Phoenix Hawk LAM, and took up the job of protecting them while Tofu went to work.

He blanched at the sight of what had happened, and understood the need for the cutting tools.

"How bad is it, Doctor Tofu?" Kasumi called over the external speakers.

"I might need your help, Kasumi," he replied.

"I'll be right there."

Yuka hovered over the doctor as he checked Sayuri's vital signs and pronounced her condition as grave. He dug into his kit for the bags of whole blood and his transfusion apparatus, knowing that he needed to replace her blood volume now before any attempts could be made to cut her free. More than the whole blood though, he needed lots of blood plasma for Sayuri to keep her pressure up, a commodity he did not possess. There were other concerns, for the shard of metal had clearly pierced her left lung, and she risked aspirating blood into the uninjured right lung if he could not drain it and repair the damage.

"One step at a time," he told himself. If he didn't stabilize Sayuri, and soon, none of his other concerns would matter. "Set up that cutting torch," he ordered Yuka, more to keep her out of his way while he did his work than anything else. Kasumi's gasp of horror at the grisly sight of Sayuri's injuries was his first indication that she was there. The fear that he would seize up when Sayuri needed him most gripped him, but to his surprise he found that with something urgent to occupy his mind, he could function normally.

"I need you to elevate this for me, please," he told the woman of his dreams, and handed her the bag of precious type-B whole blood.

"Of course, Doctor Tofu," Kasumi replied coolly. "Do you think you can save her?"

Tofu caught the worried look in Yuka's eyes and nodded. "I haven't lost a patient on this expedition, and I don't plan on starting now."

The transfusion started, he began assessing the situation. The best way to release her from the piece of metal that impaled her was to cut it from both ends and remove her from the cockpit with the rest still inside. He didn't have the facilities to try and remove all of it safely in the field.

"Start about five centimeters back from the point of penetration," Tofu advised Yuka. "The metal will act as a heat sink for the torch, but under the circumstances, it should work in our favor. Any cauterization caused by it will slow the bleeding until I can get her to Sickbay on the _Palomino_."

"I don't know if I can do this," Yuka said uneasily.

"Then hold this," Tofu told her impatiently, taking the bag of whole blood that drained into Sayuri's vein from Kasumi and handing it to her. "Kasumi, I need you to steady Sayuri while I make the cut."

"Of course, Doctor," she replied quietly. The crush of heavy battlemech feet made the ground tremble slightly, and she wondered if she was really serving them better by standing here, and not in her Victor.

It was awkward having to work in such a narrow space as the gap in the canopy afforded, and he wasn't the most experienced hand with a cutting torch. He struck the flame and edged carefully into the cockpit as Sayuri emitted a low gasp of pain. He drew the plasma torch over the section of wing as quickly as he dared, trying to vaporize as much metal as possible without dribbling molten drops of it onto the girl's legs and torso. He was mostly successful, and the pressure suit's ablative lining helped with the rest, but she was probably going to have a few small burn scars when all was said and done. Her tiny hisses of pain through her unconsciousness were enough to tell him that.

When he was through with the first section, he wrenched at the canopy, shoving it clear and giving him more room to work with. The section of wingtip that had penetrated through her body and into the seat came free, and Sayuri pitched forward. The section that had penetrated her back was much shorter than he had feared, and Tofu decided to leave well enough alone.

"Let's get her out," he said to the two women, and lifted Sayri gently out of her cockpit seat.

"Which 'mech should we transport her in?" Kasumi asked.

"Yours, I think," Tofu replied. He turned to Yuka. "Ever pilot a battlemech before?"

Yuka rubbed at her temple, relieved that her friend was no longer pinned into her wrecked fighter. "Once. I wasn't very good at it."

"Consider this a second chance," the doctor told her. "The neurohelmet is in the cockpit."

Yuka nodded reluctantly, and started for the Centurion. Tofu, holding Sayuri in his arms as Kasumi took back the blood transfusion, gave her a gentle look.

"I don't want to lose anyone, Kasumi," he said quietly as they walked carefully towards the Victor. "But I know it might be too much to hope."

"I know, Doctor," she replied, thinking about the suffering she had witnessed on Oni. "All we can do is try, and I admire you for not giving up on anyone."

He blushed at this, and tried not to drop his precious charge in his delirium. It was difficult, because hearing such a thing from Kasumi made his heart leap in his chest.

"Ranma! Where the heck do you think you're going?!" a certain Tomboy cried out over the tac-net as Ranma's Phoenix Hawk LAM evaded Kodachi's weapon fire.

"Why are you asking me such dumb questions?" she retorted.

"Akane Tendo?!" Kodachi shrilled before Ranma's fiancee could muster up a scream. "Is that really you?"

Akane's face appeared abruptly on the Black Rose's display. She was wrathful and grim, a combination that the Combine princess found quite unsettling. "It's me, Kodachi. I'm three hundred meters north of you right now, so if you want to finish what we started on Port Said, I'd be happy to oblige you."

"Done and done!" Kodachi cried happily in spite of her misgivings. "May we fight in all fairness!"

"Oh no!" Akane shot back. "I'm not falling for that again."

"Why, you detestable little trollop, whatever do you mean?" Kodachi said, her voice dripping with malice.

"You know what I'm talking about, you crazy witch!" Akane cried angrily. "For every crime you've perpetrated on the people of the Confederation, I'm going to pay it back with interest, and I'm going to do it in spite of your dirty tricks!"

"You and what army, harridan!" Kodachi trilled.

"I don't need an army, Kodachi. Remember what I did to you on Port Said!" Akane pointed out gleefully. "You couldn't retreat fast enough from me!"

"How dare you accuse the Black Rose of cowardice!?"

"It's easy: I just tell it like it happened!"

Kodachi let out a strangled gasp of rage and frustration, and then abandoned her pursuit of Ranma to attack Akane.

Ranma watched the two close with each other at full speed. "And people say the two of _us_ bicker?" she remarked to herself.

Akane was ready when Kodachi's Marauder bore down on her. As the black battlemech cleared a row of trees that separated them, she let her enemy have it with both Donal PPCs. The weapon arms spat forth twin arcs of blue-white lightning that tore into the Marauder's leg armor. She corrected for her low aim as her father positioned his Warhammer for a shot of his own against the Black Rose, and Ukyou triggered her Hatchetman's jump jets to attack from behind.

"Kodachi's mine," she growled to them. "Help Ranma and Ryouga!"

"If you insist, hon'," Ukyou replied, and maneuvered in mid jump to put her closer to the dueling BattleMaster and Hunchback. Soun moved past the two combatants at a distance, followed by a wary Genma Saotome in his battle-scarred Orion.

"Your confidence amuses me," Kodachi chuckled, and returned fire with her autocannon, blazing streams of armor piercing shells that spanged off the Warhammer's torso in flurries of red and gold sparks. "Though it is completely without merit."

"I beat you once," Akane returned. "I'll do it again."

"A fluke," Kodachi sniffed. She slowed her advance to bring her remaining PPC to bear. "I shall defeat you with only one arm!"

The PPC fired, and the thunderbolt crashed into the Warhammer as Akane triggered her six-rack SRM launcher. Fingers of electricity crackled from the impact point of the particle beam, reaching out to caress the stubby missiles as they sprang from their tubes. The missiles began to explode right in front of the Warhammer, engulfing it in a fireball.

Kodachi shrieked laughter at her sudden windfall, and charged in to attack in the confusion. As the fireball blackened into a column of oily smoke, the long armored tube of a Donal PPC appeared, clouting the Marauder across the snout-like cockpit with a resounding impact.

"Wicked strumpet!" Kodachi cried indignantly, reaching up underneath her neurohelmet to rub her temple, sore after getting rattled in her cockpit. Akane's Warhammer stepped through the smoke with the other arm coming up to deal a second blow. "You cheated, making me think that you had exploded so conveniently!"

The Black Rose turned it aside with the stump of her Marauder's right arm, and followed through with a backhanded bitch-slap across the Warhammer's cockpit visor with her remaining derringer arm. The Warhammer reeled from the blow, but its low center of gravity kept it from toppling over. Kodachi then hammered away at point blank range with her Whirlwind autocannon, one of the few weapons she could use effectively this close. Then, receiving a sudden flash of inspiration, she shifted her fire into the trees behind the Warhammer, cutting them down and sending them crashing into the battlemech.

The Warhammer staggered under the hits of ancient hardwood trees, and was engulfed in their green foliage. The gun-barrel PPC arms swiped madly at the branches in an attempt to clear them away from her blinded sensors, but lacking actual hands, the task was less than successful. Kodachi blasted her with her remaining PPC while she struggled, chortling over the external PA with her victory.

"Now who's the cheat!?" Akane snarled accusingly. She wiped at the thin line of blood that trickled from her lip where she had bitten down on it with the force of Kodachi's slap. As she moved, the weight of the trees dragged them off her hull, and finally cleared her view.

She began to backpedal, moving under a hail of 90mm shells and the assault of Kodachi's maniacal laughter, to give herself an effective field of fire with her twin gun clusters. She raked the Marauder with laser and machinegun fire, tearing into the two turbine-driven cooling pods on either side of the battlemech's cannon. The intakes caught a stream of fire that disintegrated the thinly armored intake screens and then proceeded to blast apart the turbines.

The Marauder twitched spasmodically at her hit, nearly falling to its knees. Akane fired the six-rack SRM launcher once more, and without a particle beam bolt to interfere with her shot, was rewarded with the sight of all six missiles hitting. The black Marauder's steeply-sloped armor made the hits less than effective, however, as most of the explosive force was spread out along the long curved sweep of the battlemech's flanks. Head-on fire at the torso wasn't going to work; she needed to hit it from an oblique angle at the every least, and directly from the sides at best.

At least her gun clusters had been effective. She could see the expanding waves of heat mirage coming from Kodachi's radiators, and knew that without the turbine fans blowing tons of air across them, her ability to dissipate heat was going to be greatly diminished. Hopefully, she'd think twice about firing her remaining PPC.

"Where do you think you're going?" Kodachi demanded in a shaky voice as Akane moved her Warhammer away in a flanking attempt. "Running away already, are we?" Her autocannon pivoted on its mast-like mount to continue spraying the Warhammer with fire.

To hear fear creeping into the Black Rose's voice made Akane's heart swell. Kodachi had done so much damage to the Confederation in the past, ended so many innocent lives, and terrorized entire planets. Now she was alone, fighting to the death in a battlemech that was half-crippled. Now the debts she had accrued against the Confederation would be repaid.

"I don't have to explain myself to the likes of you," Akane retorted, and let Kodachi have it with both Donal PPCs. The twin thunderbolts gushed from the tube-like weapon arms with deafening reports, and dashed against the Marauder's broad expanse of torso flank. The chattering of the autocannon stopped abruptly, followed immediately by the stacatto flashes of ammunition cooking off within the weapon's magazine. The force of the blast ripped the intact left arm off at the shoulder joint, venting catastrophically from the torn armor, and flinging blobs of bright green tracers in lazy arcs into the remaining trees.

The Marauder toppled over and crashed in a twisted heap. Long plumes of black smoke poured from the carbonized hole in the torso armor, and small fires burned within. Akane brought her Warhammer up to inspect her fallen enemy, and noted with satisfaction that the Marauder remained as silent and still as death.

She sank into her ejector seat with a long, drawn-out, and weary sigh. This was the ending that should have happened on Port Said six months ago. Kodachi Kuno, the Black Rose of the Furinkan Combine, was defeated.

"I'd watch those damaged knees if I were you," Tarou observed sardonically as he maneuvered through dense woods to evade Ryouga's particle beam riposte. "They'll be the death of you."

Ryouga knew it without needing a reminder from his enemy. The actuator damage his 'mech had suffered was slowing him down. He was at full throttle and only managing cruise speed in his pursuit. Another good hit would tear off a leg, which he was sure was what Tarou had in mind. He was as obsessed with the library core as Happousai had been.

He also knew that Tarou was almost out of shells for his Tomodzuru autocannon, and that when they were expended, he would be down to a pair of medium lasers for his armament. Ryouga still had his formidable array of lasers, plus his PPC. That came out to a significant advantage in a fight.

Getting Tarou to use those last two or three shots without being hit was the challenge.

The battered Hunchback turned around the copse of trees to come back at him. He responded with all four of his medium lasers, the beams crackling through the air at the battlemech, and cutting four black swaths through the torso. Sparks flashed from the rents in Tarou's armor, and for a moment Ryouga thought he had set off the autocannon's ammunition.

The depleted uranium dart that crashed into his torso was proof enough that he hadn't. The impact staggered his 'mech, and spoiled his aim with the hand held PPC. His armor was practically gone over his right torso, the last hit gouging a crater in the thick plating with a diameter big enough for a man to stand inside.

How many of those do you have left, Tarou? he wondered angrily. The patient and loving work Akari had invested in his Battlemaster was being destroyed by that terrible weapon, and he wasn't going to stand for it.

"I'm going to finish this, Tarou!" he cried. "Now, stand and fight it out, Monster-boy!"

"Be reasonable and eject!" Tarou returned. "Or if you're so eager to die, at least eject your rear seat and spare the library core!"

"I'd rather see it destroyed than have you or Kodachi get your hands on it!"

Ryouga put his 'mech into a charge, intent on running down the Hunchback that he out-massed by thirty-five tons. Tarou stopped short and fired another shot from his autocannon that crashed into the center of the BattleMaster's torso. Armor spalled off in waves, and curled up into steel shavings at the red hot edges of the crater, but the plating was at its thickest there, and it held - barely.

"You're forcing me to kill you, Ryouga!" Tarou answered, hosing laser fire at the BattleMaster's legs. "I've tried to avoid that so far, but you leave me no choice!"

Ryouga triggered his lasers again, the beams slicing apart an arm in clouds of ionized gas. "I won't allow you to profit from your betrayal!"

He could see the Hunchback tense for another autocannon shot and knew that he wouldn't reach it in time to ram. One more hit from that thing would be enough to destroy him, and if Tarou's aim was true, he would lose a leg, and his enemy would win.

The shot did not come, nor did he hear Tarou's scream of frustration over the din of his own war cry. The BattleMaster crashed into the smaller Hunchback, forcing it up into the air as its massive limbs grappled. Still yelling his lungs out, Ryouga wrenched the Hunchback up over his battlemech's head before throwing it down with all his might. The BattleMaster's myomer bundles groaned in protest over the load as he exerted them to their very limits.

The Hunchback hit the ground with a crash, bits of metal and clods of dirt flying from the huge divot it made. Ryouga spun his BattleMaster around, kicking the fallen 'mech with a full power blow. The Hunchback's right arm was torn away from the elbow joint, leaving it completely defenseless to his attacks.

He laid into Tarou with everything he had; punches, kicks, stomps, and more. Sparks flew from his battlemech's hands as they smashed apart armor, foamed aluminum skeletal components, and magnetic-piston actuators. He continued pounding on the Hunchback in a rage, long after it had ceased to be a battlemech; it was now nothing more than an ugly, formless lump of steel and composites that smoldered and leaked nameless fluids from the folds and rents.

"Ryouga!" Ukyou called to him. "That's enough already!"

He didn't hear her as she again called to him to stop. It took a mechanized hand on his cocked fist to get his attention.

"You got him," she said quietly. "Trust me on this one, honey."

His throat was raw from screaming, and it took him a moment to find his voice. It unnerved him to think that he had become so mindless and insane in a battle, even one on which so much depended.

"Okay," he panted finally. "You're right."

He turned to see the Warhammers of Akane and her father, Commander Saotome's Orion, and Ranma's Super Phoenix Hawk LAM standing in a line, watching him worriedly.

"Are you okay, Ryouga?" Akane asked.

"Yeah," he gushed. He did not want Akane to see him like this, not like some wild animal that needed to put down for its own good. "I'm all right... Wha-What about the rest of Kodachi's troops?"

"Makin' a run for it," Ranma replied. "It seems you scare the piss outta them, Ryouga." The Super Phoenix Hawk's head inclined in Akane's direction. "And with the cavalry coming like it did, they totally lost their nerve."

"Great," Ryouga huffed wearily. "What now?"

"Musk Dynasty forces are approaching the _Palomino_'s position," Akane replied. "There's no chance of us getting back there in time to stop them, even if we had the numbers to do it, but I just spoke with Captain Grant, and he says they're ready to lift off."

"So we headin' to the bunker then?" Ranma asked her. She was all for leaving the planet as soon as possible.

"Just as soon as we link up with Kasumi and Doctor Tofu," she confirmed. "I only hope Sayuri can hold on a little longer."

"Let's move out," Soun said to them. "We can't stay here."

Akane's Warhammer set a PPC arm against Ranma's Super Phoenix Hawk LAM as the rest agreed and turned northwest. "Stay with me on the ground for awhile, Ranma," she said to him.

The battlemech cocked its head at her, aping the gesture Ranma made within her cockpit.

"What for? You'll need an eye in the sky if you want to avoid those Musk jokers."

The Warhammer emitted a puff of steam from its heat sinks, an autonomous heat dumping function that was utterly coincidental with Akane's mood shift. Ranma's 'mech edged away nervously from her anyway.

"I just wanted to see you," Akane said to her through clenched teeth. "You worry me half to death with your wandering off and not reporting in, then you take on a force ten times your own without so much as a simple request for help, then you... Oh, nevermind."

"All right already," Ranma replied. "I'll stick around for a few minutes if it'll make you feel better. Jeez..."

The two 'mechs began walking together, leaving Ryouga behind. The fanged mechwarrior took one last look at the ruins of Pansuto Tarou's Hunchback, and tried to forget the years they had been comrades. Though those days had been anything but idyllic, they represented a simpler time that was now forever lost to him.

"Goodbye, Tarou," he said to the pile of burnt scrap.

"Coming, Ryouga?" Akane asked him over the radio.

He nodded his head, looked over his shoulder at the armored strongbox that contained the library core, and let out a sigh.

"On my way," he replied.

The DropShip _Palomino_

15:18 Local Time

"Kick the tires and light the fires!" Grant yelled to his crew while stepping onto the Flight Deck with his pressure suit helmet under his arm. "We've got less than ten minutes before this position gets overrun." He wanted to give Lady Akane and the others more time to return, but the Musk Dynasty wasn't allowing it.

"Commencing reactor start-up," the Co-Pilot declared, punching in the commands to his board. The DropShip's computer acknowledged the command with an automated warning over the ship's 1MC intercom circuit. "Ignition in five... four... three... two... one... mark!"

The lights flickered for a moment. Displays shifted and danced on the Flight Deck as vital systems prepared themselves automatically for activation.

"The reactor is online. Fusion plant power indications stable and ranging within normal variances," the Co-Pilot announced. "Port cooling loop pressure holding steady. Shifting the power distribution system to a normal full-power line up."

"Main Engine sequence start," the Pilot added. The massive engine turbines in the Port Atmospheric Manuevering Engine began to spool up with a deep drone well aft of the cockpit. The DropShip shifted slightly on its landing gear, as if anticipating its coming leap into the sky. "Main Engine induction pressure rising. Main Engine low induction pressure alarm clear."

Captain Grant nodded coolly for them and then turned back to face Tad and the two Gunner's Mates.

"Status of weapons and sensors?" he asked them.

"Fire Control is green. All weapon mounts indicate ready."

Petty Officer Howard gave him a 'thumbs up.' "All active and passive arrays are green. Request permission to radiate with active radar."

"Hold off on the active radar," Grant cautioned him. "I want to make certain we can get off the ground before I advertise our presence. With Yuka and Sayuri down, we have no air support."

"Main Engines ready for lift-off," the Pilot announced a moment later.

"Good," Grant rumbled. "Inform Lady Akane that we are lifting off, and that we will meet her and the rest of Red Lance at the secondary rendezvous point."

"Aye aye, sir," the Co-Pilot acknowledged.

"Take us up," Grant ordered.

The Pilot throttled up, and with a roar of fusion heated turbojets, the _Palomino_ began to rise into the air. A cheer went up as the Pilot rotated the ship ninety degrees to put it on the proper heading, and then began edging forward slowly so as not to overtax the engines.

"Quiet!" Grant barked. "We're not out of this yet! Tad, you keep your sensors peeled for the bad guys. We know they're close."

Tad was already hunched over his displays as the DropShip picked up speed.

"Aye sir, scanning now... Captain, I'm picking up ground based search radar, Garrett-type air defense sets." He bit his lip nervously as he punched in several command functions into the sensory gear. "Bearing two-two-six, relative; range is real damn close, sir!"

"How close?" Grant demanded. "I want specifics!"

Autocannon tracers lit into them as he asked, and the DropShip trembled as they bit into the thick portside armor.

"Eight hundred meters!" Tad replied. "Enemy battlemechs bearing two-two-six, relative; range eight hundred meters!"

"Increase speed!" Grant ordered the Pilot. "Return fire!"

The _whooosh_ of the port-side LRM-20 rack was quickly followed by the crackle of the twin heavy laser and point defense medium laser turrets. It was a relatively small amount of firepower, but with luck, sufficient to the task of harassing the enemy and denying them an easy shot.

The _Palomino_ began to shake again as more autocannon fire struck the ship. Then two particle beam cannon bolts slammed into the aft section, sounding alarms on the Flight Deck. The gunner on the port side returned fire with all he had, and yet he did nothing to stop the onslaught.

"There's a whole battalion down there," he shrieked, still firing his weapons as fast as the systems would permit.

"Pressure's dropping in the port coolant loop!" the Co-Pilot added. An alarm wailed as he spoke. "Port Loop Low Pressure Alarm!"

"I'm losing thrust in the manuevering engines," the Pilot intoned. "Switching to HEPLAR drive; hang on!"

The DropShip's plasma drive ignited with a roar, and the sudden increase in thrust threw off the Musk Dynasty aim, giving them a few blessed seconds of relief. The _Palomino_ careened just above the verdant Ryuugenzawa forest, trailing lines of smoke from its wounds as it sought escape.

"Damage report!" Grant ordered, watching as the Engineering repeater display began hemorrhaging red light.

Akari's quavering voice answered for the Engineer. "We have a leak in the port loop!" she said over the intercom. "We're compensating by injecting fresh coolant from the cryogenic plant, but once we run out of liquid nitrogen..."

"How long?" Grant asked bitterly.

"Ten minutes at present rate of consumption, sir. Probably less than that if the leak rate increases with pipe erosion through the source of the leak."

"Keep the pressure above the safety shutdown point," Grant ordered. "Strike that!" he amended. "I order you to take the Reactor Protection System console to Battleshort!"

"Take the RPS console to Battleshort, aye," Akari replied. The Battleshort Mode would disable all of the fusion plant's automated safety shut-down commands. Grant intended to run the reactor into the ground if necessary to escape the Musk Dynasty. "Flight Deck, Engineering; the RPS console is set to Battleshort."

Grant acknowledged Akari's report and turned to his Pilot. "Keep us in the air," he told him. "Plot a course for the Orochi bunker. We can get that far at least, and then have the _Tautog's_ shuttles pick us up from there."

"I'll keep us in the air," the Pilot returned. "But I don't like the idea of abandoning ship."

"Neither do I," Grant said tersely. "But we've got to keep our options open."

Musk Dynasty Headquarters Company

Ian Cameron Starport

15:22 Local Time

"That was unexpected," Mechwarrior General Herb said to himself as the _Palomino_ escaped. There had been no reports of Black Rose DropShips within the bounds of the starport.

"Track them," he ordered his operations section. "Dispatch a lance of fighters to destroy that ship at once."

The thought occured to him that the ship might in fact belong to the Confederation, that they had in fact survived the Orochi. It made the case for Shampoo's survival that much more compelling, and made him wonder again where Mousse had run off to. Lime and Mint had thus far failed to find him.

"A change in plans," he told his Operations Officer. "Have the fighters tail the DropShip at a distance, but do not have them engage. If the ship should land for any reason, I want its location reported to me immediately."

"At once, my lord General," the officer replied.

The matter settled, he returned his attention to the starport. He wasn't impressed. The place looked as if it had been mauled a very long time ago. If there was anything of value here, he would need a lot of uninterrupted time to search for it.

As his 'mechs cleared the ruined hulk of an ancient Leopard class DropShip, he spied several battlemechs standing in a line, their arms at their sides, and their systems apparently quiescent. One of them, a Centurion, had been heavily and recently damaged. The others; a Wasp, another Centurion, and two Catapults, looked pristine in their SLDF livery.

"Hold your fire," he ordered his troops. "Approach with caution, but I want those 'mechs captured intact."

_We must have frightened the DropShip off with our advance_, he realized. _These Confederation fools obviously know where this world's treasures can be found_.

An officer with a hulking bear-like frame and yellow ursine eyes appeared on his display, interrupting his train of thought.

"My lord General, our scouts have located a pitched battle twenty kilometers south of our position between Black Rose forces and an unknown third party. They are requesting further instruction."

Herb considered this. The third party in question most likely belonged to the Confederation. He needed knowledgable prisoners if he was going to make his search for lostech more efficient.

"Have them remain out of sight, but in contact with the battle. They are not to engage. If they are attacked, they are to withdraw while keeping me informed of the enemy's positions," he declared. "Order Fox and Serpent Companies to turn south and engage the Black Rose's troops. Any other 'mechs encountered are to be captured with their mechwarriors alive. The remaining companies will stay here and secure the starport."

"At once, my lord General!"

He turned his Grand Dragon on its heels, and headed back towards his personal DropShip. He would wait there for any prisoners that were captured, or for news of the Confederation DropShip's destination. The planet was by all rights his now, all that was left was the extermination of Kodachi Kuno's rag-tag regiment, and the final disposition of Mousse and Shampoo. Tatewaki's fleet was surely headed inexorably towards their deaths at the hands of the Orochi, and he wanted to be close to his sources of information for the battle in orbit to confirm this.

SLDFS _Coronet_

15:23 Local Time

"Engineering, report status of restoring main power," Captain Hinako Ninomiya ordered. They had been dead in space for over half an hour since they had successfully fired their Main Gun to destroy an Orochi satellite, an act which had quenched their fusion reactor in the process. A back-up fission plant was to have come on to provide emergency power, but it too had inexplicably failed.

Lieutenant Fulton, Hinako's Assistant Engineer from the _Dragonfly_, and currently Chief Engineer of the _Coronet_, answered her over the intercom system.

"Ma'am, we think we've got the problem isolated to a logic controller in the power distribution system," Fulton replied. His face was damp with sweat, as the engineering crew was operating without the luxury of the ventilation system to conserve the cruiser's emergency batteries. "It's holding up both powerplants on a switchgear fault, making their controllers believe that the main distribution switchgear is grounded, and keeping them offline."

"What does all that mean in terms of time to restore power?" she asked him. Engineers tended to speak as if everyone within earshot understood their arcane jargon, and it had been a long time since she had attended the basic engineering courses required of prospective starship commanders.

"If we swap the controller out with a spare, factor in time to load the program from the archives, and everything actually works as advertised, I'd say we can start up the fusion plant within forty-five minutes."

Hinako slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand. A look from Captain Hauptmann at the Fire Control station confirmed her misgivings. "Fulton, we don't _have_ forty-five minutes. There are six troop carrier shuttles on their way to take this ship as a prize."

Fulton grimaced at the news. "I don't know what to tell you, ma'am. This process is pretty straightforward. There really aren't any corners to cut, but we'll do our best."

Hinako sighed wearily and signed off. Captain Hauptmann waved her over to the Fire Control station. Passive sensor data was displayed for them, showing the six Furinkan Combine ships on an intercept course.

"ETA is nineteen minutes," Hauptmann declared. "If we don't get our drives back before then, we're in trouble."

"That's probably not going to happen," Hinako told him flatly. She had been against firing the Main Gun, but not for the reasons she now regretted."What are our options?"

"The _Tautog_ is having its own problems right now, so we can't expect any help from them in the near future. Olivera says they are at bare minimum combat capability, and their current orbit has them drifting over the planetary horizon in ten minutes. They won't come back around for another two hours and twenty-five minutes."

Hinako had to agree that this was not good. "What can we do from our end?"

Hauptmann pointed at the fire control panels. "The primary gun batteries won't fire without main power, but we have our secondary turrets. Those can operate off the emergency battery, and if we use the lasers sparingly, we shouldn't drain too much juice."

Hinako considered it. "It's probably more than enough firepower to stop those shuttles," she replied. "But what then?"

Hauptmann cocked his head at her. "It buys us time to get this crate back to full capacity. I don't want to be anywhere near when the Orochi Network and the Combine fleet go at it hammer and tongs." He shrugged. "If you have a better idea, Captain Ninomiya, I'm all ears."

A smile lit up Hinako's face.

"Something just came to me," she said. "I'll need everyone you can spare to meet me in the shuttle bay."

Hauptmann looked at her questioningly. "What exactly do you mean by 'everyone I can spare'?"

"The absolute bare minimum to navigate. One person at the sensors. One person at fire control. The minimum watchstanders in Engineering. The Chief of the Watch can handle commo from his station."

"What for?"

Hinako crossed her arms over her breasts. "You'll have to trust me on this, Captain Hauptmann."

"Captain Hauptmann," the Chief of the Watch called out. "The Furinkan Combine boarding party demands that we surrender our vessel at once."

Hauptmann punched the intercom for the shuttle bay staging area. "Our guests are about to arrive, Captain Ninomiya. Are you ready for them?"

"You betcha!" a child's voice chirped back in reply.

Hauptmann shook his head gravely and turned to the Chief of the Watch. "Tell them that we surrender. Open the shuttle bay doors to receive them."

The Chief of the Watch did so. "Aye, Captain. Shuttle Bay doors indicate open."

"This had better work..." Hauptmann muttered.

"Spread out," the Furinkan Combine Marine sergeant barked to his men in the Shuttle Bay. "Don't bunch up! We don't know what kind of welcome we're going to get on the other side of that door."

The other five shuttles started to disgorge their troops, until there were sixty heavily armed and armored Marines waiting to charge through the airtight door and into the interior of the ship. They were armed with machete-like short swords, two-meter long boarding pikes, nailguns, and laser pistols for close combat within a fragile starship. They didn't expect much resistance from the crew, but that would be of small condolence to anyone who ended up dead.

When the airtight door suddenly slid open with a hiss, the Marines were ready with every weapon they had. They were not ready, however, for the sight of an eight-year-old girl in the ill-fitting uniform of a Confederation Navy Captain.

"Hello everybody!" the girl cried happily to them.

"What is this, sarge?" one of the Marines hissed to the sergeant. "Some kinda joke?"

The sergeant gave a noncommital grunt. "It's the lieutenant's problem now. Keep your heater on the door and your eyes peeled."

"Is everyone here?" the girl asked them, skipping up to the center of their ranks.

The Combine Marine lieutenant stepped forward to greet Hinako with a look of reproach. "Look here, little girl. I don't know what your parents think they'll accomplish by sending you to us, but it won't work." He raised his voice to the open airtight door. "I demand to speak to the master of this vessel at once, that I may accept his formal surrender!"

Hinako tugged at his armored hand.

"I'm right here," she pouted.

He brushed her off. "Go away, little girl." He affected an irritated look for his sergeant. "Sergeant, take this child to the shuttle at once."

"Hey!" Hinako cried shrilly. "I'm NOT a little girl! I'm the Captain of this ship! One of them, anyway..."

The lieutenant looked to the open airtight door, feeling that there was something wrong about this situation. Something horribly wrong. What kind of barbarians would send a child into the ranks of their enemy if they intended to resist?

It came to him as a Marine scooped up Hinako and carried her screaming towards a shuttle. They were planning on resisting, and this was their way of ensuring that she didn't get hurt. Clever bastards...

"Sergeant, have the first squad advance through the door," he ordered. "They have premission to fire without warning."

Hinako's wailing ceased abruptly, followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the deck of the shuttle. In the tension of the moment, all the lieutenant noticed was that the child's crying had mercifully stopped.

"Yes sir," the sergeant grunted. "First Squad up!"

"Hello boys," a sultry voice called to them from the shuttles.

The Marines turned as one to see Hinako Ninomiya in her two-sizes too short miniskirt and extra-tight red turtleneck uniform sweater. Jaws dropped appreciatively as she raised a fifty-yen coin between two fingers and leveled it at them with a smile and a wink.

"Surprise!"

"Captain Hauptmann, Captain Ninomiya reports that the Shuttle Bay is secure, and that the prisoners are in custody," the Chief of the Watch declared proudly.

Hauptmann and his Helmsman traded looks. Neither had much faith in Hinako's plan, but they were happy in this instance to be proven wrong. "Ask the Captain what she plans to do next."

The Chief of the Watch relayed the question.

"She says that depends on the outcome of the battle between the Orochi and the Combine fleet."

Primary Orochi Unit

Approaching the Furinkan Combine Fleet

15:21 Local Time

Threat assessment routines running within the Orochi's controlling computer studied the signatures of the small craft launched from the invading fleet. None of the craft, identified as several types of shuttle craft, troop carrier, and battlemech DropShip, possessed authentic IFF codes, and were therefore determined to be hostile. Hostile ships were to be destroyed in accordance with its programming.

The capital ship in low orbit was initially classified as friendly, but when it destroyed Node Three, the Orochi was forced to redesignate it as hostile. It was apparently crippled, however, and so it was assigned a low priority along with the troopships. The Orochi could descend into a lower orbit and destroy them at its leisure.

The fleet of starships that descended from high orbit were also identified as hostile, and these included several types of capital ship, including a battleship. The threat assessment routines assigned a higher incidence of priority towards these vessels, as they represented a greater threat level than the other ships. Thus did the Orochi network shift from an orbital bombardment mode of operation to system defense, sparing the enemy forces on the planet for the moment.

As range and target motion analysis subroutines fed the computer with data, the decision to act was made, and the appropriate combat programs were loaded from hard memory into the process loop.

Sensor arrays locked in on the approaching enemy fleet, and massive weapon mounts shifted to bear on their targets. The mighty fusion furnaces deep within the heart of the Orochi ramped up their output, charging power banks for the tremendous volley of fire it was about to unleash. Engine nozzles the size of houses rotated in their mounts as the battleship class automated orbital battlestation adjusted its orbit to block the invader's path.

Furinkan Combine WarShip _Imperator_

Ryuugenzawa High Orbit

15:21 Local Time

"Prince Kuno's landing force has cleared the effective weapon range of the Orochi network," Sensory declared. Captain Kyle gave a sigh of relief at the news.

"The Orochi has bigger fish to fry," _Imperator_'s captain added. "Us." He strapped himself into his chair and sealed his visor. "Fire Control; prepare to fire all weapons at the primary satellite."

"Fire Control, aye. Gun directors locked on target. Estimated firing range in two minutes, mark."

"Conn, Electronic Warfare Bay; radar and lidar countermeasures are being deployed by the network. Counter-countermeasures underway."

Kyle could do nothing from his station until the battle was joined. As Prince Kuno's Operations Officer, he had been tasked with coordinating the fleet's action against the network, and he had given the ships and fighters their orders. Now all he could do was observe, try to divine last moment intelligence, and attempt to be proactive rather than reactive. It wasn't as easy as it sounded.

"Conn, Sensory; detecting gun directing radar. The Orochi network is targeting us with their weapons."

"Helm; evasive maneuvers," the captain ordered at once. _Imperator_ began to vibrate as its plasma drive fired to alter its course. Even the powerful primary weapon mounts of the battleship were not yet in range of the Orochi, and yet the network was already preparing to blast them.

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

15:34 Local Time

Commander Malloy and Lieutenant Davidge watched the battle in space from the Orochi's point of view. Terrible energies were being unleashed up there, the power of four lesser satellites focused on the lead ships of the Combine fleet while the primary satellite attacked the _Imperator_ directly. Two Combine ships were already burning, but the _Imperator_ had now come into range, and its powerful weapons were now being felt.

"Unit Two primary gun mounts bravo and delta destroyed," one of the _Dragonfly_ crew updated. "Fire in transverse busses alfa and charlie."

Red damage prompts scrolled across the displays for Unit Two, then suddenly stopped in a squawk of garbled telemetry.

"Unit Two destroyed," the tech announced, surprise evident in her voice. "I didn't think they hit it that hard."

"Kamikaze attack," Davidge replied. He had a visual lock on the battle courtesy of a weather satellite reoriented to look into space. "Two Leopard GunShips crashed into the main engine ports from what I can see. The blast must have gone straight to the powerplant."

"Unit Six is drifting," another tech called out. "The guidance package failed again. System attempting to reboot from the hardened backups."

"I hate to say it," Malloy observed. "But the Orochi network wasn't prepared for this kind of fight. They've been up there too long without maintenance or repairs. Half of them are only at marginal readiness."

"Unit One is the only one worth a damn," Davidge agreed. "At least it's the big one."

"Combine Essex Class Destroyer is taking fire from Unit One. Heavy damage estimated."

"Unit Six is not responding to guidance control from the network. Main Computer down. Back up processors are not responding."

"X-ray damage from the explosion of Unit Two," Malloy guessed.

"Fighter elements approaching Unit Six... Point defense systems engaging... All fighters destroyed!"

Davidge looked to Malloy. "It's hard to tell who to root for," he remarked. "The Orochi or the Combine."

Malloy nodded as more reports came in. People were dying by the hundreds up there, and ships that had existed for a century or more were being reduced to red-hot scraps of metal.

"I know what you mean. This is one battle where I'd like to see both sides lose."

"Combine Essex Class Destroyer has been destroyed."

Another set of monitor displays went dark.

"Unit Six is destroyed," the same tech announced quietly.

"Combine light cruiser under fire..."

Furinkan Combine WarShip _Imperator_

Ryuugenzawa High Orbit

15:41 Local Time

Captain Kyle picked himself up off the deck where he had been thrown by the last volley of fire. The fleet was disintegrating under the heavy guns of the primary Orochi satellite, and there was little he or his staff could do to change that.

He wiped at the greasy soot that coated the tactical displays and made the holotank shimmer disruptively. Fires raged throughout the ship, and the hiss of the crew breathing through the life support umbilicals made it difficult to relay commands by voice.

_Imperator_ shook again, and alarms wailed.

"Turret 'A' reports heavy damage!" someone at Fire Control announced. "The mount will not train!"

"Fires have broken through blast doors on 'E' Deck and 'F' Deck starboard outboard, between radials zero-five-five and zero-eight-zero," the Damage Control Assistant declared. "No reserve fire-fighting teams are available at this time."

The captain of the battleship caught Kyle's eye.

"Any suggestions?!" he cried.

Kyle knew that there was only one way to defeat the Orochi. "Continue directing all fire towards the primary satellite!" he yelled over the din. Sparks flashed from a nearby panel as the electrical system rebelled at the abuse. "The entire system coordinates through the primary unit! If you take it out, the remaining satellites will become disoriented. You can then isolate them and destroy them easily."

The captain laughed bitterly. "And in the meantime, we let those lesser satellites pound us into dust! I like your plan, Kyle!"

The main display glowed white as Unit Two exploded, raising a brief cheer from the Bridge crew.

"An expensive trade," Kyle muttered angrily. Two precious GunShips and an irreplaceable Essex Class destroyer to knock out a single secondary unit.

"The price will be even higher before this is over," the captain observed. "Maintain all fire on the primary unit! Continue targeting the upper and lower sensory nodes!"

A particle beam from the primary Orochi tore through the hull of the light cruiser _Repulse_. The ship trembled with the hit, its main drive still firing at maximum to evade. Kyle could see that the cruiser was dying, as plumes of burning air burst from the scorched hull in angry yellow jets.

"_Repulse_ has jettisoned its log!" Sensory declared. "Detecting life pod separations!"

Kyle knew then what the _Repulse_'s captain had in mind. He watched as the cruiser's reaction control thrusters blazed, pivoting the burning starship, and orienting it at the remaining secondary satellite. The main drive continued to fire at maximum, and the cruiser accelerated inexorably towards the Orochi satellite.

Beam blasts ripped the _Repulse_'s habitat apart before it could reach its target, but the drive section and ultraheavy jump core plowed on through the expanding clouds of gas and impaled the Orochi. The satellite exploded with such a fury that the radiation pulse shut down the monitors on the _Imperator_ for several seconds.

The sound of hull metal bouncing off the _Imperator_ began a steady patter, until it was a rain of particles that sandblasted off the hull what little dark blue paint remained.

"Sensory!" the Captain cried. "Status report!"

"All arrays are down. Main and secondary telescopes damaged."

"Reports from the frigate _Perry_ indicate that the primary Orochi has ceased all fire," someone at Communications threw in to the chaos of the moment.

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

15:46 Local Time

"Oh shit..." Davidge moaned. The rest of the crew echoed his sentiments as their displays crashed into static.

"What happend?" Malloy demanded.

"Another big radiation pulse," Davidge replied. "Right as that light cruiser hit Unit Eight. Those satellites have been up there a long time, getting bombarded with solar radiation for two hundred years... Their shielding must be pretty fried by now. They're vulnerable to this kind of attack."

"So what happened?" Malloy asked him. "Did the whole system crash?"

Several banks of displays came back on line as Malloy asked. Davidge held up a hand for quiet, and began pouring over the data that came back.

"A lot of telemetry garbage," he replied uneasily. "Error signals everywhere. I think the network has totally crashed." He scanned the displays for the primary Orochi. "Unit One is at only nineteen percent effectiveness. Main Drive damaged and offline. Primary reactor is still fully operational, but distribution faults have crippled the big guns and most of the sensors. All secondary and point defense batteries are functional. Reaction Control System at thirty percent."

"What about the Combine fleet?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, sir," Davidge replied. "Only the primary Orochi is still functional. The others are either destroyed or else suffering massive malfunctions. I don't see any more hits coming in, so for the moment I'd say the Combine is as bad off as the Orochi."

Malloy let out a sigh of relief. "Well that's good news. We should let his Grace know about this at once."

Davidge studied tracking data as it came in from other orbital sources.

"It looks like the primary unit is in a decaying orbit; estimated time to atmospheric entry is thirty-nine hours."

"We'll be long gone before then," Malloy replied.

"I hope so, sir, because I don't want to be here when that thing hits. In the meantime, we've got Furinkan Combine DropShips on their way down, and nothing to stop them. Estimated time to touchdown is two-zero minutes."

"Where?" Malloy asked him.

Davidge ran a few calculations. "About twenty-five klicks southwest of our position, roughly between us and the Musk Dynasty landing zones."

The DropShip _Palomino_

Approaching the Orochi Command Bunker

15:48 Local Time

"I'm at minimum safe coolant pressure in the loop," the Co-Pilot announced as the _Palomino_ soared at treetop level over the forest."Reactor internal temperatures are still climbing."

"How much farther?" Grant asked the Pilot.

"We should be within five klicks now," he replied. "I can set us down anytime you like."

Grant turned back to Tad. "How about those Musk fighters?"

Tad shook his head. "They're still back there, sir."

"Turn us away from the bunker," Grant ordered. They had been expending precious flight time trying to lose their cagey pursuers, and now time was running out. "We can't risk drawing those fighters any closer."

The DropShip's nose dipped sharply, forcing the Pilot to wrench at the controls to stabilize the ship.

"We might not get that chance," the Pilot replied through clenched teeth. "I'm losing thrust." The stall alarm sounded, and the ship wallowed into a shallow dive. "Port atmospheric maneuvering engine failure!"

Grant grabbed at the 1MC microphone as everyone of the flight deck held tight. "Prepare for crash landing and hold tight, everyone!"

The Pilot fought through the sluggish controls to put the ship on a controlled dive. The bow of the DropShip smashed through trees as it dipped lower in the air, absorbing some of their energy in preparation for contact with the ground. With milliseconds to spare, he fired the HEPLAR drives in one furious and final burn, and the _Palomino_ hit the ground. The ship slewed sideways through the forest, snapping trees like kindling as it decelerated.

The _Palomino_ heaved to a stop with its bow buried in the side of a low sloping hill. The crew on the flight deck came around in a chorus of groans as dust shaken loose by the impact settled on the displays.

"Anyone hurt?" Grant asked. No one was. "Engineering; mark status of the reactor."

Akari answered after a long pause. "The reactor is down. The port loop appears to be completely depressurized. I had to vent the plasma manually or else -"

"I understand," Grant said calmly. "You did what you had to."

"The ship is essentially grounded, sir," Akari said quietly. "What should we do?"

Grant thought about it. "We sit tight and wait for Duke Tendo and the others to get here. I don't want to put the bunker at any more risk than necessary." He wiped at his sweaty brow. "Rig the ship for reduced electrical loads, and break out with the small arms just in case an enemy patrol comes to investigate."

Nerima Confederation Red Lance

North of Ian Cameron Starport

15:50 Local Time

"How is Sayuri holding up?" Akane asked over the tac-net.

"Doctor Tofu says her condition is stable," Kasumi answered for him. The doctor and his patient rode within the cupped hands of her Victor as they marched north towards the Orochi bunker.

"That's it?"

"I'm sorry, Akane," Kasumi soothed. "I'm afraid there isn't much else to say."

"She'll be all right," Ranma broke in. Her LAM cruised at low speed above them.

"You don't know that!" Akane snapped.

"Hey, take it easy, all right?" Ranma returned. "If anything goes wrong, there isn't much you or I can do about it, so there ain't no point in worrying."

"Sayuri is a childhood friend," Akane said in a bitter voice. "I wouldn't expect you to understand."

The LAM swooped overhead to land in front of Akane's Warhammer. Ukyou and Genma's 'mechs stepped out of the way in case the two decided to start pounding on each other.

"Remember who the real enemies are..." Ukyou advised them.

"What do you want, Ranma?" Akane asked her archly.

"I want you to lay off," Ranma replied. "I know this ain't easy for you, but -"

"You know nothing, Ranma!" she cried.

The LAM transformed to Battlemech Mode in time to ward off a blow from her PPC arm. Ranma wrenched the tube-like muzzle aside and brought her sensor head against Akane's armored visor. "I know enough to understand that a commander has to put her personal feelings aside sometimes, before they get in the way of her judgement."

Akane tensed at Ranma's accusation, but did not respond.

Ranma continued. "I don't want Sayuri to die any more than you do. I wouldn't have risked my neck saving her if I did. The thing you gotta remember is that she's a soldier just like you an' me. She knew the risks, and she accepted them. If she dies, she dies." The LAM released the PPC arm and stepped back a pace. "You gotta get your head in the fight, and think about what we need to do next to get off this mudball in one piece. You can't spend all your time worrying about one of your troops - even if they're friends of yours."

Akane closed her eyes. "Even if you love them...?"

Ranma blinked several times in embarassed silence. "_Especially_ if you love 'em," she finally replied.

Soun motioned with his Warhammer's PPC arm for the others to follow on ahead. Ukyou had point in her Hatchetman. Genma followed after in his Orion. Kasumi walked at a steady pace in her Victor while Yuka stumbled along clumsily in Doctor Tofu's Centurion. Ryouga walked drag in his blackened BattleMaster, the war machine that had brought the Black Rose Terror Regiment to its knees on Ryuugenzawa.

"I hate to admit this, Ranma," Akane said quietly on the air lance channel, where the others couldn't hear them. "But you're right."

The Super Phoenix Hawk LAM gave her an infuriating wave. "Glad to see you're finally making sense," Ranma said with a laugh.

"Thanks for being your old modest self, Ranma," Akane huffed. She started walking past him. The LAM made a deep bow for her.

"My pleasure," Ranma replied.

"You are a total jerk," Akane pointed out. "I just want to make it clear that even though I'm completely in love with you, you still manage to piss me off on a regular basis."

Ranma blushed at her fiancee's candid declaration of love. She tried, but couldn't find her voice.

"Let's go, Ranma," Akane said at length. "I'm getting a priority message from the Orochi bunker. Kuno's forces are about to land south of the bunker."

Ranma snapped back to attention. "Close?"

"Twenty-five kilometers is the estimation," Akane replied. "But it gets worse. The _Palomino_ didn't make it to the bunker. Their cooling system failed about five klicks short. They had to make a crash landing."

"Marvelous," Ranma snorted. "Give me the coordinates and I'm gone." The LAM transformed to its bird of prey Airmech Mode, and brandished its heavy pulselaser rifle. "Any unfriendlies giving them a hard time?"

"Two fighters," Akane replied. She would have said more, but Ranma was already blasting into the air to attack them. She watched her fiance transform to Fighter Mode on the fly, and the white shock wave of a sonic boom rolled out from the silver hull.

"Be careful, you jerk," she whispered to her.

Blue Thunder Regiment Drop Zone

Test Area North

16:25 Local Time

Tatewaki Kuno, Prince of the Furinkan Combine and would-be First Lord of the Star League, took his first steps onto Ryuugenzawa within the cockpit of his Thunderbolt battlemech. He was a man consumed with the idea that his destiny was at hand, the culmination of years of conquest and struggle. He looked to the stereographs of Akane Tendo and the Pigtailed Girl that graced his cockpit, sighing longingly for the time when he would be reunited with them.

"I am here, my loves," he said to himself. "Despair no longer; thy handsome prince is come to save thee from thy oafish captors."

He visualized for a moment the sight of Ranma Saotome and his father dangling from a gallows, their eyes bugging out of their sockets, and their tongues hanging limply from their purpling lips. Ah, to see those curs pay for their crimes against him... Hanging them was almost too good a death.

"News from the Fleet, milord," an aide called to him over the tac-net, interrupting his reverie.

"They have succeeded in destroying the cursed Orochi Network?" he replied absently. His mind was focused elsewhere.

"Yes, milord. Though they have suffered heavy casualties. All of the fleet's WarShips save the _Imperator_ have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair."

This caught his attention, and he arched an eyebrow in disbelief at what he had heard. "All save the _Imperator_?" he cried. So many irreplaceable ships! "Nay... The report must be in error. Consult with Captain Kyle and seek clarification at once!"

"At once, milord!"

He refused to be troubled by the news. Taking a moment to compose himself, he called up the tactical situation on his map display. The Commonwealth landing zones were vulnerable with the majority of their battlemech forces scattered across the various installations. His first task would be to hit them there.

Two of his battalions would attack, leaving the rest of his regiment to search out for the Confederation force's whereabouts. Nabiki Tendo had insisted that they were here, and for once he did not doubt her. The fact that his twisted sister was on this world was all the proof he needed.

"What news of my sister?" he asked his intelligence section while his mind was on the subject.

"Very little, my lord prince," a captain replied. "We have intercepted scattered signals indicating that the Commonwealth troops have routed them south of the starport, and are pursuing them back to their drop zone."

He weighed the idea of dispatching some of his fighters over to pay his sister a visit. It was tempting, but he was already short of air cover, having left over half of his fighters with the fleet to fight the Orochi network. Let the Commonwealth have their way with her for now...

"Hold two squadrons in reserve," he ordered. "Inform me at once if they should attempt to flee this world, and dispatch the reserve fighters to destroy them ere they escape the atmosphere."

"At once, my lord prince."

The aide returned to his display as he marched his Thunderbolt south to deal with the Commonwealth upstarts.

"My lord prince, Captain Kyle sends his regards."

"Speak, man! What news of the fleet?"

The aide was grave. "As before, milord. The Orochi network secondary satellites have all been destroyed. The primary satellite is in a decaying orbit, and is believed to be heavily damaged and non-operational. All combatant ships save the _Imperator_ have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Fighter and GunShip losses are over sixty percent..."

Tatewaki could not believe the reports. "Madness!" he cried. "Surely my captains were not so incompetent as to lose the entire battle fleet?"

"The transports are all intact, milord," the aide replied, knowing it was of little consolation.

"Damn the transports!" Tatewaki thundered. "My fleet is in ashes! The toil and treasure of two centuries spent in the sum of an hour!" He put a hand to his brow as tears of rage spilled down his cheeks. "O rash and bloody day!"

He punched at his command channel override, opening a direct link to all of his officers down to the lance and platoon levels.

"Thy orders are to attack the Commonwealth foe wherever he may be found," he said bitterly. "Let no one yield, nor any among you raise the cry for mercy upon them!" He swallowed back bile and clenched the controls of his battlemech before continuing. "I am aflame with the madness of war; so let one fire burn out by another's burning, and let one pain be lessened by another's anguish! Spare no one!"

His commanders responded as one voice, crying out for the blood of the Jusenkyo Commonwealth. Their shared wrath tempered his own hot rage, allowing him to clear his head sufficiently to think once again.

"Tell my servant that his labors are to commence," he called to the DropShip _Oda Nobunaga_.

"What shall we do with him, my lord?" the captain of his unmounted guard asked over the radio.

"Let the fool be made serviceable according to his folly," Tatewaki huffed. "By whatever means, he is to bring me victory and my two loves."

Hikaru himself appeared on the display a moment later. Lit candles were tucked into his headband, and dripped wax down upon his shoulders. His sunken eyes gleamed dully with excitement as he prepared one of his arcane formulae for use.

"I assure you, lord, that my assistance will provide very tangible effects for you," he said in a weedy voice.

"For thy sake, sorceror, I do hope so," Tatewaki replied coolly. "If I cannot have the cretinous ne'er-do-well, Ranma Saotome, mounted 'pon the prow of the noble _Imperator_, then perhaps the scion of the House of Gosunkugi will provide an acceptable substitute..."

With that, Tatewaki signed off, and his Thunderbolt marched away to do battle with the Commonwealth.

Hikaru Gosunkugi watched the Thunderbolt depart from the vantage of the flight deck. Most of the Furinkan Combine forces were leaving the drop zone to fight the Commonwealth, and he saw opportunities for escape, but to do so, his persistant shadows in the form of two Marines from the _Imperator_ would have to be dropped. He had an idea of how to go about doing that, but first he needed an idea of where he could go.He was not disappointed.

"Skipper," one of the Overlord Class DropShip's commo techs said over the cacophony of the flight deck.

"What is it?"

"I'm picking up some unidentified signals. I'm not entirely familiar with the protocol, but it appears to be old SLDF codes."

Hikaru raised an eyebrow at this. The Star League, here, after all these years? A glimmer of hope welled within him, for he had experienced a dream only the day previous of the eight pointed Cameron Star, a device that he aspired to one day as First Lord of the Star League. It seemed to be an omen, and listened carefully to the exchange on the flight deck.

The captain glanced over at the commo tech's board. "Get a DF fix?"

"I'm working on it, sir." The tech tapped at several keys. "I've got a rough fix, since it looks like direct UHF sat-comm signals, and those are mostly line-of-sight with a little leakage."

"Where?"

Hikaru watched as a computer-projection map of the surface appeared on the main display. The positions of the Blue Thunder regiment, the known or suspected positions of Commonwealth and Black Rose troops, and the source of the unknown signals were displayed. The signal source was relatively close.

"Send it down to the war room," the captain ordered. "Let them decide what they want to do about it. We're just the bus drivers, remember?"

Hikaru knew then that he had to find the source of those signals. It was a coincidence that could not be denied.

"I'm going to have to go outside," he told his handlers.

"What for?" the senior of the two Marines asked him.

Hikaru held up one of the spellbooks Kuno had provided him. It was an utterly useless fraud, but it was filled with arcane drawings and suitably alien babble words printed in all-capital letters in appropriate places. More than enough to fool the rubes.

"I need material components for the hex his Highness has demanded that I cast upon the Commonwealth forces," he replied shakily. The two Marines looked like they could break him in half over their knees.

"So?" the first Marine replied, unconvinced.

"S-So..." Hikaru stuttered. "I need fresh herbs and native soil from this world if it's going to work." He steeled himself. "You wouldn't want his Highness' spell to fail, would you?"

The two Marines gave each other flustered looks. On the one hand, they didn't believe Gosunkugi's occult crap, and on the other hand, their lord apparently did. They decided to play it safe.

"Sure," the senior of the two declared. "But if you think you can pull a fast one on us..."

Hikaru began to sweat. "I-I would never think such a thing," he gasped.

Test Area North

16:37 Local Time

_Where are you, Shampoo...?_ Mousse asked himself as his Crusader stalked through the forest in search of her. He was supposed to be searching for the source of the mystery communications signals, and found himself obsessed with idea that Shampoo was alive and somewhere on Ryuugenzawa instead. Though he had no rational explanation for it, he knew she was close. He could feel it in the tension that knotted his stomach and made his hands tremble on the controls of his battlemech.

He did not know what he would do or say when he found her. The anger that had consumed him after they had parted ways on the _Dragonfly_ had burned itself out. Part of him still wanted to gloat at her for what he had become, to make her feel the betrayal that he had suffered at her hands. Another part wanted to beg her forgiveness, and he cursed his weakness for even thinking it.

Shampoo did not love him, he knew that. He even accepted it, though it stabbed at him with a cruelty that only she could inspire. What he could not face was that he still loved her in spite of everything she had put him through.

If there was even one chance in a million that she would grow to love him someday, he knew that he would be foolish enough to take it. He knew that if she so much as batted her eyelashes at him, he would melt. It was infuriating, but he knew that he was so very weak-willed when it came to her.

The only solution to his dilemma, then, was to kill her.

One of them had to die, there could be no alternative. His pain would end one way or the other. True, killing her would make him miserable, but not killing her - having her go on tormenting him, or even worse, seeing her become General Herb's plaything - would be infinitely worse. Better to end it in one bitter moment of hell than to endure a torturous chipping away at his soul.

The flash of movement at the periphery of his vision ended his sullen woolgathering, and he brought his Crusader to halt within the cover of a thick copse of trees. Hanging vines glistening with afternoon rain obscured his vision just enough to be bothersome, but not enough to prevent him from seeing a Panther battlemech creeping through the woods in front of him and to his left. There was no doubt in his mind who the mechwarrior of that machine was, for he could see Shampoo in the sinuous way the Panther moved through the forest.

_Shampoo_...

Afraid that she would hear him even behind the armored walls of his cockpit, he flicked the arming switches on his two fifteen-rack long range and two six-rack short range missiles launchers. He brought the lasers up to power with another touch of his controls, and waited silently for her to move closer to him. He doubted that his missiles could penetrate the thick foliage without detonating prematurely, and he knew that he couldn't defeat her without them.

She moved as if she had noticed him, positioning herself to his left flank, where she could fire and then bolt before he could turn to respond. He knew her tactics in close quarters situations, and knew the capabilities of her chosen 'mech. He could expect the liberal use of her jump jets as well, though if he was lucky, he could use that to his advantage.

What he knew was most important, however, was that he could not surrender the initiative to her. As long as the pace of the fight was set by him, he could beat her. He had been beaten by her often enough in simulator duels past to know that much.

Keeping his torso facing away from her, he extended his left arm out to her and fired the medium laser and 20mm machinegun mounts in the forearm. The fire was unaimed, but lashed into the woods she used as cover close enough to make the Panther rise to its feet in a flash. The thin scream of Shampoo's jump jets echoed across the forest as she leapt into the sky.

He was ready for her, pivoting to bring his shoulder-mounted LRM racks to bear. The range was very short for the tube-launched missiles, and the dispersal pattern would be very narrow, but he fired nonetheless. The armored hatch covers sprang open with metallic rings, and the missiles began spurting from the tubes and into the air.

He watched as Shampoo twisted in midair to avoid the first volley of screaming missiles, only to catch the latter half of the second volley. Explosions obscured her from sight in firelit clouds of black, and white shockwaves of compressed moist air rolled from the impact points as she fell. He broke out of his cover to give his hip-mounted SRM launchers a clear shot, and aimed for the streamers of smoke concealing the falling Panther.

The SRMs hissed out of their launch tubes, slamming into the Panther as it touched down. More explosions rocked the forest, and for a moment Mousse saw the battlemech topple over through the smoke and flame. He revved his throttle, charging out of the trees to attack at close range, where her arm-mounted PPC would be least effective.

It was exhilarating to be able to attack her so easily, he realized. No pangs of conscience assailed him as he streamed laser fire into the woods where Shampoo had fallen. He had expected it to be hard, perhaps impossible to squeeze the trigger on her, but he was doing it.

The sixty-five ton Crusader leaped through the black clouds of smoke to find that Shampoo was gone, and the woods ripped apart where her Battlemech had crashed through them in a desperate attempt to escape. Her obvious panic stirred him further, making him laugh out loud. No longer was he under her heel! This was the freedom he had so desperately sought when he made his break with her on the _Dragonfly_, come to him at last in this moment of triumph!

Shampoo's hands worked the controls furiously, maneuvering at top speed through the forest as she ran damage control routines to contain the fires and outtages that assailed her Panther. She had been careless with this Musk Crusader, and he had taken her by surprise. She was hit badly, her battlemech functional but borderline, and she was in no shape to continue the fight on her enemy's terms.

At first she did not realize who her attacker was, but as she concentrated on where she went wrong in her ambush, she realized that there had been only one battlemech, painted white with grey trim. The same livery used by Mousse.

The realization made her stomach churn. Shampoo, the pride of the Joketsuzoku, had been nearly killed by a man, and a spineless, weak-willed, and half-blind fool like Mousse!

What was he doing out here, if not looking for me? she asked herself.

"Mousse," she called out over the Musk Dynasty frequencies. There was no response. On a whim, she switched to a commonly used Commonwealth frequency, and tried again.

"What is it, Shampoo?" Mousse replied. There was something dead in his voice as he spoke, though it was brimming with arrogance.

"Why have you come here, Mousse?" she found herself asking. "Why have you joined General Herb?"

There was pause before he spoke. "You know why I've joined the Musk Dynasty, Shampoo, and you know that I'm here to kill you. I'm only sorry that it has come to this."

"You won't find me easy prey," she returned shakily, and cut in her jump jets. She soared over the treetops, moving laterally to interrupt the obvious path she was making through the forest. He might hear her fire the jets, but he would have to guess which direction she would take.

"It won't matter," Mousse replied coldly. "The outcome will be the same."

He blames me for something he should have known about me all along, she realized. But perhaps he isn't entirely wrong in thinking that I'm responsible for his betrayal.

"I never wanted to hurt you, Mousse," she told him as she fired her jets to slow her fall for landing.

"No, you just wanted to use me for your own pleasure!" he retorted, anger rising in his voice where icy calm had reigned. "You preyed on my love for you to get what you wanted!"

_And I'm paying for it!_ she cried inwardly, nausea creeping into her belly and making her stomach curdle. She landed in a crouch to the right and well in front of Mousse, her PPC arm raised to fire as he blundered into range. The white Crusader did so a moment later, and she let fly with a bolt of lightning that ripped across his torso, tongues of plasma flame licking against the head armor and melting one of his commo aerials.

The act of shooting at him made her sick to her stomach, as if the child within her could sense that she was trying to murder its father and rebelling in the only way it could. The thought was nonsense; she was just projecting her own feelings of guilt into her baby, but the urge to vomit came strong enough to make her cup a hand to her mouth out of reflex.

The Crusader skidded to a halt and lurched in her direction as she gritted through her nausea and fired a second time, the particle bolt crashing with a thunderclap square into the thick torso armor, and leaving a long black scar in the once-pristine white.

Even as her second blast struck him, the Crusader was firing its SRM launchers. Twelve missiles corkscrewed across the short distance that separated them, detonating in the trees and exploding into the ground at her feet. The shockwaves buffeted her and filled the air with the whine of hot shrapnel. She was moving before he could correct his aim with a second volley, dashing to her left in a bid to outflank him and perhaps strike at his vulnerable rear armor.

Incredibly, he anticipated her move, rocking on his hips and making a diving leap at her with the right arm extended in a clothesline tackle that shook the forest with a terrible clash of metal on metal and the heavy thuds of a hundred tons of battlemech hitting the ground. Shampoo reeled in her seat straps from the double impact of forearm and ground, her head swimming dizzily as she tried to right herself.

Both battlemechs came up at the same time. Shampoo thought her Panther through a front kick that savaged the Crusader's head, while a brutal full-on punch to the breadbasket from Mousse smashed apart what little armor she had remaining in her center torso. Damage lights flicked on and alarms sounded in her ears as the four-rack SRM launcher malfunctioned. Though the Crusader toppled over once more from her blow, she was in no position to take advantage of it, as she was forced to repeatedly slam the ammunition dump button before the remaining eighty missiles in the magazine cooked off.

She righted the Panther clumsily, noting that her main gyro had also been hit, and drew up to her full height. Jumping was no longer an option for her - not with a damaged gyro in the middle of the forest - and she was no swifter than the Crusader which out-massed her by almost double. She had to fight it out here and now, and end this once and for all.

"It's over, Mousse," she said to him as she limped her Panther over to where the fallen Crusader lay. The head was crushed in at least half a meter over the right temple where her Panther's foot had connected, and it was possible that he was already dead from the force of the impact. She kept the PPC aimed at him nonetheless, and prepared to deal the finishing blow in an execution-style shot to the battlemech's forehead. Though her stomach churned and her bowels threatened mutiny, she was a daughter of the Joketsuzoku, and her will was master over the frailties of the flesh - or at least she tried to tell herself this as her finger trembled on the trigger.

The Crusader's hand came up with incredible speed before she could bring herself to fire - faster than she would have thought possible - and grabbed at the muzzle of the PPC. The powerful battle fist of the Crusader crushed the emitter aperture of the weapon with a squeal of tortured metal, and as she squeezed the firing trigger reflexively, the entire tube-like projector glowed white and exploded.

When she came to, her Panther was sprawled over the fallen and splintered trunks of several centuries-old trees. The entire right arm was gone, and a blackened smear of carbon encrusted what was left of her battlemech's torso. She still had main power, but one look at the reactor controls told her that she was leaking coolant badly, and close to a total and catastrophic shutdown.

The Crusader was thirty meters away, nearly laid out in a half-sitting position against a stand of trees. Smoke wafted from the torso and head, and she could see rents in the armor where the shrapnel from her exploding PPC had torn through. The right arm was missing from the elbow down, and red hydraulic fluid leaked from the burnt limb in a grisly imitation of arterial blood on the dirty white hull.

Cursing her carelessness once more, she wrenched at her controls to bring the Panther to a stand. The battlemech's myomer bundles groaned plaintively as they tried to comply, but the Panther would not move. A look at the flickering damage board told her why: the gyro had failed.

She wiped at the haze of smoke that wafted through her steaming hot cockpit. The cooling system was about to go next, and if she didn't shut down the fusion plant, she was going with it. Her hand swiped at the controls to do so, and she was relieved to hear the hollow droning of her failing powerplant shrink away to nothing.

She pulled herself up out of her ejector seat to the cockpit hatch, which had sprung partly open from the shock of her final impact with the ground. A tug on the handle opened it the rest of the way, and she eased herself out to the loamy wet soil. The smell of hot metal, ozone, and cut grass made for an overpowering sensation, one that she was not prepared for in her disoriented state. She fell over double and retched, then collapsed onto her hands and knees and heaved spasmodically until she sank against the crumpled armor plate of her Panther's head.

Test Area North

16:49 Local Time

Shinnosuke gripped Konatsu's shoulder as the thunderclap report of a particle cannon shook the woods. A second blast followed in rapid succession after the first, and then, moments later, a somewhat muffled explosion.

The two of them had been out searching for Shampoo, who had slinked away from the bunker without so much as a word of warning before she left. Tracking a 35-ton war machine was no difficult matter for a man who had lived his whole life in the forest.

"I heard," Konatsu breathed quietly. "We should be cautious."

Shinnosuke grunted agreement. His leg throbbed as he put weight on it, and his shoulder ached from the recent spear wound he had suffered, but these physical pains were nothing compared to the crippling boredom and feeling of helplessness he had felt waiting at the bunker. His world was under attack, and he wanted to make some contribution to its defense.

"Do you think it's the Furinkan Combine?" he asked the kunoichi.

"I don't know," Konatsu replied. "They landed close enough to be a threat, but there's also the Musk Dynasty to think about."

They continued on, Shinnosuke with his pushbroom and Konatsu with whatever weapons she had secreted on her person. The kunoichi was very pretty, and it pleased him to have her company. It almost dulled the ache he felt at knowing that Akane was in love with someone else.

They were travelling in a direction roughly in line with the sound of the particle beam blast, following the tracks Shampoo's Panther had made in the soft muddy ground. Silence filled the forest now, and the animals, fearful of the terrible goings on, remained in hiding at every turn. Shinnosuke, himself well attuned to the woods, shared their anxiety.

"I hear something," the kunoichi whispered softly as they crested a low tree-lined rise.

The two of them peeked over the rise to see a frail looking young man running away from two Furinkan Combine Marines, who yelled their demands that he stop at once or be shot.

"I think I recognize that man," Konatsu said quietly. "Unless I miss my guess, that's Hikaru Gosunkugi. The sunken eyes and the pallid skin are a dead giveaway for the entire Gosunkugi family."

"Who?" Shinnosuke asked. The name Gosunkugi sounded familiar from Grandfather's history lessons, but he did not make any connections.

"The heir to the League of Five Nails," Konatsu replied. "What is _he_ doing here, and as a prisoner of the Combine?"

"I don't know," Shinnosuke replied, gripping his pushbroom tightly. "But I do know when someone is in trouble and needs help." He scrabbled over the edge of the rise and made a limping sprint for the fleeing Hikaru.

Konatsu blinked twice in surprise before following after Shinnosuke. He took to the trees and began leaping from branch to branch in pursuit.

Hikaru Gosunkugi staggered up the wooded slope out of breath and out of time. The Marines were almost upon him, and if they had not shot him yet, they might well do so out of spite for throwing mud in their faces and then leading them on such a chase. With his lungs burning and limbs about to seize with exhaustion, he tripped over an exposed tree root and tumbled to the muddy ground. His books and scrolls spilled in his wake, their fragile pages floating to earth about him as he gasped for air.

This was it, he realized dully. They were going to kill him. If not here, then certainly at the order of Tatewaki Kuno when he returned in triumph from his conquest of Ryuugenzawa. He had failed in his bid for revenge and for the hand of Akane.

Where had his auguries gone wrong?

Still, though he was a coward and a weakling through and through, he vowed that just this once he would fight back with everything he had left within him. His hands dug furiously for the mallet and sack of namesake iron spikes with which he would use to sell his life dearly.

He pulled himself up into a stooping posture, the mallet gripped in his right hand and the spike in his left, and faced off against the Marines as they neared him.

"So... Who wants to die first?" he asked them between pants for breath, having always wanted to say something dire and witty like that when it really counted.

The Marines stopped short, and for a moment, Hikaru thought he had actually cowed them.

Then they started laughing the kind of cruel, heartless laugh that made Hikaru want to wet himself.

"You think we should we should break his legs, or just shoot him in the kneecaps?" the first Marine asked the second.

"As long as you're the one carrying him back to the drop zone, it's all the same to me," the second replied.

"Right," the first one said, twisting his head around to work the kinks out of his neck. "We break his legs..."

Hikaru threw himself at the Marine with a strangled cry of anguish and impotent rage before he could make good on his threat. The Marine turned the spike aside with a wrist lock, and wrenched him bodily into the air for extra altitude before throwing him straight down to the ground. As he lay trembling with pain and utter dread for the end, the Marine put his boot against the back of his neck.

"You gotta give the little guy credit for trying," he observed.

"That mean you ain't gonna break his legs?" the second Marine asked.

"Hell no. I just said that you gotta give him a little credit for trying," the first replied. He tapped Hikaru with his boot. "Not bad, you little twerp. Now I'm _really_ going to hurt you..."

"Don't mess him up too bad," the second Marine remarked. "His Highness'll probably want to nail 'im up to that cross again."

"I'll try to keep him in one piece," the first replied, spitting into his hands and drawing back to strike Hikaru with the butt of his rifle. "This is gonna hurt you a lot more than it's gonna hurt me..."

The blow never connected, as Shinnosuke leaped out of the nearby trees and swatted the marine across the bridge of his nose with the business end of his pushbroom. The Marine staggered backwards, spouting blood and curses, before tripping over the same exposed tree root that had been Hikaru's downfall earlier, and slamming his helmeted head against a rock. The armor might have spared his life, but not his consciousness.

The second Marine fumbled with his rifle as Shinnosuke landed, favoring his wounded leg, and thrust the pushbroom into his face. The mighty implement of good housekeeping connected solidly with his jaw and cold-cocked him. Konatsu sprang out of the trees a moment later, only to find that there was no one left to beat on.

He knelt over Hikaru instead, who was busy clutching his arms over his head and chanting a sutra for divine intervention. When no blows fell upon him, he stopped his chants, and looked up into the flashing eyes of a girl with long raven-black hair.

"Are you all right, my lord?" Konatsu asked him.

Hikaru's face reddened.

"I-I'm fine," he replied. She was beautiful! He turned to see Shinnosuke relieving the two Combine Marines of their weapons. The Cameron Star of the SLDF was embroidered in silver and white on his black homespun jacket.

"The Star League..." he gasped in awe. The omen of his dream had come true!

Shinnosuke met his gaze with a slow shake of his head. "I'm not Star League," he replied. "Not anymore. I'm just a janitor and a handyman now, and not even that for much longer."

"My companion and I will see you to safety," Konatsu added softly, wanting to spare Shinnosuke any further grief. "Although I must admit that even our position on this world is tenuous."

"Who are you people, then?" Hikaru asked. "If you aren't Star League."

Konatsu helped him to his feet. "We're with the Confederation, under the command of Grand Duke Soun Tendo and his daughter, Lady Akane."

Confederation! Hikaru could hardly contain his glee. Akane!

"Lead the way," he told them after gathering up his scattered occult materials.

_Thank you, O Gods above and below!_

Shampoo saw him standing there wearing indigo robes in place of his regular white, his long fall of blue-black hair mussed and spilling carelessly over his shoulders. The thick pair of glasses that was his trademark perched on his brow, a crack running across the middle of one lens. His face was a mask of indifference, though she could feel the tension radiating from him.

"Hello, Mousse..." she said quietly.

He watched her for several moments, his jaw taut and his blue eyes hard and distant.

"Shampoo," he replied. The way he said her name was both mournful and full of regret. She noticed the long, straight-bladed sword he carried in his hand for the first time as it came up silently to caress the underside of her chin. The steel of the blade was as cold to the touch as the feel of his eyes upon her.

"If you're here to kill me, Mousse, be quick about it," she managed. For the last six months she had known humiliation, hardship, and defeat, and now she simply did not care anymore. Death would at least grant her the release from pain she had been unable to earn through success. "To tell you the truth, I want to die. Kill me, and be done with this."

He grunted in affirmation, and lifted the sword from her chin. The blade came back to a point above his shoulder, from which he could bring it down swiftly and cut her head from her neck.

The sword whistled down at her, and she dropped her eyes to the ground. She did not want Mousse to be the last thing she saw in life. She felt a pang of conscience for her unborn child, but argued with herself in that last moment that this was for the best.

She felt the icy blade touch her neck and made a final gasp.

But death did not come for her.

The sword remained where it had stopped, the thin edge of the steel just biting into her flesh. She looked up to see Mousse's sword arm trembling, and his eyes wet with tears.

"Don't say it," he moaned. "I already know that I'm a fool and a weakling. I can't bring myself to kill you, Shampoo, even though it's the thing I want most in the world right now."

He let the sword fall from her shoulder and drop point first into the dirt. The hilt dangled limply in his hand for a moment, then slipped from his numb fingers.

"Go," he said to her, turning away. "To hell, or back to Jusenkyo, I don't care. Just get out of my life forever."

Shampoo wiped at the blood that trickled down her neck and looked at it for a moment. Then she eyed the sword that lay there on the ground at her feet. Finally, she looked at Mousse's vulnerable back.

"Congratulations," she said ruefully to him.

He turned around, his face twisting into a rictus of anger.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded in choked voice.

She picked up the sword and brought the tip to his chest just a hair to the left of his sternum and over his heart. He did not flinch as the blade pressed into the folds of his robes to rest directly against his flesh.

"You finally resisted me," she replied dully, keeping the tension of the blade against his body as she spoke. "You finally refused me something."

He blinked at her in confusion.

"Shampoo...?"

Her violet eyes flashed at him. "And I hate you for it, Mousse. The one time you resist me is the one time I wanted you to obey me more than anything. I despise you, Mousse!" She leaned on the blade, which tore the fabric of his robes and dug into his flesh, the steel grating on the edge of his sternum with a metallic ring. He did not move, did not attempt in any way to prevent her from plunging the sword straight through his heart.

She too, stopped short of dealing a fatal wound. She ached to kill him, to use him as the object of her revenge for everything that had gone wrong in her life, from the things he was responsible for to the things he was innocent of doing. The stabs of conscience would not allow it, but they did little to soften her heart in that agonizing moment of decision.

"I want you to go on living with my hate, Mousse," she whispered in a trembling voice, tears running down her cheeks in hot streaks. "I want you to know that if I survive this day; if I should return to Jusenkyo; that I will dedicate my life and the life of our child to destroying the Musk Dynasty and any who stand with it."

Mousse's eyes opened, and he looked at her in awe.

"That's right, Mousse," she confirmed for him. "I'm pregnant with your baby. One more reason I have to hate you." She let the sword drop at his feet the way he had done with her. "I swear to you that I will raise her to hate her father with every fiber of her being."

She stepped back from the weapon. "This is your last chance, Mousse. Pick up that sword and do what you should have done the first time. Harden your heart against me because I do not love you, and if you should spare me a second time, know that I will be the cause of more pain and suffering in your life than anything you've ever known before."

He looked down at the wound in his chest, felt the darker spot on his dark robes where his blood soaked the fabric, and then let his gaze fall upon Shampoo.

"I can't kill you, Shampoo, and even if I could, I can't kill my own child," he said at length. "If one day, she rises up against me, even then I couldn't lift a hand to stop her." He recovered the sword from the ground and made it disappear within the folds of his robe. "We shall continue as nothing more than holes in each other's hearts until then."

He turned and started for his Crusader, head high, unbowed. He did not say goodbye. He did not look back.

Musk Dynasty Headquarters Company

Ian Cameron Starport

17:12 Local Time

Mechwarrior General Herb watched as another lance of Furinkan Combine battlemechs assaulted his position at the starport. Brilliant green tracer balls arced across the sky, the criss-crossing of laser beams filled the air with an electric glow, and the screams of the wounded and the dying went unheard on the tac-net over the roar of cannon fire and the teeth-rattling explosions from falling 'mechs. It was mechanized slaughter, and no one was exempt.

The Combine 'mechs attacked with a desire to annihilate his troops that bordered on the fanatical. Clearly, General Prince Kuno had ordered his men to give no quarter, for he had witnessed several of the Combine 'mechs shooting out the cockpits of fallen Musk units even while taking fire. The ferocity of the Combine's attacks had driven his own troops to such acts of barbarism and bloodlust that he secretly feared that he would be unable to control them.

A wave of missile fire stopped the Combine advance in its tracks, and as supporting bolts of particle beam and laser fire tore into them, he could see that, at least for the moment, his position was not threatened. This was of little comfort to the hybrid general, for he knew that Kuno had more troops, and they were fresher than his own, who had been fighting the Black Rose Terror Regiment all afternoon.

He took the pause in the fighting to assess his situation. Reports from low orbit seemed to indicate that the Orochi network had been neutralized. That Kuno's warfleet was in shambles was only of small consolation. All it meant in the final analysis was that neither side truly controlled system space, and that he would not have to fear continued orbital bombardment.

It also meant that he could withdraw unhindered from the system, if necessary. He was no coward, but a cold and calculating tactician. Continued battle over the ruins of the Star League proving grounds was useless in the short term.

It was time to pull back from the starport and cede it to Kuno - at least for the moment. He would need to harass the Combine prince to ensure that he did not profit from the ruins, but at the same time, it was foolish to remain where he was. That Kuno's regiments were not heavily supported by aerospace fighters as they pressed the attack gave him hope for a successful counter-attack. It was possible that the prince had held most of his fighter assets in space to fight the Orochi, and had lost them in the battle.

He punched up his adjutant on the command channel, and gave the word to fall back by company to the Drop Zones. Let Kuno have the muddy ruins for now, and see how useless and untenable the position ultimately was in the struggle for possession of the planet

North of the ruins of Ryuugenzawa City

17:05 Local Time

The smoking wreck of a MAD-3R Marauder lay sprawled out across the torn green carpet of grass at the edge of the forest. Well behind it, the ruins of the ancient colony town burned itself out under thick plumes of grey smoke. The scattered bits of armor and shattered technology of a dozen 'mechs lay strewn around the Marauder.

The cockpit hatch came open slowly, and a slender black gloved hand reached out into the open air. Kodachi Kuno wriggled clear of her 'mech, pulling herself wearily to her stiletto-heeled feet. In spite of what she had been through, she looked remarkably unhurt. Only her tousled hair and her bitter sneer betrayed her defeat.

She looked around the clearing for a sign of one of her troops. There were none. None, at least, that were intact. The BattleMaster in the service of that witch, Akane Tendo, had destroyed them all.

She called out Tarou's name, wanting him close. That she needed him in that moment to comfort her, she did not think too much about. Hers was a primal urge, an instinctual desire that had nothing to do with sex in that moment, and might have been considered genuine affection if one believed that Kodachi Kuno was capable of such emotions.

He did not reply, and something within her cringed in misery. She was alone, again. As always.

The wreck of the Locust belonging to the mercenary, Happousai, was a burned out husk as she walked past it. The heat had been so intense that the remaining armor had sagged, half-melted, from parts of the frame. Even now, it was too hot to approach closely, and she worried about lingering radioactivity leaking from its sundered fusion plant.

She continued on, picking her away around the jetsom that littered the battlefield, in search of Tarou. When she found what may have been the remains of his Hunchback, a hand came up reflexively to her lips, and she gasped in horror at the sight. The battlemech looked as if it had been pounded into a misshapen lump of metal - probably at the hands of the cursed BattleMaster pilot, Ryouga.

A tear welled in the corner of either eye as she looked over the slagged wreck of the Hunchback. The turret-shaped head was crushed beyond recognition, and the torso battered and torn open to reveal the shattered innards. Hydraulic and other fluids dripped in long lines of green, brown, and red from the wounds, and soaked into the muddy ground in stinking pools.

She called out his name once more.

And was answered.

She ran to the sound of his voice, brushing past fallen trees, her black PVC maillot fortunately resisting the snags of the branches. He was dangling by parachute straps from the forest canopy, his clothing torn and stained with sap and dried blood. A lock of his hair was matted in clots that ran from an oozing cut on his scalp.

His look of condescension, however, remained intact.

"Missed me, did you?" he said in a mocking tone.

She tapped a foot imperiously as she looked at him. "I had written you off for dead," she replied. "Perhaps I should let you hang there until the birds pick you clean."

"No need," he replied, and tugged at his harness releases. He tumbled to the ground, managing to land on his feet.

She eyed him for a moment. "You chose to hang there just to make me feel sympathy for you," she accused. "Didn't you."

Tarou brushed himself off. "I did no such thing," he retorted, giving her an evil look that made her shiver with desire. "I only just came to at the sound of your voice."

Her lips curled up into a crooked smile. "How touching," she harrumphed, but it was clear by her shifting stance that she was getting hot and bothered by his withering arrogance.

He stepped up to her, looking down at her as she feigned indifference. He knew better from her by now.

"Would you care to know how I escaped?" he asked.

"Hardly," she sniffed. "Why should I be bothered in the least with the escapades of my underlings?"

Her retort caught him off guard, but he managed to retaliate with a particularly devastating sneer that made Kodachi weak in the knees. She feigned a swoon, falling into his arms in such a way as to press her ample bosom into his chest.

"Unhand me, you peasant," she cooed to him.

"Never," he replied. His hands fell around her waist instead.

Much later, Tarou stood up and stretched out his arms. A sheen of sweat made his skin glow in the fading afternoon light. The fighting seemed to be in another world at that moment.

Kodachi curled up in his lap with a contented grin on her face.

"It's quite strange," she remarked. "By all rights, I should be furious right now."

"And you aren't?" Tarou asked her.

She stroked his bare inner thigh with a finger. "I am," she replied. "And yet I am not."

"You're distracted," he observed.

"Perhaps," she sighed. "But I find this distraction pleasant enough to take my mind from other things."

Tarou grunted something under his breath.

"What is it, lover mine?" Kodachi asked him sweetly.

He looked down at her, his scowl freshened by a thought.

"I've fallen for you, haven't I," he said coolly.

"As have I," she replied, kissing his knee. "Ghastly, isn't it?"

"Quite," Tarou returned.

"We should return to the _Thorn_, assuming that it's still here," Kodachi said after a pause to kiss her lover. "My Marauder is still functional to some small degree, but I'm afraid that we have lost this battle."

Tarou scowled again. "Damn that Ryouga Hibiki," he growled. "I should have known better than to think I could have dealt with him."

Kodachi gave him an earnest look of affection. "We escape, my love, to plot anew." She rose then, pulling him to his feet. "We shall rebuild the regiment, and make it a plague upon all who have crossed us."

Tarou arched an eyebrow at her.

"Of course," Kodachi continued. "I shall have to find a place for you now that your battlemech is destroyed. My personal towel boy, perhaps."

"Or your executive officer," he suggested darkly.

She kissed him again. "You can work your way up from Towel Boy while I secure for you another 'mech," she told him with a chuckle. "I'd consider it a blessing to be rid of such a hideous looking thing as that Hunchback, really."

Tarou opened his mouth to rebuke her, but remained silent. His lost battlemech had been an heirloom from his family, but now he saw it as little more than psychic baggage from another time. He would always hate the Cult of Azusa, would always nurse a grudge for the Commonwealth witch doctors who had given him his Jusenkyo body, and could now add Ryouga Hibiki to his long list of enemies, but with his old mech destroyed, he also saw the opportunity to start his life anew.

Perhaps this was the direction his life was meant to take, doing things his way and for himself, and with a woman who appreciated such things by his side.

Perhaps this was the path to the happiness and fulfillment that had been long denied him.

The two lovers walked back to the smoldering Marauder together, hand in hand.

The DropShip _Palomino_

Five kilometers east of the Orochi Bunker

17:03 Local Time

Ranma Saotome could see two fighters from the Musk Dynasty making cautious high-altitude passes over the swath of destruction carved intothe forest by the Leopard Class DropShip as it hit the ground. The ship itself seemed intact, though it was obvious that the repairs had not held. Their transport off the planet was apparently not going anywhere any time soon.

The fighters reacted to her presence by making a high-speed run for the horizon, surprising her. She had been spoiling for another fight, and their sudden departure disappointed her. She watched the fighters for several moments to make certain they were leaving, then dropped altitude and glided in Airmech Mode towards the DropShip.

Ranma scanned through the radio channels looking for something that wasn't scrambled, and would perhaps shed some light on what was going on. There was nothing except some jabbering in Chinese, which she didn't understand in the slightest, and some encrypted burst commos that could only be coming from the Combine. From the anxious tones of the speakers, however, it seemed as if the tables had turned on the Musk Dynasty.

She kept an eye on her radar warning indicator for a moment to make sure they weren't going to try and sneak up on her, then set herself to the task of landing at the DropShip.

The _Palomino_ looked like hell, its port side scarred with weapon hits, including a nasty scorched hole over the aft end that must have been the _coup de grace_ for the ship.

"Anyone alive down there?" she called over the radio.

"We're okay, Captain Saotome," Tad replied.

"What happened?"

"We lost the cooling system again. I think -"

Tad's voice was replaced by that of Captain Grant.

"Saotome, this is Grant. Where is the rest of Red Lance?"

Ranma rolled her eyes at the captain's intrusion. "They're on their way. I just came ahead because I heard you were having trouble with some Musk fighters."

"We appreciate it," Grant replied. Ranma couldn't tell by his tone. "We're about to make our way to the bunker in the trucks, and could use an escort."

Ranma blinked in surprise at the news.

"You're abandoning the ship?"

"The batteries won't hold out for another hour. After that, we're just a big helpless target. We really have no choice."

"Understood," Ranma replied. So much for getting the 'mechs off the planet.

The DropShip _Palomino_

17:25 Local Time

The rest of Red Lance appeared, a narrow line of battlemechs, most of them heavily scarred with action. Kasumi's Victor was near the head of the file, and cradled in its left hand were Doctor Tofu and Sayuri. Akane and Soun moved their Warhammers aside to allow the Victor quick access to the ship.

Ranma was waiting for them with Tad and two of the _Dragonfly_'s cooks. They had the entirety of Tofu's Sick Bay apparatus with them, as the crippled DropShip no longer had power to run lights or any of the life support equipment.

Kasumi knelt the Victor carefully, and allowed Tofu and his patient to be handed off to the ground.

Ranma's eyes met Tofu's as they huddled over the stricken pilot.

"She gonna make it?" she asked him.

Tofu snapped off his bloody latex gloves and slipped on a fresh pair offered by Tad.

"I don't know. She needs surgery, and at the moment, the facilities for it aren't available," he replied. "I'll do my best."

"You might be better off taking her to the Orochi bunker," Ranma suggested. "They have power, and you'll have a roof over your head."

"I was thinking the same thing myself," Tofu agreed.

Kasumi climbed down from the Victor, and Yuka appeared from the Centurion that Tofu had piloted earlier. Both appeared shaken but calm.

"I'll assist where I can," Kasumi offered.

"The same here," Yuka added.

Tofu nodded wearily as Sayuri was placed on a stretcher and carried to the open Cargo Bay door where one of the six-by-six trucks was being readied by one of Akari's techs. "Yuka can stay," he said at length. He looked at Kasumi then, and his heart turned somersaults. "Ka-Kasumi... I-I think your sister will need you in your 'mech." It was easier to tell her that than it was to tell her that he might be too shaky and nervous performing surgery with her around. He felt like a total ass around her as it stood.

She seemed to sense this, and bowed respectfully for him. "Of course, Doctor. I understand."

"We better get a move on, Doc," the tech said to him as he watched her return to her father and Commander Saotome.

"Yes. Yes, you're right," Tofu replied. He wanted to have Kasumi near, but not at the cost of Sayuri's life.

Ranma excused herself when it appeared that Tofu had all the help he could use. The ground from the DropShip to the bunker was fairly level and clear, so she wasn't worried about them taking too long to travel the five kilometers to the bunker. She turned to the blackened mass of Ryouga's BattleMaster, and wondered why the moron inside hadn't popped his canopy to join everyone else.

Akari wondered the same thing. The shock of seeing the BattleMaster in such bad shape made her heart twist in knots, both out of empathy for the battlemech, and for the man she loved who commanded it.

"Ryouga...?" she called up to the starred canopy.

"He hasn't come down yet?" Ranma asked Akari.

"No," she replied, trying to remain stoic when it looked like she was going to break down at any moment. "He hasn't."

Ranma risked the jagged metal and started to climb the blackened hull. "I'll go see what's up. Don't you worry. It'll take more than this -" She gestured to the ruined armor around them. "- To take out Ryouga Hibiki."

Ukyou walked up to them. "I hope so, Ran-chan, because I can't get him to answer on the commo."

That revelation gave Ranma pause, but she refused to be daunted by it. "He didn't seem to be in any trouble on the way here," she replied. "Besides, the way this thing's shot up, I wouldn't be surprised if his commo system fritzed out." With that, she continued her climb up the ragged hull.

When she reached the cockpit, it became perfectly obvious why Ryouga hadn't joined the others or answered his radio. She gave him a sly grin and tapped on the canopy.

"Hey, Ryouga," Ranma said to him. "Put some clothes on, for God's sake! What are you, some kinda pervert?"

Ryouga Hibiki was already beet red, so the remark could do little more than add a little purple to his complexion. His hands shot to his groin, covering himself with his neurohelmet as best as he could.

"This isn't funny, Ranma!" he snarled.

Ranma worked open the manual canopy release.

"What are you so worked up about?" she teased. "It's not like I haven't seen a guy naked before."

"You're a girl right now!" Ryouga growled. "It's... It's a little weird being looked at by a girl like this..."

Ranma rolled her eyes. "Do I even want to ask why you don't have any clothes on right now?"

"No," Ryouga snapped.

"Fair enough," Ranma said with a shrug. She spied the heavy armored case in the rear seat. "So that's what Tarou wanted? That's the library core?"

Ryouga nodded, his face a twisted mask of shame and fear as Akari called to him from below.

"Happousai found it in the ruins," he said in a low voice. "He was going to keep it for himself, and use it to buy his way off the planet in case we failed to escape. When I found about it, he nearly killed me. Changing into a pig was the only thing that saved my life."

Akari called out his name once more, Ukyou joined in, and then a third voice was heard.

"What's going on up there?" Akane demanded. "Ranma!? Ryouga!?"

"I'm doomed..." Ryouga lamented. "If they see me like this... I'll... I'll die!"

Ranma chuckled. "I've got a better idea." She unstrapped the library core and hefted it out of the seat. She then placed it atop the battlemech's torso before returning her attention to the cockpit.

"What kind of plan is this?" Ryouga demanded.

Ranma leaned over his lap, making him cover up again with an anguished grunt of surprise as her chest brushed against his. She took the water tube used for drinking and refilling cooling vests and pointed it at Ryouga's face.

"Oh, no you don't," Ryouga managed when he realized what she was going to do.

Ranma opened the valve, splashing Ryouga with cold water before he could launch her out of the cockpit.

"Think of it this way," she said to the angrily squealing pig. "This will be the second time today that your piggy alter-ego will end up saving your bacon."

She snatched him up by the bandanna and leaned out of the cockpit to look down on the three women.

"Heads up!" she cried, and dropped Ryouga.

The pig squealed in terror all the way down into Akane's arms.

"P-chan!?" she cried in surprise. "How did you get up there?"

"Ryouga took the pig with him?" Ukyou chirped. "As a good luck charm or something?"

Akane shrugged. "I guess so." P-chan uttered a tiny squeal of dismay.

"Where is Ryouga?" Akari called up, disappointment in her voice.

"He wasn't up here," Ranma replied. "It was just the pig. He must have needed to take a leak or something, and split before we could all assemble." She looked around the cockpit for a moment before calling down to them again. "Anyone got some rope? About twenty meters of it should do the trick."

"For what?" Akane returned, stroking her pet pig behind the ears. Ryouga seemed to have let his anger pass, at least for the moment, in Akane's care.

"To get this library core down. We're gonna want to put this case somewhere real safe. It might be the only thing of value we get off this mudball."

Genma stalked over as she shouted down to them, accompanied by Grand Duke Tendo.

"Send that thing down here, Ranma," Genma called to her.

"I was tryin' to do that, old man!" she returned.

"So it's true?" Soun asked. "There is such a thing?"

Ranma nodded. "Happousai seemed to think so."

The mention of that name made the Duke turn pale.

"Speaking of the Master," Genma said uneasily. "Has anyone seen him?"

"He went down in flames, from what I saw," Ranma replied. "I didn't see it happen, but I saw the Locust, and it was a total write-off."

Soun and Genma looked at each other for a moment. Both men nodded solemnly, then began to dance a jig.

"Oh happy day!" Soun cried, tears flowing down his face.

"Farewell, Master!" Genma sobbed with mock sorrow. "We'll miss you!"

"Death in battle," Soun blubbered. "It's what he always wanted..."

Genma gave his friend a crosswise look, his expression sober and guarded.

"I always thought he said that he wanted to die of exhaustion in a cathouse..."

Soun returned the look.

"Who cares, Saotome, so long as he's dead?"

The two nodded solemnly again and began issuing hallelujahs and waving their hands in the air like a Southern Baptist revival.

Ranma rolled her eyes at the two. "Keep doing stuff like that, and the old freak'll return from the dead just to spite you."

Soun made the demon-warding gesture while Genma clutched his hands to his face in a passable impression of The Scream.

"Don't say such things!" the Duke admonished him.

"What's gotten into you, boy?" Genma added. "Have you lost your mind?"

Ranma ignored them, and climbed down the BattleMaster to join the three girls.

"Grant says the _Palomino_ is down for the count," she told Akane.

"I know," she replied evenly. She inclined her head towards the Senior Technician. "Akari told me."

"We need to get off this mudball, and soon," Ranma went on. "Even without the 'mechs, so long as we have the library core, we win."

Akane's expression hardened, surprising Ranma. "This isn't a game, Ranma. It's not about winning or losing."

"Oh yeah?" she retorted. "Then tell me what this is all about? Are we here for our health? The fresh air?"

Ukyou put up her hands in a calming gesture. The way Ranma and Akane could go from calm to incindiery was unnerving to her. "Easy there, Ran-chan."

"There are hundreds of innocent people on this planet!" Akane shot back. "People who have nothing to do with the Succession Wars, and whose lives are in danger now because we came here!"

Ranma realized where she was going with this. "You can't be serious," she returned. "You think we can afford to fight both the Musk Dynasty and Prince Kuno's armies?" She waved her hands to the motley assortment of battlemechs in their possession. "With this?"

"I know that!" Akane cried angrily. "I understand how impossible that would be! What I'm trying to say is that I don't approve of the way you're looking at all of this. We aren't 'winning' anything here. We're just escaping with our own lives!"

Ranma started to say something in rebuttal, but held her tongue. Akane watched her for a moment in tense silence.

"I know," Ranma finally said. "I hate the situation we're in." She looked to the Phoenix Hawk LAM, scored with weapon hits and yet still fully functional. "I don't want to give up anything we have right now. Not after we paid so much for it. Getting the library core off the planet with us will be a victory we really deserve."

"We need a DropShip for that," Ukyou put in. "What are the odds that we can steal one?"

Ranma and Akane gave her surprised looks.

"Ucchan, that's brilliant!" Ranma cried approvingly.

"It's more like suicide," Akane retorted. She then gave a shrug. "Still, it might work. We need to get to the bunker and find out what's going on tactically."

Ranma nodded her head in agreement. "Sounds like a plan. Let's get everything we can off the _Palomino_ and then mount up for the bunker." She took the pig from Akane's arms. "Come on, P-chan, let's get you cleaned up."

"Ranma!" Akane shrieked. "What are you -?" She let it drop as it appeared that P-chan was not offering his usual protestations to Ranma's handling. Had her beloved pet finally warmed to her beloved fiance?

"That was weird," Ukyou said, mirroring her mind. "Since when did the pig ever put up with Ranchan?"

"Never mind that," Akari said mournfully. "What happened to Ryouga?"

"Is it much farther?" Hikaru whined. Tromping through the woods like this was killing him. He failed to notice that Shinnosuke kept up the pace in spite of the fact that he had reopened the wound in his leg, and that his trousers were getting soaked with blood.

"Not much farther," Shinnosuke replied, biting down on the pain.

Konatsu leapt down from the trees as he spoke. "Trouble," he hissed. "Battlemechs approaching."

The three of them squatted down in the brush as the heavy thump of metalshod feet echoed through the forest. The chirr and cry of birds went silent.

"How many?" Shinnosuke asked.

Konatsu's eyes flashed with anxiety for him, making him gasp involuntarily. To Shinnosuke, the kunoichi had become terribly beautiful to behold over the past few hours. Perhaps it was a reaction to his disappointment at discovering Akane's love for Ranma, or perhaps it was because he knew the chances of them getting killed were very high, and he didn't want to die alone.

"Two. Both of them Commonwealth as far as I could tell," Konatsu replied.

The sound of the battlemechs grew in intensity, shaking the trees and making the ground thump beneath them. A thin scream of dread began to shrill from Hikaru's throat before Konatsu and Shinnosuke both clamped hands over his mouth. The surprise contact of bare skin between the two made Shinnosuke shudder with delight, and he forgot all about the huge 80 ton Awesome that stomped past them with scant meters to spare.

"Mother!" Hikaru squeaked from beneath the two hands.

"Shhhh!" Konatsu hissed.

An Assassin loped past a moment later, catching up to the lumbering mass of the hulking Awesome with ease.

"Definitely Commonwealth," Konatsu declared. "We should warn the bunker."

Shampoo watched as Mousse walked back to his Crusader. She was furious with him, and yet she felt a touch of pride in the fact that even in his treason to the clan, he had become a man she could respect. He was no longer a slave to her, no longer the spineless weakling she had despised for years.

Nausea still wracked her as she followed him with her eyes. It had to be the baby, she usually recovered from falls sooner than this. She placed a hand to her belly, willing the tiny child within her to leave well enough alone. It was silly to think that at this stage, a child as tiny and undeveloped as hers could be expected to obey her mother, but she did so anyway. The baby was a child of the Joketsuzoku, and she would learn the discipline and obedience to her elders that her mother had failed to learn herself.

"Farewell, Mousse," she said quietly to him.

Mousse forced himself not to look back at Shampoo. He was beyond her as much as he was beyond redemption. There was nothing for him now, and not even General Herb's new order for the Commonwealth held anything for him.

His daughter... Shampoo was carrying his child!

It was his dream to make Shampoo his bride and to start a family with her, a dream he had cherished most of his life. Now there was a child between them, but no love. There was only resentment and hate, and a vow to turn that child against her father.

The weariness he felt at that was nearly total. It took an effort of pure will to continue walking away from her, when what he really wanted to do was lay down and die. Vengeance held nothing for him, it was a hollow desire whose empty promises had been revealed to him in their entirety in his confrontation with Shampoo.

As he plodded dully over the torn ground that separated his battlemech from the fallen Panther, he searched for something, anything, to motivate him. The distant rumble of clashing 'mechs to the south caught his ear, and he turned his head towards the sound. The sight of Shampoo standing in the distance at the corner of his vision made him wince inwardly, but he had his answer.

There was only battle for him now. Battle against the Furinkan Combine, and though he had no reason to believe it, to him it already seemed a lost cause. His Crusader was still operational, though it was missing most of its right arm. It would serve him long enough to fight his enemies and earn the valiant fall in combat that had also been the dream of a young boy growing up in the shadow of great warriors.

It was the last dream he could hope to achieve, the others being crushed under cruel heel of fortune.

The voice of Mint addressing him came down as the other heel.

"A question for you, Mechwarrior Colonel," Mint said in a mocking tone.

Mousse turned to see the hated lieutenant of General Herb peering at him from a tree limb. His Assassin battlemech stood nearby, its armored hull obscured by clinging vines that hung from the verdant woods.

"Why is it that you have not destroyed an enemy of the Musk Dynasty who stood helpless before your wrath?" Mint continued, his voice tight with barely concealed glee.

Mousse swept back his hair, a gesture meant to give him the opportunity to search for Lime without drawing attention to the fact. He did not see him.

"She poses no more threat to us," he replied. "Her battlemech is destroyed."

"I can see that," Mint returned, his voice retaining that manic edge that made Mousse wary of a surprise attack. "I regret that I just missed the battle between the two of you. It might have been interesting to see exactly how devoted you were to the task."

Mousse's hands dropped into the folds of his robes, a gesture whose significance was not lost upon Mint, who raised a suspicious eyebrow at him.

"General Herb sent you," he said to Mint. "Tell me why."

Mint laughed at his question. "You already know why, _Colonel_. Don't attempt to patronize me."

He dropped down from the tree limb, landing silently before Mousse. There was a considerable difference in height between them, though Mint seemed unconcerned by this.

"But if you must know, my orders were to locate you," he added dryly. "If I were to find you in the presence of Shampoo, I was to arrest you, and bring you to the General."

A moment passed with neither man moving or speaking. The sound of footsteps well behind Mousse made him tense with wariness. It had to be Lime.

"Of course you should know," Mint continued coolly. "My orders were to kill Shampoo on sight."

Mousse tried not to let his surprise show. Herb would order her death?

Mint leered at him. "You were not expecting that?"

Mousse pushed past him roughly in reply, and started walking towards his Crusader. Mint backed away with a sadistic grin on his face.

"What are you doing, Colonel?" he asked Mousse.

"I am going to confer with General Herb. If these orders are true, then I won't stop you from carrying them out."

"I don't think so, Colonel," Mint said brusquely. "You're under arrest, remember? It wouldn't do to have you mounting up in your battlemech."

Mousse stopped several paces short of the war machine. He turned his head back to regard Mint, the blue of his eyes frosting into deeply damask'd steel, and causing the diminutive henchman of General Herb tofreeze up in spite of himself.

"Stop me."

Mint shrugged off the glamour of Mousse's unfeeling eyes and leaped at him with a shriek, his twin serpentine-bladed knives flashing in the dappled sunlight of the ravaged forest clearing. There would be no mercy in this - he had been looking forward to having an excuse to kill the pureblood upstart ever since Herb had given the order to look for him. He cleared the distance between them in an instant, his daggers slashing madly into the depths of flowing indigo robes as Mousse whirled to face him.

It was like striking at shadows.

He ducked low to evade a counterattack that never came, screaming for Lime to assist, and then leaped at Mousse again. The daggers ripped into the dark robes once more to no effect.

As he tried a third time to cut Mousse down, a flash and roar blinded his eyes and filled his ears with terrible noise as Mousse produced a long curved sword, drawing it up from his tattered robes and igniting the butane jet-torch that made flames lick along the entire length of the blade. The flaming sword caught him above the hip-point of the pelvis with the ring of steel on bone, and then carved cruelly up through his ribcage until it cleaved through his clavicle and rang smartly off his jaw. He was too surprised to cry out in pain, his lips flapping open and his numbing limbs flailing against the sheer heat that assailed him as the ground loomed ever closer.

His last thoughts were only that he would miss the sight of his general in her exquisite female body.

Mint fell to the mossy ground, his entrails spilling at the base of the Crusader's scorched white hull, and his hair catching fire. He squirmed once, gasped out what Mousse supposed was a final yet unrecognizable curse, and then died with a wet rattle. Mousse regarded him for a moment as the flames began their slow and steady work of reducing him to ash.

There wasn't much time for introspection, however, as Lime's blood-curdling cry of rage carried over Shampoo's cry of warning. He turned and saw her waving her arms frantically from across the clearing, and knew that she had tried. Strength flowed through his arms at this, an enormous upwelling of power and courage where before there had only been the adrenaline madness of hatred to guide his stroke. Lime charged across the clearing at him with a huge thick-bladed glaive in both hands that resembled nothing so much as a gigantic kitchen cleaver.

Mousse met his charge at a run, his flaming sword held high and trailing hot sparks behind it.

They met in the center of the clearing with an earsplitting clash of metal on metal. Lime's greater mass carried him through the charge, driving Mousse to the ground flat on his back, half-stunned.

The Musk hybrid snarled out an incoherent curse for Mousse as he chopped with the glaive at the dark-haired mechwarrior's knees. Mousse coiled up tight at the strike, narrowly avoiding the heavy blade as it dug into the soft ground. He sprang from his coil with a shout, kicking at Lime's hands in an attempt to disarm him.

Lime absorbed the kick as if he hadn't even felt the blow, recovering his glaive and again chopping down at Mousse, who managed to roll frantically clear. The hybrid mechwarrior roared a curse, his tiger blood running hot and thick in his veins, and attacked with even more ferocity.

Mousse dodged another blow from the glaive, only to take a backhanded return strike from the hardwood handle and reel once more to the ground. Lime stepped up to hack him apart, bringing the glaive down at his head.

Feeling his own terrible madness flowing through him, Mousse parried the blow aside, and left his humungous assailant with a face full of pepper spray produced from the depths of his sleeves. The sneak attack gave him the chance to drag himself away from the gagging and choking Lime. When he was clear of the blindly slashing strokes of the glaive, he pulled himself upright and raised his flaming sword once again to attack.

"I will not allow you to harm Shampoo," he snarled at Lime. "I don't care what happens to me at this point, whether I live or die, but I will NOT ALLOW you to hurt her."

Lime wiped at the thick line of drool and snot that dribbled down his lip. The pepper spray should have kept him out of the fight long enough for Mousse to cut him down, but Lime was already starting to fight it off.

"Traitor," Lime spat hatefully at him. "First to Cologne's whores and then to us!" He spat a thick wad of mucous on the ground between them. "You are an enemy even to yourself, traitor, and I mean to make sure that you pay for killing Mint."

Lime's words stung more than his blows, all the more so because they rang of truth. He was an enemy to himself; and had been one his entire life. Was it any surprise then that his life should come to such a miserable and bloody end?

They fell upon each other then with furious ringing blows. Sparks flashed from their clashing blades and the heat of the flames made their strivings hazy and indistinct, as if watching them through a mirage. Lime's strength was the greater in this dire contest, but Mousse was fighting for the only cause that had ever mattered in his life, and his sword turned the heavy glaive aside again and again even as it sought out his enemy's heart.

The final blows fell, and for a moment it seemed as if both men would die, for the blood of each was spilled onto the mossy ground.

Lime stumbled backwards dumbly as his chest spurted forth frothy waves of blood that sizzled where they quenched the flames ignited in his clothes. His glaive came up in a clumsy attempt to beat out the fires, then fell from his weakening fingers to plunge blunted-tip first into the muddy ground. He fell to his knees, still bleeding out in thick pulses from the horrible trench carved across his sternum, and gave a final hateful scowl to Mousse before toppling slowly backwards in death.

Mousse fell to his knees as well, the flaming sword sputtering out as his grip on it weakened. He was singed from the heat of the flames, and the bitter truth of the battle's end was that Lime had scored as well, though not with such fatal results. He did not realize that he was shaking until a hand fell upon his shoulder to steady him.

He raised his singed brow to see Shampoo standing over him, her hand supporting him against the faint that threatened to take him.

"I don't want your pity," he managed for her. "Or your thanks. I did it to save our daughter."

She did not reply, but her hand never wavered from his shoulder.

"I meant that, Shampoo," he rasped. "Let me go. I have one more task left to me; a task I cannot shirk."

He rose, shrugging off her hand, and started walking towards his Crusader once again. The smell of burnt flesh made him wince, as did the pain that tingled through the wound in his side.

"What do you plan on doing, Mousse?" Shampoo demanded of him. "Are you off to kill General Herb now?"

"Lime was right," Mousse responded, not looking back at her. To do so would cause his will to crumble, and he would not show his weakness to her again. "I am an enemy to everyone, including myself. Killing Herb will at least be some atonement for the wrongs I've done and the betrayals I've committed."

"You can't hope to defeat Herb in your condition," Shampoo asserted. "And your Crusader is only slightly less of a wreck than my Panther. What do you think you'll accomplish other than a futile death?"

Mousse climbed unsteadily up the armored torso to the hatch of his Crusader. Blood dripped freely from his side where the tattered indigo fabric of his robes were soaked through with it. When he reached the hatch, he finally turned back to Shampoo. She was so beautiful to him, so lovely and beloved, that he could not look at her without feeling the pangs of heartache rend him apart. She was forever denied to him, by her own choice.

"Perhaps a futile death is all that I deserve," he said to her.

With that he dropped through the hatch and sealed it tight.

Shampoo put herself well clear of the Crusader as it struggled upright. The damage was extensive, yet mostly to the armor. Aside from the amputated right forearm, and the medium laser and machinegun mounts it had contained, the 'mech was essentially fully armed. All four of the missile systems appeared intact, and that was what Mousse would need against Herb and his bodyguards.

Still, it was suicide, and she knew it as well as he did.

The Crusader took a moment to orient itself, then it began to stomp towards the south, and its fateful duel with the leader of the Musk Dynasty. She watched it go in silence for a moment, before finally clenching a fist in anger at him.

"Idiot!" she shouted at him. "I know what you're trying to do, Mousse, and I will not let you hang your death on me!"

She made a quick circle of the clearing before spying the Assassin that had once belonged to Mint. She would have preferred the massive triple-PPC carrying Awesome over the awkward looking medium-light Assassin in combat, but there was no way she could catch up to Mousse in such a slow and ungainly 'mech.

"Shampoo!"

The voice made her spin around, and she saw the spatula girl's pet kunoichi running from the trees towards her. The local boy, Shinnosuke, trailed along behind him, and bringing up the rear looked like... it couldn't be... There was no way a Gosunkugi could be here, could there?

"Shampoo!" Konatsu cried again. "What happened? Are you all right?"

"I fine!" she huffed, having no time for chit-chat. "You go now! Shampoo have thing to do!"

"What thing?" Shinnosuke gasped between pants for breath. "Aren't you hurt?"

Shampoo ignored him, and ran for the Assassin battlemech. She hoped that Mint had left it idling, as she did not have the time to go through a pre-startup on a battlemech with which she had very little familiarity.

"Hey!" Konatsu cried after her.

"You go back to bunker!" she yelled back. "Shampoo no have time to explain!"

She climbed up the battlemech and pulled herself through the hatch. Mint's neurohelmet rested on the ejector seat, and the steady thrum of the reactor reassured her. The harsh voices over the Musk tac-net indicated to her that the day's fighting had turned from certain victory to a protracted slugfest against the Furinkan Combine.

She thumbed through the commo presets for the command channel, and was rewarded with the sound of General Herb issuing orders to his troops. Mousse might not prevail against the Musk general, but he might give her an opening to use.

The Assassin lurched forward. It was a little heavier than her Panther had been, but the weight was distributed differently around its frame. It would take all the time she had before she caught up with Mousse to adjust to the motion.

Shinnosuke and Konatsu watched the battlemech stomp off into the forest while Hikaru gasped for breath.

"Where does she think she's going?" he asked Konatsu.

The kunoichi offered an apologetic shrug. "I don't know, but wherever it is, things are going to get hot." He scanned the sky for the sun, which was sinking in the west. "It's going to be dark in a couple of hours," he said in his breathy falsetto. "We need to return to the bunker."

"C-Can't we wait a few more minutes?" Hikaru gulped. The oracles had said nothing about a marathon today...

"Let's go," Shinnosuke replied. The stench of the burning corpses was beginning to get thick.

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

19 June 3025, 17:26 Local Time

"This is it," Shinnosuke said to Hikaru, who stumbled along behind them, gasping for breath.

The sight of the Red Lance battlemechs and their pilots standing outside the ancient Star League facility gave them pause. Where was the DropShip?

"Ukyou dearest!" Konatsu called out to his beloved mechwarrior. She turned at the sound of his voice and waved, drawing the attention of the others.

"Where the heck have you been?" she demanded of him.

"Chasing Shampoo, sir," Konatsu confessed. Shinnosuke hobbled up to them, half-dragging the exhausted Hikaru Gosunkugi with him.

"Oh my word, Shinnosuke!" Akane cried upon seeing the caretaker. "Your leg!"

"It's nothing," he replied, trying to brush it off. "I'll be all right."

"Who's this guy?" Ukyou asked, pointing at Hikaru. "A Combine P.O.W.?"

Hikaru's lips flapped open and shut like a fish out of his bowl.

"His Excellency, Hikaru Gosunkugi of the League of Five Nails," Konatsu replied when it became clear that Hikaru was too winded to speak. "From what we were able to get out of him, he's been a prisoner of Prince Kuno for awhile. He escaped from his handlers, and we ran into him in the woods."

Hikaru offered a weak wave of his hand.

Akane grabbed Ranma by the arm. "Help them, already, Ranma!" she demanded. "Get the two of them inside to see Doctor Tofu."

Hikaru made a giddy sighing noise at being so well thought of by Akane, and he sagged against Shinnosuke a little more. Thoughts of curses and hexes on Ranma Saotome were far from his mind, though he realized dimly that his theories of Ranma and Kuno's enigmatic Pig-Tailed Girl being the same person were probably right on the mark. He uttered a gleeful yet weak cackle at the idea of Kuno being unknowingly infatuated with his hated rival.

Ranma, on the other hand, threw up her hands with a huff. "I wanted to hear about what happened to Shampoo first!"

"It's complicated, Captain Saotome," Konatsu answered for her. "We tracked her south for awhile before coming across the wreck of her Panther. She was okay, but there was some kind of fight on the ground outside of the 'mechs, and before we could get any answers from her, she was off chasing a Musk Crusader in a captured Assassin. There is still an Awesome out there unclaimed, if you think we should send someone for it."

"Chasing the Crusader?" Akane asked. "But why?"

"She seemed to know the man," Konatsu replied in his breathy falsetto. "It's funny, but in spite of what we saw, I don't think that she was betraying us to the Musk."

"I hope not," Ranma groused. "Because she can lead them right to us."

"Weren't _you_ the one who thought she should have a 'mech?" Ukyou pointed out.

"Yeah," she admitted. "But it doesn't matter how loyal she is to us if she gets captured and forced to talk." She steadied the swaying Hikaru Gosunkugi and led him towards the armored door. "You gonna make it all right, Shinnosuke?"

The SLDF caretaker made an affirmative grunt. "I'll be right behind you." He offered Akane a gentle smile before following them inside.

Ukyou looked to Konatsu. "No more heroics, okay, honey?" she admonished him. "I'm not going to stand for you getting killed today."

Konatsu offered a weak blush in reply.

Akari dabbled ointment on Ryouga's nose, where he had been injured as a pig trying to claw his way out of the twisted rubble of the quonset hut Happousai had brought down on him. Thanks to Ranma getting him out of Akane's hands and into the _Palomino_'s head, he was able to change back into a human with no one being the wiser, and his spare tunic and trousers were right next door in berthing. Now he was in Akari's care within the bunker, and for a moment the concerns of battle and their escape from this world were put aside.

"You don't know how happy I am to know that you're all right," she continued. "When I saw what had happened to the BattleMaster, I -" She let the words hand between them for a moment. Ryouga's face began to bloom with heat.

"I know," he said softly. "I'm sorry if I frightened you."

She brushed at his sweat-matted hair.

"You mean the world to me, Ryouga dearest," she said softly to him.

He managed to meet her eyes. "I-I could say the same about you," he managed lamely. He loved her with all his heart, and she knew it, but even with all of that between them, it was still hard sometimes for him to say it to her.

Instead he took her hand in his and brought it up to his chin, where he nuzzled it softly. "We're almost home," he told her.

"I love you, Ryouga," she replied.

He squeezed her hand. "I love you, Akari," he said, marvelling at how easily the words spilled from his lips. He seized the sudden courage that welled up within him, and told her what he had been aching to tell her since his return from the fighting. "I love you with all my heart."

"I know," she whispered, pressing her face into his shoulder. A sob escaped her lips. "We're so close to getting out of here, and yet we're still in so much danger. I just want to be with you for the rest of our lives, that I'm afraid something will happen, and then-"

"Nothing's going to happen, Akari," he assured her, though he was wracked with hidden doubts. "I won't let anything come between us. Ranma and the others are working on a plan to get us a DropShip, and we still have the _Coronet_ and the _Tautog_ up in orbit. If we have to leave the 'mechs behind, we'll do that, but we're getting out of here, I promise."

"It's meatball surgery, but it'll hold until we can get her up into orbit and a real medical facility," Doctor Tofu Ono proclaimed. Sayuri lay unconscious on a table in the dining area of the bunker, surrounded by the crews of the _Dragonfly_ and _Palomino_, as well as some of Shogun Kuno's retinue.

Yuka wiped at her runny nose with a sterile cloth. "Thank you, doctor," she gushed.

"Just doing my job," he replied, spying Kasumi coming through the doors from the stairwell. "If you'll please excuse me." He made his way over to the first born Tendo daughter.

"How is she?" Kasumi asked him.

"She'll make it," he replied. His jauntiness wavered as he continued to speak. "Kasumi, I'm... I'm sorry about the way I b-brushed you off at the _Palomino_. You deserved better from me."

Kasumi put a hand to her lips. "You were doing your job, Doctor. I can't fault that."

He nodded weakly. It was settled between them, and yet he still felt like an ass.

She gave him a demure smile. "I came down to tell you how grateful I am for taking care of my sister on the expedition," she said to him. "And for helping her and Ranma work things out with each other. Father's ecstatic about it."

He began to blush. "Th-That's me," he said a little too loudly. "Tofu Ono, professional matchmaker!"

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, paralyzing him with joy. "Please don't think me too forward, Doctor," she said to him. "But I never got the chance to do this before you left Nerima."

Tofu made a high pitched squeak in reply, articulate words being beyond his present faculties.

"Aloha, bruddah!" a voice called to Hikaru Gosunkugi. He turned and saw the Shogun of the Furinkan Combine looming over him in the recreation room, a pineapple-shaped mug of what Hikaru could only guess was rum punch in his hand. What in blue blazes was _he_ doing here? He began to question the accuracy of his divinations once more.

"Fancy meeting you here, eh, brah?" the Shogun continued.

Hikaru felt himself being pulled bodily from the chair in which he slumped. The Shogun pressed the pineapple mug into his hand.

"Have a drink, bruddah," the Shogun advised. "We gonna start de limbo contest soon. Da Duke, he gonna be down here too!" Steel slide guitar and bongo drums began to play in the background as the musicians warmed up and beefy Polynesian men in red and gold loincloths began to limber up.

Hikaru took a weary glance around the room. Akane was here somewhere, he knew. He took a fortifying sip from the rum punch, amazed that the Shogun could manage to keep the stuff in stock for his perpetual luau. The hula girl he recognized from the Maui Atoll on New Hawaii slipped up to his side and whispered something in his ear. He didn't speak Hawaiian, but it sounded like a good idea, whatever it was.

The Shogun gave him a wink and a hearty thumbs up.

He looked around once more. For a situation that looked pretty grim, the Confederation people were filled with optimism. The Shogun himself didn't seem to have a care in the world; a concept that Hikaru found vaguely liberating.

Perhaps Shogun Kuno was on to something.

Ranma offered a tired sigh as Akane settled down against the wall of the bunker next to her.

"What now?" she asked her fiancee.

"There's still a lot of fighting going on to the south," Akane replied. "Not much activity from the Black Rose landing zone. The _Coronet_ isn't answering hails, and neither is the _Tautog_. I just hope they weren't destroyed."

"What about us getting put of here?"

Akane slipped her hand into Ranma's. "I don't know. Without the ships in orbit, we're stuck. I'm almost tempted to try and steal that DropShip."

"It's crazy," Ranma conceded. "Maybe if one of the landing zones was getting overrun we could slip the _Palomino_ crew in during the confusion, but that kind of coordination is too big a problem to pull off without practicing for it."

"So I guess we wait it out here until we hear from one of the ships in orbit, or until the winner of the battle between Kuno and the Musk Dynasty comes for us," Akane replied.

"I guess so," Ranma agreed.

Akane gave Ranma's hand a squeeze. "If it ends like that, I'm glad that I'll be with you."

Ranma turned and gave her a sanguine look. "It ain't gonna come to that," she declared. "I ain't losing you to Tatewaki Kuno. Period." She returned the squeeze. "Not without a fight that'll see either him or me dead."

"I don't want you to die, Ranma," she told him. "Not even to save me. I've already gone through that once with you on this planet, and believe me, I don't want to go through it again."

Ranma's look softened. She hadn't thought about what Akane must have been going through after their disastrous introduction to Ryuugenzawa. She had been half-crazy looking for Akane, and she had known that her fiancee had survived. At the time, Akane had nothing to go on for her fiance's survival but hope. Now that she knew how much Akane loved her, she could understand what Akane must have endured in those lonely hours after touching down.

"I won't die," Ranma replied. "I wouldn't give that Combine jerkoff the satisfaction."

Akane laughed in spite of herself.

"Please don't," she said, and hugged Ranma fiercely. Ranma returned her embrace, pausing only to kiss Akane's brow gently.

Grand Duke Soun Tendo watched his youngest daughter kiss Ranma Saotome firmly on the lips and smiled. It was a little disconcerting to see them kiss when they were both female at the time, but to see them do anything more than shout at each other was a miracle, as far as he was concerned.

"What did I tell you, Tendo," Genma said with a clap on his shoulder. "Get them together for the trip, and let the danger and excitement of the mission bring them closer to each other."

"Since when did you become a genius, Saotome?" Soun retorted with a good natured smile.

"I've always been a genius," Genma asserted. "You were just too jealous to notice."

"Yes, well, you're too modest," Soun grunted. He turned away from the tender moment his daughter and future son-in-law were having, and walked Genma back towards the open door of the bunker.

"Forgive me for not mentioning it sooner, Saotome," Soun went on. "But I forgot to tell you about a special guest of mine, who unfortunately ended up accompanying us to Ryuugenzawa."

Genma raised an eyebrow at this. "Oh?"

Soun coughed into his hand. "Your wife is here on the planet," he said to him. "She's down inside the bunker right now, I expect."

Genma's jaw dropped to his chest.

"Nodoka!?" he gasped. "She's HERE? NOW?"

"Don't thank me all at once," Soun sniffed. "You could sound more exicted about the prospect of seeing a woman you haven't been around for almost seventeen years." His voice took on a cold tone of reproach that even Genma did not miss.

"I can explain, Tendo," he managed.

"The matter is between you and your wife," Soun returned. "It's none of my business."

Genma nodded solemnly. "Does the boy know yet?"

Soun shook his head. "Unless Kasumi told him, I haven't had the chance to yet. She's a good woman, Saotome. She wants desperately to see her son, and yet she knows that with the fighting still going on, that she will probably have to wait."

"She's gotta keep waiting!" Genma cried nervously. "Tendo, if ever I was your friend, promise me something!"

It was Soun's turn to raise an eyebrow at him. "What is it, Saotome?"

Genma took his friend by the shoulders. "Do _NOT_ tell my son that she's here!" he pleaded.

Soun shook him off. "Why in God's name not?" he demanded. "Really, Saotome, what's the matter with you?"

Genma's expression was grave. "Trust me, Tendo, It's a matter of life and death!"

Blue Thunder Regimental Headquarters Company

North of Ian Cameron Starport

17:34 Local Time

"A pox on them all!" Tatewaki snarled as he watched the Commonwealth troops continue their withdrawal back to the landing zones. If only more of his fighter assets had survived the assault on the Orochi Network, he could crush them utterly!

"My lord Prince," his divisional Operations Officer, Colonel Singh, called to him.

"Speak, man!" Tatewaki barked in reply.

"The Fifth and Eighth Sword of Thunder Regiments have arrived at their objectives. The starport area is secure."

It was news of hollow import. So long as the Commonwealth troops remained in force and organized, his hold on the Star League facilities was tenuous. The Commonwealth commander must have realized that when he ordered a withdrawal.

"Hath thy reconnaisance section detected the departure of any DropShips?" he asked.

"No, my lord," Singh replied. "All indications point toward the Commonwealth forces withdrawing to a defensive cordon within two kilometers of their drop zones. No retreat off-world has been detected."

"They test my resolve," Tatewaki said to himself. "Unthinking, these curs bring forth the very impetus for their own destruction... Very well then! Order my Fifth Sword of Thunder regiment to commence probing attacks on the heathen Commonwealth perimeter."

"At once, my lord Prince!"

Tatewaki turned his attention to other, more important matters. Akane Tendo was somewhere on this world, and he had to find her. He did not believe that she had fallen captive to the Commonwealth troops, for even the most doltish commander would have realized her value as a bargaining chip, and offered terms to him for her.

Nor did he believe that what remained of his damnable sister's troops to the east had her either, for Kodachi would have offered the same by now. He would have to finish the job the Commonwealth had started, for he did not feel comfortable with even a diminished Black Rose regiment on his flank. That task he left to his mixed units of armor and mechanized infantry, supported by his remaining close air support.

Still, a certain caution was in order. His sister had slipped her leash on him before.

"Singh," he called to his operations officer.

"Yes, my lord Prince?"

"Dispatch two companies from the Eighth Sword of Thunder to my sister's positions east of the starport. Have them offer quarter." It was foolish of them to expect it in light of the mass executions of Black Rose officers the last time they surrendered, but Tatewaki was a stickler for formalities, and if his sister should be slain in the ensuing battle, at least his alibi to the Daimyo would be in place.

"And if they refuse to surrender, my lord?" Singh asked, his tone of voice suggesting that he understood exactly where his prince was going with this line of action.

"Annihilate them," Tatewaki replied coldly. He was still smarting from the loss of his starfleet, and his sister had already exhausted the last reserve of his good graces.

With that settled, he maneuvered his Thunderbolt northwest, towards the Commonwealth drop zones. Once the intelligence data from his probing actions had indicated the defenders' soft spot, he would personally lead the charge that would obliterate them.

_Soon, Akane Tendo, you shall be mine. Once my enemies are slain, nothing shall hinder me in my search. I shall tear apart this planet if I must to uncover your hiding place_...

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

Planet Ryuugenzawa, Ryuugenzawa System

19 June 3025, 18:26 Local Time

Lieutenant Davidge rubbed at the bridge of his nose wearily. With the network down, he was forced to communicate separately with every remaining satellite in orbit if he wanted an idea of what was happening up there. It was painstaking work, and it was made worse by the cascading damage inflicted by high-speed debris falling from upper orbit. Many of the satellites were non-functional, forcing him to retask other birds to cover the affected areas and almost certainly expose them to damage.

"Any luck?" Malloy asked him.

"Unless the big guy restarts its telemetry, I don't see how I can come up with a plot on it."

"What about the _Coronet_ and the _Tautog_?"

Davidge wiped away a bead of sweat. "The _Tautog_'s on the other side of the planet right now. It won't be back on our side for another hour. I haven't heard anything from the _Coronet_."

Several of the displays came to life abruptly as he said this.

"Hello!" he cried. He plunked down in his chair as Commander Malloy looked on.

"Is it the Orochi?"

Davidge scanned the text. "Looks like it." His fingers tapped several keys. "I have telemetry data. I'm going to see if I can request a status report."

The displays danced and jumped as fresh information posted itself.

"The big bugger has shifted over to a 'safe' mode," he replied. "If I remember correctly, that means no main drive use, and no weapons."

"Sounds good to me," Malloy observed.

Davidge wasn't so sure. "There's something really wacky going on here. I keep getting this weird protocol that's preempting all of the unit's functions." He pushed off with his chair to roll across the room to the stack of aging binders and technical manuals that explained the network and its components.

He sifted through them at a rapid pace, searching for an answer, and tearing more than one fragile page from its bindings. As the other ex-_Dragonfly_ crew looked on, he slammed his finger down on a page and started reading.

"It's some kind of emergency protocol," he began, his finger tracing along the lines of text as he read.

"Is it searching for drydock?" Malloy asked.

"I don't think so," Davidge said in a clipped voice. "In fact, I think this could be extraordinarily bad..."

"Define 'extraordinarily bad,' lieutenant," Malloy ordered, his voice dropping an octave.

Davidge checked a cross-reference in the manual before replying. What he found did nothing to reassure him.

"It means, sir, that we are in deep shit."

Ranma, Shinnosuke, Ryouga, and Akane followed after Grand Duke Tendo and Genma Saotome as they hurried down the stairs to the Orochi bunker control room. Whatever Commander Malloy had to tell them, judging by the urgency in his voice, it couldn't be good.

"What's up?" Ranma asked Akane as they reached the bottom of the steps.

"I wish I knew," she replied.

Commander Malloy and Lieutenant Davidge were ready for them as they stepped through the doors.

"We have a serious problem with the Orochi," Malloy began.

"I thought that Prince Kuno's fleet had dealt with it," the Duke pointed out.

"Apparently not well enough, your Grace," Malloy replied. "I'll let the lieutenant explain."

Davidge gestured to several displays, where the words 'FADED GIANT' flashed in red in the top righthand corner of each monitor.

"The primary Orochi unit has initiated a highest-priority protocol," he said to them. "You can see it there flashing on the monitors."

"Faded giant?" Ranma asked for all of them. "What the heck is that supposed to mean?"

Davidge gave them sobering looks.

"It means that under specific command guidance, the Orochi network is programmed to destroy the Star League facilities here in order to prevent them from being captured. It was probably a protocol that Kerensky would have insisted on shortly before the Council of Lords sacked him from command, as a way to prevent the Great Houses from seizing SLDF assets in the event of civil unrest."

He pointed to several displays full of garbage. "It's not supposed to be something that the Orochi can decide on its own," he went on. "You have to tell it to initiate the protocol, and you have to have the command access to do it; something that's impossible to get at the moment. Somehow, during the big firefight up in orbit with the Combine, the Orochi glitched out. When it restored function to itself, it ended up stuck in this 'faded giant' protocol."

"So what does this mean for us?" Ryouga asked.

"It means that the Orochi has adjusted its orbit to put it on a direct impact with the Star League Proving Grounds. Given a mass of almost half a million tons, and a current velocity of twelve kilometers per second, it's going to hit our particular piece of real estate in about fifty-eight minutes, give or take a minute or two."

"Fifty-eight minutes?" Ryouga gulped. "We have less than an hour?"

Davidge offered a weak shrug. "Give or a take a few minutes."

Akane raised her hand slightly to speak. "Do I even want to know how hard it will hit?"

"This is just an estimate," the astrogator hedged. "But if this thing actually hits the planet - and it looks like it will - it'll be like a few thousand nukes all going off at once."

An assortment of gasps and curses filled the room.

"Are you serious?" Akane cried.

Davidge nodded ruefully. "The armored hull will protect it from the heat of reentry, so almost all of the satellite should make it to the ground. The energy released will be somewhere in the range of eight-thousand to ten-thousand megatons of exploding TNT," he replied. "It'll make a crater five or six klicks in diameter at the very least, and the blast will probably kill everything within a few hundred kilometers. It won't be enough to wipe out all life on the planet or cause some kind of global catastrophe, but it'll still suck to be us when it happens..."

"It seems that a rapid evacuation would be in order then," Duke Tendo observed solemnly. "We'll have to ferry people in the shuttles to the _Tautog_ and _Coronet_ as quickly as possible. Keep trying to raise them on the commo, Commander Malloy."

"It's not that simple, Dad!" Akane retorted. She looked to Shinnosuke for a moment, who stood with his mouth open in mute horror. "There are hundreds of people who call this world home, and most of them live within a hundred kilometers of this bunker. They won't have time to flee! Their lives will be snuffed out if we don't do something to stop the Orochi!"

"What can we do?" Ranma returned, earning a hot look from Akane. She continued on in the face of her fiancee's glare. "It ain't like there's anything any of us can do to stop a gigantic satellite from crashing into the planet!"

Genma and Soun exchanged looks. The Duke offered a brief nod in reply to the question that passed unspoken between them.

"There may be something we can do," Genma observed uneasily.

Ranma looked to her father. "Like what?" she asked incredulously. "Spit on it? Ask it real nicely to change its trajectory and hit the open ocean instead of us?"

"Not exactly," Genma replied. "Excuse me for a moment."

Ranma watched her father go. "Wait up!" she cried. "Hey Pop!"

She chased after him, leaving the rest of the assembled party to themselves. Akane looked after Ranma as she charged out of the doors to follow her father.

"Dad," she broached uneasily. "This isn't what I think it is, is it?" She had pondered this very option herself, before she had learned of her family's arrival on Ryuugenzawa, though not for this reason.

Soun nodded gravely. "It is," he replied.

Her eyes widened. "Then that means that Ranma will be the one to..."

Soun nodded again. "Yes. He will. His LAM is the only thing that can reach the Orochi in time to do something."

Akane clutched her arms to herself as the others looked on in puzzlement and concern.

As Genma Saotome made his way up the stairs from the control room, he spied an attractive middle-aged woman standing next to the Heir to the League of Five Nails and the well-tanned Shogun of the Furinkan Combine, and cringed. It had been years since he had seen his wife, but she had changed very little over that span of time. Remarkably, she had kept her good looks, and he felt a pang of regret for letting them go to waste the way he had.

He did not dare face her at that moment however - not with Ranma in his girl body - and so he doused himself with a splash of water from his canteen, becoming a panda before she spied him. Ranma followed through the door after him, still demanding to know what his big plan was. He hoped like hell that his son was telling the truth when he said that he had forgotten what his mother looked like. There wasn't time to steer him away from her - certainly without drawing the attention that he wished to avoid.

"What gives, old man? What's with the circus act all of a sudden?!" she demanded, trying to collar him with a hand on his wet fur. He could tell by the incredulous look on his son's face that she was going to press the issue of why he had decided to change into his panda body, and that was definitely an issue he was unwilling to address where Nodoka might overhear.

Shut up and follow me, he signed to his son. You want answers, you'll get them, but not here.

Ranma threw up her hands and made a sound that was half growl, half shriek. She walked past Nodoka without recognizing her long lost mother, feeling instead only a weird sense of knowing her, but not from where. Genma was escaping up the stairs to one of the storage rooms as she pondered the strange woman, and so she was forced to chase after him.

"Wait up, ya old coot!"

Nodoka Saotome watched the interaction between the huge furry black and white beast and the boisterous and very unladylike red-haired girl in the silver and white pressure suit, and frowned to herself. There was something peculiar about the way the beast shambled along, something that was oddly familiar. She couldn't quite place it.

The girl was equally enigmatic. Nodoka couldn't help but feel that she knew her, and at the same time, she was so unusual that she should have remembered any such encounter in the past. They were gone before she could confront them, though, and she turned her attention back to the Shogun, who was asking her if she wanted to dance.

"I'm terribly sorry, your Eminence," she demurred. "I'm afraid I don't feel quite up to dancing at the moment."

The Shogun was easy about it. "No problem, wahine." He made a gesture to the door Genma and Ranma had taken. "De Duke, he no say nothing about no circus acts when we get here. Dis is a war zone, yah?"

Nodoka shrugged uneasily. "I'm afraid that when it comes to battles and such, my knowledge of these things is rather limited."

She cast a final look to the door, hoping to see the girl again. She wanted to know why she seemed so familiar...

Genma poured a flask of hot water over himself once they were in the storage room, returning to his human form.

"So what's with the quick change act?" Ranma demanded.

"My change was an accident," Genma replied, not caring if Ranma actually believed it. He gestured to a packing crate, where a large cylindrical device rested within. "The answer you seek lies over there."

"What the heck is going on?" She took another look. "Hey, waitaminute," she muttered ominously. She recognized the crate from the trip over from the _Palomino_. The techs had been very, very careful when handling it. "That isn't what I think it is..." She gave him a narrow-eyed glare. "Is it?"

"It's a thermonuclear weapon," Genma confirmed in a deadpan voice.

Ranma Saotome eyed the thing sitting before her within its reinforced packing crate. She had never seen one up close. Ever, in fact. The closest she had come to such things had been the Tendo Armory deep within the mountain at Azure Cloud Castle.

"This is your big plan?" she asked her father warily. "We're gonna nuke the Orochi before it can reach the atmosphere and cream us?"

Genma nodded.

Ranma looked the weapon over once more. She did not like where her old man was going with this.

"So how big a bang are we talking here? Twenty, maybe fifty kilotons?"

Genma cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"One megaton," he replied.

Ranma choked. Her eyes rolled around in their sockets, and she began to twitch as if her head were about to explode. Veins bulged at her temples, and she made a strangled noise before her brain regained its grip on her paralyzed speech center.

"Are you out of your mind, Pop!?" she yelled, grabbing him by the throat and bobbing his head back and forth. "One MEGATON!? You gotta be kidding me! What the hell was Grand Duke Tendo thinking when he gave you a ONE MEGATON THERMONUCLEAR BOMB!?"

"It was intended to be a demolition device," her father replied coolly, shrugging her off with an indifferent press of his hands. "In the event that the location of the facilities was compromised, the device would be used to deny the Confederation's enemies access to any advanced materials. We were planning on threatening its use at the starport in case the DropShip couldn't get off the ground in time."

"Yeah, but ONE MEGATON!?"

Genma held up his hands in a calming gesture. "We weren't sure how big the facility would be. We were just playing it safe."

Ranma stepped back from her father and the bomb. "Playing it safe? With a megaton class nuclear weapon? That's..." she spluttered into silence, utterly stunned by what she was dealing with. Finally, she found words. "Why didn't you tell me we had this thing?"

"The information was on a need-to-know basis," Genma explained. "You didn't need to know."

"Like hell!" Ranma retorted. "As long as you've got me pegged to deliver this mother, and I know you do, you're goddamned right I needed to know!"

Genma gave an apologetic shrug. "Now you know."

Ranma threw up her hands and stomped around in circles, keeping her distance from the bomb. "I don't believe this!" She stopped abruptly and whirled on her father. "It's against the Ares Conventions to use nuclear weapons!" she challenged him.

Genma shook his head. "It's against the Ares Conventions to use nuclear weapons on _people_," he corrected. "The treaty doesn't mention anything about using one on an out-of-control automated orbital battlestation that's about to slam into this planet and kill everyone living here." He gave his son a weak shrug. "The bomb is technically a demolition device. Think of this as demolition on a moving target."

"A moving target with enough particle beams and laser cannons to light my ass up from here to Christmas!" Ranma shot back. "And the best part of your ridiculous plan is that if the goddamned Orochi doesn't get me, the blast from your so-called 'demolition device' will!"

"Oh, stop your whining, boy," Genma growled. "At one time Tendo and I were considering the use of one of the TEN megaton devices in his inventory. You should be _grateful_ for the amount of discretion we've shown in this matter."

Ranma leveled her darkest gaze upon her father.

"I hate you, Pop," she said evenly. "I really, really, really hate you."

Genma smiled. "You make your old father proud when you say that, boy."

SLDFS _Coronet_

18:30 Local Time

"Main Power online," Lieutenant Fulton called from below in Engineering. "Main Engines ready to answer all bells."

"It's about time," Captain Hauptmann muttered. "Charge up the active sensor arrays and do a full spherical sweep." It had been over an hour since they had been able to watch the surrounding space with more than passive instruments, and he rightly wanted a better look at their situation.

Getting hit without warning by debris from high orbit had banged them around a little, and damaged some of their commo arrays. He wanted to know when the next batch of space junk came tumbling down on him, and he wanted the ability to get out of the way when he spotted it.

Hinako minded the conn while he hunched over the displays with the sensor techs. She seemed very smug after her subduing of an entire company of Combine Marines in the landing bays.

"Radiating," the sensor tech declared. A pulse of microwave radiation sprang from the hull of the Star League cruiser.

The radar returns began bouncing back almost immediately.

"The Combine fleet is descending cautiously from high orbit," Hauptmann said after analyzing the data. "And there's something else."

"It's the Orochi," the tech said, fear in her voice. "Contact bearing two-two-one plus five-four, range three-zero thousand kilometers."

Hauptmann trained the telescope over to the indicated bearing. The image of the battered and blackened hulk of the primary satellite appeared on the main monitor.

"Did they get it or didn't they?" he asked aloud.

"I'm getting energy readings," the sensor tech replied. "The fusion plant is still online, and I'm detecting indications of reaction control system jets."

Hauptmann caught the tiny flashes of plasma on the display.

"So it's moving under its own power then," he said.

"It appears so," Hinako replied.

"So why isn't it blasting us?" Hauptmann asked. It has power, and I can see at least one weapon mount that hasn't been touched."

"I don't know," Hinako admitted. "But perhaps we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth."

"Captains!" the sensor tech called out to both of them.

"What is it?" Hauptmann demanded.

"I'm plotting a course for the Orochi," she began. "And it appears to be on a collision course with the planet. In fact, it appears to be making slight course adjustments to place the impact point right in the middle of the Proving Grounds."

"What?!" Hauptmann cried.

"Are you quite sure of that?" Hinako put in.

The tech nodded. "It's very definitely on a course to hit the planet, with the intact lower hull aligned to absorb the intense friction of reentry, apparently."

"Some kind of suicide option?" Hauptmann asked himself. "A doomsday feature?"

"Possibly," Hinako agreed. "We need to try and reestablish a communications link with the surface."

"All of the high-gain arrays have been knocked out, or are already nonfunctional," the Communication section advised. "There's lasercomm, but unless the weather clears up down there, it's a dicey proposition."

Hinako had a better idea. "What about the _Tautog?_"

"What about them?" Hauptmann asked.

"We could relay signals through them to the surface," she replied. "They should be far enough over the planetary horizon by now for us to reach them with our lasercomm, and they can send the surface a message through what's left of the satellite network."

Hauptmann looked to the techs. "Do it," he ordered. "Sensory, spot that corvette and give Commo some good numbers to match up the lasercomm array."

Several minutes passed while the information was exchanged.

"_Coronet_, this is the _Tautog_," a voice crackled over the ether.

"Put Olivera on line," Hauptmann barked into the microphone.

There was a pause.

"Captain Olivera speaking."

Hauptmann didn't mince words. "Captain, we've got a serious problem here, and we need to warn the surface about it. Can you relay us through the satellite network?"

"Sure." The sound of him giving orders in the background followed. "What's up?"

"The main Orochi satellite is going to crash into the Proving Grounds, and make a hole big enough to park Prince Kuno's ego inside with room to spare."

Olivera made a low whistle over the commo. "I can see it on my sensors," he replied. "Don't count on us for any help in knocking it out, if that's what you have in mind. I'm fresh out of torps, and my guns are all out of action."

"How about your shuttles?" Hautpmann asked him.

"How much time until the Orochi hits?"

Hauptmann looked at the numbers on the sensory board. "About five-zero minutes."

"They'll never reach the surface in fifty minutes from our position in orbit, even if I sent them right now," he replied.

"Damn..." Hauptmann swore. They had the shuttles, but only Combine pilots to fly them. His own crew had only a single shuttle pilot among them, and at best they could squeeze in perhaps twenty people at a time.

"We need to warn them in any event," he told Olivera. "Patch us through and stay close as a relay. Most of our commo suites are out of action. We'll try to think of something on our end."

"Copy that," Olivera replied. "Good luck. _Tautog_ out."

Hinako arched an eyebrow at him. "The Main Gun?"

Hauptmann nodded. "It's the only thing I can think of that might put a dent in that thing."

"I'm not sure if we can survive another shot ourselves," she replied. "I'd better warn Lieutenant Fulton."

Hauptmann agreed. "Order the shuttle to land at the bunker. Tell the pilot to take the Duke, the rest of the royal family, and as many others as he can cram into that thing, and get them the hell out of there."

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

18:38 Local Time

"Hey, I'm getting something from the _Coronet_!" Davidge cried. All but Ranma and Genma were still in the control room at the time. "They must have detected the Orochi, because they're warning us about it."

"Tell them to send down shuttles at once," Grand Duke Tendo ordered. "At the very least we can evacuate the non-combatants."

Davidge relayed the order.

"The best they can do is send one shuttle," he replied. "They only have one pilot."

"That's enough," Tendo declared, knowing that there wouldn't be time for more than one round trip to the planet. "Have the Shogun and his retinue, plus any of our techs and ship's crew that aren't needed for continued operations, assemble on the upper level of the bunker. They'll be the ones to go."

"What if our plan doesn't work, Dad?" Akane asked him. She didn't want to think about Ranma failing to destroy the Orochi, but it was something they had to consider. "Can we hope to survive the impact in this bunker?"

Soun turned to Davidge, who appeared to be the answer man for these kinds of questions.

"I don't know," the lieutenant replied. "I think we'd manage to weather the blast effects all right if we sealed up the bunker right before impact, but the temblor the Orochi will generate on impact, it'll be something right out of a disaster movie. We might get sealed up in here forever."

"We're better off here," Ryouga declared. He made an oath to himself that Akari would be on that shuttle.

"I hope you're right," Akane said, and left the control room to find Ranma. She made her way up the stairs, stopping short at the sound of Shinnosuke's voice.

He was at the foot of the stairs, balancing on his pushbroom for a crutch.

"Akane," he said to her in a voice filled with emotion. "I wanted to thank you for not forgetting about my people. Even if there isn't much hope for them, it was a kind gesture."

Akane felt a lump form in her throat. "We're not dead yet, Shinnosuke, and neither are they. Ranma can do this, I know it."

Ranma appeared on the stairwell from the storage room above her.

"This is nuts, old man!" she cried.

"It's our only chance," Genma threw back.

"I know that!" she snarled. "Don't you think I don't know that?! I still don't have to like it!" Then she realized that Akane and Shinnosuke were there.

"Ranma!" Akane called to her.

Ranma looked down at her, her face falling in dismay.

"I believe in you, Ranma," Akane told her.

Ranma closed her eyes. "I'll do my best," she said. Then she grabbed Genma by his neck. "Let's get this goddamned firecracker of yours armed, already!"

"We need Akane to arm it," Genma replied in a tight voice. "Only a Tendo can arm one of the family's nuclear arsenal, and she was the one this bomb's codes were entrusted to."

Ranma looked down at Akane in disbelief. "You knew about this?"

She nodded slowly. "I never thought we'd ever have to use it," she replied softly. "And I never thought that you would be the one to..."

Ranma waved her off. "There's no time for this," she growled. "Let's just get it over with."

"Ranma, I'm sorry!" Akane cried.

"Forget it!" she shot back angrily. Ryouga and the Duke appeared at the door to the control room below them with questioning and concerned expressions. "I said there's no time. I still have to prep the LAM for an orbital flight, and we still have to figure out a way for me to carry this thing up into space."

She jerked her father around and started pulling him up the stairs to the upper level. "Chop chop, old man!"

Akane, Ryouga, Shinnosuke, and Grand Duke Tendo followed after them.

Musk Dynasty Regimental Headquarters

Musk Dynasty Landing Zones

18:40 Local Time

"You're quite certain of that?" Herb asked over the commo. He had to prepare a defense against a Combine attack, and did not have time to be considering yet another variable in his calculations. The officer aboard his personal DropShip had apparently received some very disconcerting news from space.

"Impact is projected to occur in approximately forty-four minutes, my lord General," the officer replied.

Herb grit his teeth in anger. The Orochi was about to crash right into the Proving Grounds at a velocity high enough to wipe the entire facility off the landscape, destroying all of the planet's fabled technology in one cataclysmic moment, and there was nothing that he could do about it.

To lose like this, when the contest for possession of the planet was not even decided!

He struck the console of his battlemech in a rage, cracking the hard plastic shell and driving one of his ancillary displays offline.

Damn it all! he swore. So much was lost, and for nothing!

"Order a general recall of our forces," he ordered. "Troops are to withdraw to the DropShips for immediate evacuation of the planet. Third Battalion is to fight a rearguard holding action until ordered to retreat in haste."

He needed to salvage what he could of his troops and escape the system. Prior to Mousse's departure, they had been able to acquire a few bits of lostech from the facilities they had captured upon landing, plus the mechs that had been abandoned at the starport, so perhaps the expedition was not an utter failure. At least he would not be going back empty-handed, even if the gains didn't precisely square the balance books with the loss of two destroyers.

A rare smile lit across his face at another idea. If he could keep Prince Kuno and his forces occupied up to the last moment, they would be obliterated by the Orochi! A stunning victory for the Commonwealth that would do much for his standing with the Elders he wished so ardently to overthrow.

He thumbed a personal channel on his commo suite. "Lime, Mint, I order you to return immediately, and at best speed to the landing zones."

There was no response. At least not from either of his men.

"Lime and Mint are dead, General," Mousse replied over the commo.

A vein bulged on Herb's forehead. "Colonel Mousse!" he barked. "Explain yourself!"

Mousse appeared on his display. "They're dead, General. I killed them. As I am coming to kill _you_."

Herb tried not to let his surprise show at the revelation that his underlings were dead. "So..." he said slowly, drawing out the moment between them. "She still has dominion over you, eh, Mousse? I must confess that in the final analysis, I'm not surprised by your utter faithlessness to anyone or anything but her."

"No, I expect that you weren't," Mousse replied. "Not after I learned about your standing order to kill Shampoo on sight."

Herb nodded his head in concession. "To the last, you are so miserably predictable, Mousse. Can't you see that I've been trying to free you from her?"

"I _am_ free from her," Mousse returned. "Killing you will be my first and last act as a free man, and I do it for someone who is not myself nor Shampoo."

In an instant of clarion prescience, Herb understood what Mousse was saying.

"A child..." he replied dully. "That purple-haired harlot is carrying your child." He slammed his fist down again, consumed with a fit of jealousy that last stirred itself with the revelation that Shampoo had made love to Mousse aboard the _Domingo_. Was it possible that she had intentionally become pregnant as insurance against any duplicity on Mousse's part?

"Killing you will be my gift to her," Mousse confirmed. "That she might grow up in a world without the Musk Dynasty!"

"ENOUGH!" Herb roared imperiously. "I have had enough of your fool's tongue, speaking glibly of righteousness while its master wallows in treachery! The promise of the Musk Dynasty was the greatest gift that could be given to the men of the Commonwealth, and yet you have spurned it for nothing more than a whore's whelp and your own tortured sense of self! No more!"

He activated an omnidirectional radio beacon and turned his battlemech north, the only conceivable direction where Mousse could be.

"Continue the withdrawal!" he ordered his men on the command channel. "Have a Leopard Class DropShip standing by within two minutes of my broadcasted position to evacuate me." He switched back to the private channel with Mousse. "There is little time to conclude this, traitor!" he called out. "Home on my beacon and we shall settle this matter to the satisfaction of all!"

Blue Thunder Regimental Headquarters Company

East of the Musk Dynasty Drop Zones

18:52 Local Time

"Very strong indications of Commonwealth total withdrawal," the tac-net buzzed.

"Leopard Class DropShip lifting off," another voice put in. "Heading north at high speed."

"Union Class ship lifting off," a third voice announced. "It appears to be making an orbital insertion burn."

Tatewaki Kuno watched the Musk DropShips lifting off through his cockpit visor, long streams of white-hot plasma streaming below them as they raced for the heavens.

"Press the attack!" he ordered. "Onward, men!" His own Thunderbolt strode free of the forest, missiles bursting from his shoulder mounted launch drum and into the harried Musk Dynasty rearguard.

"General Prince Kuno!" Captain Kyle called over the command channel as he cleaved a Musk Shadow Hawk in half with his Thunderbolt's katana.

"Speak!" Tatewaki bellowed, angry for the interruption in such a desperate moment. The Commonwealth withdrawal may have only been temporary, to put them out of immediate danger of being overrun, and allow them to counter-attack at a later time. He needed to destroy as much as possible before that happened.

"My lord, our long range sensors are plotting the descent of the primary Orochi satellite," Kyle said to him. "It is on a direct collision course with the planet at roughly your position! Estimated time of impact is in thirty-two minutes!"

"What of it!?" Tatewaki cried angrily. "Do you not realize that I am putting these heathens to rout!?"

Kyle made an exasperated face. "My lord! The reason they are departing is that the impact of the Orochi will destroy everything within one hundred kilometers or more! I urge you to fall back immediately to your DropShips and leave the planet!"

The look on Tatewaki's face became equally tortured. "Withdraw, man!?" he raged. "Without Akane Tendo and the Pig-Tailed Girl in my possession!?"

"But it is suicide to remain, my lord!" Kyle pleaded with him.

Another voice broke in over the command channel, cutting Tatewaki off from his rebuke.

"My lord Prince," the voice declared. "We are detecting what appears to be the command beacon of the enemy forces, radiating from a position north-northeast of your own, at a range of two kilometers, and heading north. A Leopard Class DropShip appears to be paralleling that course, at low altitude."

Tatewaki considered it. The Commonwealth commander was not leaving the planet with the others, not yet, but he was keeping the option open for evacuation. Why was he not fleeing with the others?

Unless...

"He knows something," he said aloud. "There is something valuable to the north, something that he dares remain behind, and without his troops, to obtain..."

He turned his Thunderbolt north, catching the rest of his company off-guard.

"To the north, men!" he ordered them. "Akane Tendo is there, I can feel it!"

Kyle broke in once again. "We are detecting unknown signals using Star League protocols from a position twenty kilometers north of your location," he conceded. "But there is no time for you to get there, my lord!"

"Bah!" Tatewaki sneered. "My only fear is that I shall be too late to stop the Commonwealth commander from taking what is rightfully mine!"

Test Area North

18:59 Local Time. T-minus 25 minutes to impact

The smell of blood in the cockpit was strong. Mousse ignored the smell, and shook off the feelings of dizziness that could only be attributed to blood loss as Herb came into range. With a quiet curse and a prayer for just a little more strength, he lined up his twin LRM-15 racks to shoot.

The Crusader was at the edge of a large clearing, a perfect place for his duel with General Herb, as his missiles would have clear paths to their target. The approaching general had apparently not noticed him yet, but he would very soon. When the green box that haloed the Musk Grand Dragon in his HUD turned green, he squeezed the triggers with a curse for the evil hybrid general.

Longbow missiles peeled from their launch tubes in the Crusader's shoulders, corkscrewing across the clearing in twisting arcs of grey and white smoke. Herb saw the missiles as they fell upon him, and explosions obscured the battlemech from view for several moments as they struck. When the smoke cleared, the Grand Dragon continued on, its armor cratered but intact.

Herb answered with a bolt from the Grand Dragon's arm-mounted PPC, which whipped through the humid air with fiery arcs of lightning wisping from the blast. He struck the Crusader low in the torso, scorching a thick black rut on the armor.

"I thought you would prefer something more intimate than an artillery duel, Mousse," Herb said to him, scorn dripping from his voice.

The Crusader was already charging forward into medium range. Herb launched his own volley of missiles at him as Crossbow SRMs leaped off the Crusader's hip racks. The missiles wove fiery trails between each other as they crossed paths, and more than one weapon hit another in the middle.

"When the time comes, I'll tear you apart with my hands," Mousse countered.

Herb fired back with another blast of PPC fire. The shot struck Mousse hard, blasting apart several critical heat sinks in brilliant clouds of fire and smoke. He reeled from the hits as alarms rang within his cockpit.

The Grand Dragon followed up with a barrage of laser fire that knifed into the battered Crusader, carving off chunks of armor and setting the half-amputated right arm alight as the beams dug into the exposed myomer bundles.

"It's not too late to come to your senses," Herb told him as the Crusader burned. "Give up your vendetta and return to the Musk!"

"Do you take me for a fool?!" Mousse countered, hammering at the Grand Dragon with his left arm machinegun while he prepared another SRM barrage. "There is no place for me there!"

"I understand all too well the effect Shampoo can have on a man," Herb said coolly to him, while aligning his own weapons for a close range shot. "I'm willing to overlook your behavior under her influence. I'm even willing to put aside the deaths of my henchmen, Mousse, because I see what an asset you can be to the Musk Dynasty!"

He held his fire even as Mousse held his.

"Why do you think I came to you with that assignment on Tau Ceti?"he went on, confident that he had Mousse's attention now. The two 'mechs circled each other warily as he spoke. "You are more important to me and the future of the Musk than any hundred loyal hybrids, Mousse. You were one of the Joketsuzoku, pure blooded, and yet your coming over to the Dynasty is the spark of inspiration my army needs to succeed."

"Think about it," he continued. "Who better to serve as an example against the corruption and virtual slavery of the Elders than you?"

Mousse thought about it for as long as it took to squeeze the twin weapon triggers on his controls.

"It's too late for all of that now!" he bellowed as the missiles screamed off their hip racks, blasting into the center mass of the Grand Dragon. A PPC bolt crackled into him as they exploded, and he felt the Crusader buckle from the hit. Something deep within the torso came apart with a roar, and the battlemech began to tremble and shake. Alarms screamed in his cockpit, the low wail of the high radiation alert foremost in his mind.

He desperate glance at the dosimeter display as he fought for control over his battlemech told him what he feared: parts of the fusion reactor radiation shield below his cockpit had failed, and he had received at least two-hundred centigrays of exposure - a potentially lethal dose without dedicated medical treatment. The reactor began an automated shutdown, which he cancelled with a slamming fist on the override button. Not yet. Not like this.

Herb's Grand Dragon shrugged off the missile hits, but he could see by the ragged armor that Herb was vulnerable. He threw his battlemech forward into a clinch, grappling with Herb and trying to wrench the Grand Dragon off its feet with his right arm stump.

The Grand Dragon was only a little lighter than his sixty-five ton Crusader, but Mousse's 'mech had been designed for formidable strength, and was able to lift his enemy from the churned ground. The Grand Dragon clubbed at his head savagely with its PPC cannon arm, knocking him about the cockpit as he wrenched at his controls, but he did not let go.

The Crusader slammed the Grand Dragon to the ground with a thunderous sound, then fell upon it, spilling liquid nitrogen coolant from the many rents in its armor and systemry, and freezing the hulls of both 'mechs in frosty patches of white. Arcs of plasma from the fusion plant licked across both war machines as the Crusader began to fail. Missiles began to cook off from the shoulder launchers, spiraling crazily into the distance.

Mousse eyed the dosimeter as he coaxed strength from his battlemech's failing limbs. Four-hundred centigrays and rising. He could almost feel the gamma and fast neutron radiation cooking him, though even this lethal amount of energy left no immediate physical marks upon him.

He locked his good limb upon the Grand Dragon's head and squeezed as hard as he could. Armor buckled under his grip, and the cockpit visor spidered into a tracery of cracks. General Herb's scream of mingled rage and alarm was music to his ears.

The reactor failed of its own accord before he could finish the job, and the hand actuators went limp. He watched numbly as the cockpit hatch on the Grand Dragon sprang open, and his nemesis crawled clear of the wreck.

He was exhausted. The blood that had soaked into his ejector seat was now sticky and congealing. His fingers felt tingly, and his head swam as he blinked at the dosimeter. Seven-hundred centigrays. If he didn't die of blood loss, he had about three weeks of slow death from radiation injury to look forward to.

He pulled himself up from the ejector seat and through his own cockpit hatch. Herb would die, he had to die. There would be no place for him in the afterlife if he did not succeed in that.

The hybrid general did not hear him as he slithered from his hatch. He was preoccupied with his radio remote, calling to a nearby DropShip to come pick him up. Mousse blinked his watery eyes, and saw the blurry brick-shape of a Leopard Class ship moving in from the southwest. Herb reached into his robes and withdrew a signal star, shooting it into the sky to mark his position.

Mousse lost his balance then, and fell badly to land upon the hard and scarred torso hull of the Grand Dragon. The sound caught Herb's attention, and Mousse heard the sound of footsteps approaching him. He raised his head to see Herb looking up at him from the ground two meters below and in front of him.

The hybrid general cocked his head at him questioningly.

"Radiation?" he asked smugly.

Mousse croaked out a reply.

"I thought so," Herb said, nodding. "You left your mic open during our struggle, and I heard the alarm inside your cockpit." He made a tsk'ing sound. "I suppose I'll be doing you a favor by killing you now, before you have a chance to succumb. I'm told that the experience is quite horrific."

Herb coughed into his shoulder, flexed his arms, and threw out his hands in preparation for one of the lethal ki-blasts for which he was most notorious.

"You'll forgive me if I don't get too close to you," Herb said sourly. "Farewell, Mousse... You can take comfort in the fact that Shampoo and your child will be joining you shortly in the void, as I am reasonably assured of the fact that the Orochi satellite is within twenty minutes of crashing into the planet and turning this entire section of the continent into charred ruins."

Energy began to crackle within the outstretched hands of the hybrid general.

Mousse turned his head from side to side, looking for escape, attack, anything to keep from ending like this. What he saw filled him with one last desperate hope.

As Herb's ki-blast built up to the level where even aligned-crystal steel armor plate would be torn asunder, Mousse threw one of his hidden weapons with the last of his strength. The weapon arced over Herb's shoulder in a dull olive flash, narrowly missing him. Herb greeted this last gesture of defiance with a smugly raised eyebrow as he drew breath for the shout that would annihilate Mousee.

The weapon, however, had other ideas.

It struck the casing of a longbow missile that had fallen from the shoulder launch tubes of his Crusader and onto the muddy ground. Then, being an antipersonnel hand grenade, and not a knife as Herb had believed, it exploded.

What followed was a lesson on the effects of sympathetic detonations in destabilized plastic-bonded high explosives.


	6. Chapter 6

Orochi Bunker

18:59 Local Time. T-minus 25 minutes to impact

The thermonuclear bomb could talk.

"Present identification and arming codes to authorize thermonuclear release," it declared.

Akane stepped up to the weapon, and placed a hand upon a sensor plate as she had been hastily instructed to do by her father and Kasumi prior to leaving Nerima. Both members of her family now huddled over her and the weapon as it sat in its packing crate next to the Phoenix Hawk LAM.

"I am Lady Akane Tendo of Nerima, Viscountess of Gondolin," she said in a loud yet strained voice. "Arming Code for full thermonuclear release is NOVEMBER-VICTOR-YANKEE-NINER-NINER-NINER-HOTEL-ALFA-CHARLIE."

The bomb considered her reply.

"Present second stage identification and concurrence-authorization for thermonuclear release."

This time Genma stepped up, and placed his hand upon the sensor plate.

"I am Commander Genma Saotome, under warrant from the Grand Duke of the Nerima Confederation," he told it. "I concur with the order to arm and release. Second Stage Arming Code for full thermonuclear release is FOXTROT-MIKE-ZULU-ZERO-ZERO-TWO-OSCAR-OSCAR-ZULU."

"Enter desired time delay and present final authorization for full thermonuclear release," the bomb said to them.

Akane looked to Ranma, who gave her a firm nod. She placed her hand once more upon the sensor plate. "Final authorization code for full thermonuclear release is FOXTROT-TANGO-NOVEMBER-SIX-FOUR-TWO-WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT."

"And then some," Ranma agreed as Akane spoke aloud the last three codes.

"Authorization granted for full thermonuclear release. Projected yield: one-thousand kilotons." the bomb declared. "Enter time delay or activate default setting to proceed."

Akane backed away from the weapon, closing the access panel as she did so.

"It's ready," she declared.

"This thing's a time bomb?" Ranma asked the Duke.

Soun nodded. "Most nuclear weapons are," he replied.

"How long a delay can I have?"

"Ten thousand seconds," Soun answered for him.

"Can I stop the countdown once it's started?" she asked.

Soun shook his head. "Normally, yes. But it requires both people who armed it to rescind a release order."

Ranma saw his point. Akane and his old man couldn't exactly ride along with him in the cockpit in case they wanted to call it off.

"Well, I'll need at least fifteen minutes to make it into space, or at least high enough up that the blast from this thing won't wipe you all out on the ground."

"There is a dead man's switch function for the device, Ranma," Kasumi said to him. "It starts a default one minute countdown from the moment the firing button is pressed."

Ranma nodded. He could use the micromanipulator arms stowed within the right forearm of his LAM for the delicate work of pressing such a button. "Yeah, I guess it might be too dicey to go guessing exactly how much time it will take to deliver this damn thing." She did not like standing next to the bomb, and certainly not with it armed.

Lieutenant Davidge presented a few schematic drawings for her to look at as she checked her pressure suit systems one more time.

"You want to get it as close as you can to the top center of the unit, or to the main engine nozzles in the ventral hull," he told her. "A thousand kilotons is a lot of boom, but it might not be possible to vaporize the Orochi outright, even with that much destructive power."

"You're talking about destabilizing the fusion plant," Ranma said to him.

"That's right," Davidge agreed. "The reactor is still operational, so any kind of instantaneous damage to the core might just blow the whole thing at once. The higher up you are when it happens, the better, of course. The blast from the fusion plant might be as bad as the bomb itself, and an atmosphere will only compound the blast effects."

"Great," Ranma said with a shrug. "Now anyone have any ideas on how I'm gonna get this thing into low orbit?" She gestured to the bomb, which was the size of an oil drum. "It's too big to ride along with me in the cockpit, and there aren't any hardpoint mounts on my LAM."

Akari presented herself with a salute. "Captain Saotome, I believe we can fit the bomb comfortably within the left hand of your mech during transit, if I relax the standard flexor tensions within the forearm actuators a few points. That will allow you to carry it safely in Fighter Mode, and let you deploy it in either Airmech or Battlemech Modes."

"Great," Ranma said with little enthusiasm. "How long will it take?"

She disappeared underneath the fighter with a torque wrench in hand without replying. The sound of metallic clacking rang out from the undercarriage before she reappeared with a smile on her face.

She brushed her nails on her coveralls. "Already done, sir."

"Good," Ranma declared, relieved to have what appeared to be a reliable solution to the problem while they had only minutes left in which to act. "Now get on the shuttle, before it leaves."

The lone shuttle from the _Coronet_ rested, with its turbojet engines running, near the battlemechs. The Shogun of the Furinkan Combine and most of his retinue were already aboard, and it was time for the other non-combatants in their group to join them.

Akari looked to Ryouga for an instant before responding. Ranma could tell by the look on the Lost Boy's face what the answer would be before she even spoke.

"I'm staying here with Ryouga," she replied softly.

Ranma let it go at that. "Let's get it loaded, then," she said. She looked up at the dimming sky. The Orochi was already a faint smudge of light against the deep blue of dusk.

SLDFS _Coronet_

19:03 Local Time, T-minus 21 minutes to impact

"Conn, Sensory: Orochi main satellite Closest Point of Approach bearing two-seven-five, plus two-five; range: two-eight thousand kilometers. Time to target CPA: six-zero seconds."

"Sensory, Conn; aye," Captain Hinako remarked, throwing her hair back over her shoulder with a determined whip of her hand to let it uncoil in freefall in dark silken strands. They were maneuvering the Star League cruiser to attack the falling orbital battlestation with their spinal mount particle beam, a weapon of fearsome destructive power they hoped would be enough to vaporize the Orochi before it could smash into the planet. The entire royal family of the Confederation might be killed if that happened - not counting Nabiki, whom Hinako no longer considered one of them for her terrible betrayal of the Grand Duke.

"Seven-zero seconds to firing point," Fire Control updated. Captain Hauptmann hunched over the displays with the two techs they had manning the section, his face drawn with concern. He knew the importance of the next few minutes as well as any of them. "Main Gun acceleration ladder indicates ready. Pre-firing checklist complete."

"Helm slaved to Fire Control," the Helmsman announced. The starship continued its slow rolling turn to put its bow directly on the Orochi in preparation to fire. Her work done for the moment, she leaned back in her acceleration couch and worked the kinks out of her shoulders.

"Engineering reports ready to fire the Main Gun," the Chief of the Watch added. This time around they had locked shut the vital circuit breakers that fed the starship's systems in advance of firing - just in case the gun's powerful magnetic fields threatened to disrupt them again. There was the potential for danger in overriding a safety feature, but there was an even greater danger in becoming a sitting duck for the Orochi in the event the attack failed to destroy it.

"What about the Combine ships?" Hinako asked as the seconds ticked down.

"_Imperator_ is descending from high orbit, ma'am. Her intentions are unknown at this time," Sensory declared. "She's trailing vapor from several locations, ma'am, and her drive outputs are unsteady, but she seems to have a little fight left in her."

"That could go badly for us," Hinako replied. "Especially if our precautionary measures fail, and we lose power and drives again."

"You could always put the zap on the next bunch who tries to board us," Hauptmann suggested wryly. "Like you did earlier."

Hinako arched an eyebrow at him. "I'd rather not," she said in a husky voice. "I feel a little bloated right now as it stands." She put her hand on a curvy hip. "In any event, it won't help us if they simply decide to blast us to bits instead of making another boarding attempt."

Test Area North

19:05 Local Time. T-minus 19 minutes to impact

Shampoo saw the line of black smoke rising from the treeline and knew that she was already too late to stop Mousse. The brick-like shape of a Musk Leopard Class DropShip hovered into view as she recognized this fact, the shriek of its vertical drives piercing even from a kilometer away. She watched the DropShip maneuver in a slow circle around the line of smoke, the draft generated by its engines whipping the oily vapors into a brown haze as it drew near.

Against her better instincts she clicked open her tac-net mic and tried to reach Mousse. There was no answer, nor did she expect one. She continued advancing in her captured Assassin through the woods to see with her own eyes what she already feared had happened.

A mech-door on the DropShip began to slide open as she dashed through a break in the trees a scant hundred meters from the smoke, and she caught the flash of a Musk Panther in the green and red livery of General Herb's personal guard plummet feet first fifty meters to the ground before triggering its jets to slow its descent. A flick of Shampoo's eyes to her unfamiliar displays assured her that the Assassin's weapon systems, a mixed bag of low-end firepower that included everything from missiles to lasers and machineguns, were armed and ready. She eased back on the throttle to bring the battlemech to a walking pace as she caught flashes of smoke and the flickering of flames through the trees before her.

The Panther stalked in front of her field of view less than forty meters away, though she cursed at having no clear shot at it through the trees. She advanced cautiously now, adjusting the focus of her bifocal cameras to get a better look at the clearing beyond. What she saw brought a lump in her throat in spite of herself.

The blackened, ragged mass of Mousse's Crusader lay sprawled over the wreck of a Grand Dragon. She could see that the Crusader's left hand had clenched the head of the Musk battlemech in an attempt to crush it, but that the cockpit hatch was open. General Herb had obviously escaped death, and the Panther had come to deliver him from the battlefield.

That wouldn't come to pass if Shampoo had any say in the matter. She checked her medium laser array a second time, knowing that it was her most powerful and most precise weapon in the Assassin's inventory. She reached the treeline of the clearing as the Panther's head dipped to examine the wreckage of the two 'mechs in detail, her finger curling around the weapon trigger of her laser as the aimpoint floated before the Panther's jump jet pack. A lucky hit on the thin rear armor could detonate the pressurized liquid oxygen tanks used as propellant for the jets in vacuum, and the resulting fireball would add massive amounts of heat to the 'mech - which would hopefully discourage the use of its arm-mounted PPC.

The Panther raised its head slowly, and began to stomp away from the wrecks, causing Shampoo's finger to ease off the trigger. What was going on? she wondered as the DropShip began to pivot in midair.

The sizzle of missile fire answered her question as vapor trails fell from the cloud bank above. LRMs exploded into the armor of the DropShip, slamming the Leopard into a slow spin as the pilots fired attitude jets to regain control. A second volley streaked in, half of which hit their target, and left the rest to plunge into the forest around Shampoo. The explosions rocked the woods and toppled trees into the clearing as leafy bits burned and fell from the sky.

A double sonic-boom buffeted her as she regained her battlemech's footing, and she caught the electric-blue flash of two Furinkan Combine Shilones from Prince Kuno's Blue Thunder regiment streaking past overhead. The DropShip's weapon systems answered with a weak volley of laser and autocannon fire as the Panther fired its jump jets in a desperate bid to climb aboard while the spacecraft was still airborne.

Shampoo aimed her weapons at the open door of the DropShip as the Panther boosted aloft for its rendezvous. As the Musk battlemech reached out to grasp the hull of the DropShip, she let fly with her entire arsenal. Laser fire and machinegun tracers sang into the open Mech Bay as her missiles corkscrewed past the Panther and struck home. Explosions rocked the internals of the ship, and it rolled queasily to port.

The Panther missed the open bay, and scrabbled for a single hand-hold on the deck, dangling precariously fifty meters above the verdant forest of Ryuugenzawa. Shampoo fired another full volley into the open Mech Bay as the DropShip's gunners trained their turrets around desperately for a sign of enemy fighters that were not there.

The second volley of fire knocked the Panther loose from its hold on the deck, and it plummeted straight down. The pilot in his panic fired his jump jets, but as the battlemech began an end over end tumble in its descent, he managed only to rocket himself straight into the woods at high speed. The crash of his impact shivered the trees around Shampoo as she watched the unstable DropShip roll completely over to dive nose-first into the forest beyond the clearing.

The DropShip's impact knocked her to the ground as a silvery flash of light erupted from the woods, scorching and starting a dozen small fires in the ground cover even as a thick plume of smoke and flame rose from the crash site. The DropShip's fusion reactor, or perhaps the reactors of one of the other 'mechs aboard had just crashed-out, and she knew to expect no more trouble from that quarter. Shampoo eased her 'mech to its feet to discover for herself what it was that the Panther had seen.

She reached the wrecks of the Crusader and Grand Dragon as the woods to the south began to brew up into an inferno. The first thing her bifocal suite focused on was the man who lay sprawled on the torso of the Grand Dragon. Thin lines of red streaked down the battered hull where he lay, mingled with long tangles of black hair.

Mousse.

There was no sign of General Herb to be found at first, only torn earth and clods of sod from the struggle between the two stricken war machines. Craters littered the ground where missiles had fallen, their impact points still steaming from lingering heat. Shampoo reached up unconsciously, undogging the hatch even as she searched for her nemesis.

She did not even realize that she was climbing out of her cockpit until she was clear of the hatch. At that point she decided that she could only go on, climbing down from the Assassin until she was close enough to make a leap for the wrecks below. Her eyes began to water, and she told herself it was only because of the acrid smoke that began to drift her way in the wind from the crashed DropShip.

She found General Herb by chance, crumpled against the hull of his Grand Dragon. Judging from the way his limbs were splayed, it looked as if he had been thrown with great force against the unyielding armor of the 'mech. Shampoo approached cautiously in spite of what her eyes told her, and reached for his head. She noted with a detached sense of satisfaction that the silvery white hair of the hybrid general was matted with blood, and she touched by accident the long sliver of metal that projected from the base of his skull.

Herb's red reptilian eyes were open, yet glassy and unfocused in death. His face seemed frozen with the expression he had shown in the instant of his end; haughty, mocking, and cruel. Feeling cold all over inside at the sight of her enemy, Shampoo released her grip on his hair with a grunt of disgust and let Herb's lifeless body collapse to the ground.

Herb was dead, and that left only Mousse. She pulled herself up the hull to see for herself if he had joined his former master in death. She knelt over Mousse as he lay face down, his head hanging over the edge of the Grand Dragon's torso. He was very still, and his ragged indigo robes fluttered restlessly in the hot breeze. She could see where the wound Lime had given him had struck, and knew that it had been very bad indeed.

"Mousse," she said to him, not wanting to touch him at first for fear of seeing his face frozen in the same agony of death as General Herb. "Wake up."

He stirred at the sound of her voice, and she felt faint with the realization that he was still alive.

"Shampoo...?" he rasped.

She wasted no more time with words, leaning over his body to lift him by his armpits and carry him from the wrecks. She choked back a gasp as she saw his face at last, and the place where his left eye had been. The eyelid was glued shut with a thick clot of blood, but she could see the streamers of flesh and filaments of thin grey optic nerve fibers that projected from the clot.

"Don't bother," he replied weakly as he sagged in her grip.

"Shut up," she barked at him, struggling to raise him up and back to drag him clear.

"I meant it, Shampoo," he managed in a voice drained of vitality. "There's no point in doing this. I'm already dead."

"You are not dead, idiot!" she snapped in his ear, her eyes awash with moisture. The damned smoke was getting thicker. "There is a doctor in the Confederation camp. He's a good man. He'll take care of you."

She cradled him up into her arms, wincing as the muscles in her back twinged with protest. She was in no shape after so much intense combat to be doing this, but she continued without complaint.

"You don't understand," Mousse continued. "Radiation..." he choked out. "Too much to survive." He tried to worm his way out of her arms. "The baby..." he added, a note of worry creeping into his voice. "You shouldn't be this close to my 'mech right now."

His struggles made Shampoo pull a muscle in her back, and she twisted in pain, dropping Mousse and falling to the churned ground with a yelp. Mousse toppled over the edge of the Grand Dragon torso to land limply at her feet.

"Idiot!" she cried out in pain when she could finally speak. "Still trying to play the martyr for me? I won't stand for it!"

She forced herself to sit up, her back tingling and her nerves raw with the sensation of being torn apart. She pulled Mousse up to lay his head in her lap, his bruised and blood-stained face drawing taut in a rictus of agony well beyond the little hurts that Shampoo endured. Wisps of grey smoke from the fires whipped past her, stinging her eyes and making her cough in irritation.

They lay together for some time as the woods crackled around them. The fire's intensity was checked for the moment by the heavy rains from earlier in the day, but the grey smoke of green wood trying to burn filled the air. Mousse's breathing was slow but steady, though his skin was growing cold. He had lost a great deal of blood.

She was too exhausted to move, and sat numbly with Mousse in her lap while she regained her strength.

"How did General Herb die?" she asked at length, seeking any kind of conversation that would keep Mousse conscious and pass the time until she felt that she was able to get up again.

"I killed him," Mousse replied with great effort and a little pride. "I set off one of my unexploded missiles with a grenade, and I managed to catch him in the blast." He coughed then, sharp and loud. Pink foam frothed at his lips, which Shampoo wiped away with her hand, not wanting to look at it and what the sight of it foretold of Mousse's limited future.

"I wanted to be the one who killed him," Shampoo returned quietly. She had looked forward to the opportunity to kill Herb, and now had to live once more with disappointment. It wasn't enough that the hybrid general was dead and his treasonous Musk Dynasty put to rout, she wanted to tell him how much she despised him, and how he would never have her.

Mousse tried to smile. "Can you forgive me?"

She sniffled at this against her will.

"I forgive you," she told him. She brushed at the tangled locks of hair at his temples. He managed a weak smile at her reply.

Angry at herself for becoming so maudlin, she pulled herself to her feet, and dragged Mousse with her. Her back protested with a vengeance but she would not give in.

"Stop it!" she cried, whether to Mousse or to herself, she did not know. "That's enough."

Mousse was nearly limp in her arms, a dead weight that wanted nothing to do with continuing on.

"Let me go," he sighed.

"I'm not going to let you die," she growled against the pain. "I'm not going to go through life haunted by your death today. You're going to live - do you hear me!?"

Mousse didn't reply.

"Mousse?" she chirped worriedly.

His head lolled against her chest, his skin bled white.

"No," Shampoo moaned. "You can't die on me like this, Mousse!" She sank to the ground, cradling Mousse's head against her bosom. "Not like this...!"

He was still breathing, she could feel the faintest tickle of it agaist her throat, but it clear even to her now that he was almost gone. Her eyes smarted and her throat stung, and she couldn't lie to herself anymore that it was just the smoke.

"...Mousse..."

She looked up into the heavens, to the broken formations of dark clouds pregnant with rain, and to the waning sun sinking into the west. To the south came the steady roar of plasma rockets boosting what remained of the Musk Dynasty into orbit, their white-hot streaks difficult to look at directly even twenty kilometers away. High above them was a faint smudge of light, barely visible against the darkening sky. It seemed to be growing bigger and brighter with every moment.

She held Mousse's head against her bosom and wept. She wept with the reckless abandon that she should have shown in her prison cell on Tau Ceti. This time, there was no inner peace. There was no cool acceptance of fate. There was only the one burning question: what had all of this struggle and death been for, here at the end?

Herb was dead; it was a relief but yet no real comfort to her. The Musk Dynasty had been crushed and its power broken, but what did that matter to her, trapped on Ryuugenzawa? Mousse lay dying in her arms, and that was the only thing that moved her. Mousse was the architect of the Musk's downfall, far more than the Orochi that crippled its fleet or the Combine troops that drove them even now from the planet. Mousse was the hero of the Joketsuzoku, and at best he was a traitor to them.

Mousse didn't kill Herb for her sake, or even for his own. Shampoo understood his motivation after all that had passed between them that afternoon. He had fought for the life of his unborn child; a daughter whose mother had sworn would be fated to hate and oppose her father at every turn.

"Mousse," she began, choking on his name with grief as she said it. "I don't hate you," she went on. "I've never hated you."

"I-I know that, but... It's not important anymore. Just let me go now," he whispered, stirring briefly before fading once more into semi-consciousness.

"But what, Mousse?" she asked him sharply. She didn't know who she more angry with in that instant, herself or him. "But it wasn't enough for you to have me not hate you?" She cradled her chin against his brow and rocked with him. "I know that. But not hating you was all that I could give. Do you know that? Do you really understand why I couldn't do more than that for you?"

The distant scream of DropShips fleeing for the heavens was her only reply.

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

19:05 Local Time. T-minus 19 minutes to impact

"Time's wastin'," Ranma declared brusquely as she checked over her LAM once more. The bomb had been loaded into the Phoenix Hawk's left hand, itself currently stowed within the forearm of the LAM. There was so many things that could go wrong on the ascent, things that could damage the bomb and prevent its function, that she could not shake the feeling that her mission was doomed from the start.

Still, she had to go. Too many people she cared about were depending on it. The Orochi was growing larger in the dimming sky, and the clock was ticking.

She reached for her pressure suit helmet with a dismissive shake of her head, wanting to put doubt behind her before it sabotaged her reflexes and made mush of her brain. Davidge had said that the Orochi was in some kind of safe-mode, that it would not shoot back at her - but she could not afford to lower her guard on an assumption.

"Forgetting something?" Akane asked her.

She turned to see her fiancee holding a thermos of hot water for her. She was still upset with Akane over the bomb - for not being trusted to know about it for so long - but she wanted more than anything to put the matter aside. She did not want to leave with nothing but resentment between them.

"Uh, yeah," she replied quietly. She had spent most of the day as a girl, and had let it slip her mind.

Akane poured the thermos over Ranma's head, changing her back into a guy once more. Before he could thank her, she wrapped her arms around him and held him as close as the pressure suit and its life support pack would allow. Ranma closed his eyes in her embrace and held her tight. This was what he wanted from her, a silent affirmation of what she meant to him, and how much he cared about this uncute tomboy who had turned his life upside down and inside out at every turn.

"Remember what I said to you, Ranma," she whispered. "I don't want you dying up there - not even to save me."

"Nothing's gonna happen to me," Ranma assured her. He looked over her shoulder to see his father, Grand Duke Tendo, Kasumi and Doctor Tofu, Ryouga and Akari, Ukyou, Konatsu, Shinnosuke and his grandfather, and even Yuka standing off at a safe distance, their eyes meeting his with a blend of anxiety and hope.

Akane stepped back enough for him to raise his helmet over his head, then dove in to kiss him sweetly on the lips before finally allowing him to twist and lock it in place with a hiss. His gloved hand caressed her cheek before he turned and climbed the boarding ladder to his cockpit.

"Be careful up there, Ranchan," Ukyou called to him.

He gave her a cocky 'thumbs up' in reply, and slipped into his ejector seat. The LAM's engines shrilled to life at the touch of his finger, the SLDF 'mech powering up for what was the most important mission of its two- hundred year lifetime. Ranma lowered and locked the canopy, then turned to offer a final wave. Akane and the others moved well back as he prepared to lift off.

He goosed the throttles and the LAM leapt into the air on twin columns of thrust. He put on as much speed as possible as he climbed into the air, concerned that a Combine fighter might spot him and attempt to ambush. Long streaks of white light filled the distant southern horizon as DropShips fled for orbit. He had to agree with them. It was definitely time to get off the planet.

"Get that shuttle out of here!" Grand Duke Tendo called to its pilot. The pilot nodded his head from the cockpit, and the loading ramp began to retract. The engines spooled up as the rest of the assembled Confederation forces headed back to the bunker to wait out the Orochi.

A _Tautog_ sailor, spared from his duties aboard the _Coronet_ to attend to the shuttle, reached over to draw Nodoka Saotome away from the boarding ramp. She craned her neck to look one final time at the LAM as it rocketed skyward.

"Please, milady," the sailor begged her. "We don't have much time to make orbit, and we can't lift off with you out of your seat."

Nodoka nodded sheepishly. She should have known better, but to see her son - even from a distance while in his 'mech - had meant the universe to her. She only wished that she had been given the chance to hug him before he took off to destroy the Orochi, but there had simply been too much to do and too little time in which to do it.

Her no-account husband had explained this to her, and while she understood the reasons why, she sensed that Genma was purposefully trying to keep her from Ranma. Wasn't seventeen years enough for the man!?

She was still fuming about it as the sailor checked her acceleration couch straps and then went forward to the cockpit. The Shogun's hula girls, a few of the non-combatants from both the DropShip _Palomino_ and the lost _Dragonfly_, - including the _Dragonfly_'s enlisted hospital corpsman - and finally the unconscious Aerospace Pilot, Sayuri, were all aboard with her. It was all the shuttle had room for, and there would not be time for a second trip before the Orochi completed its plunge.

The next chance she would get to see Ranma again would be after he had done what he needed to do, and everyone went aboard the _Coronet_ to go home to the Confederation. Surely it wouldn't take that long?

She closed her eyes as the shuttle lifted off for the safety of low orbit. She had waited seventeen years to see her beloved son. She could wait a few more hours.

Shogun Kuno stood with Hikaru Gosunkugi at the door of the bunker as the Grand Duke and the others approached. The look on his face was as carefree as always.

"I understand your right to stay, your Eminence," Soun said to the Shogun. "But I can't for the life of me figure out why you wanted to."

The Shogun smiled as he made way for Akane and the others to pass through the door.

"No room for de rum punch on de shuttle," he replied with a hearty laugh. "I say, get de others outta here - den we got more for me an my bruddahs." He slapped Hikaru on the back at this, nearly bowling the Gosunkugi heir over.

Hikaru straightened himself up. He had been torn with the decision of fleeing while he still could, and of remaining close to Akane. She had even smiled at him once since his arrival at the bunker, and he would give anything get another one from her. Perhaps something terrible would happen to Ranma Saotome; a noble sacrifice that destroyed the Orochi and left the matter of Akane's marriage prospects open. He could be there to comfort and console her! Perhaps this was what his prophesies had been steering him towards this entire time!

"As long as you're staying here, your Grace, I see no reason to do otherwise," he said in a weedy voice. He tried hard to sound like he meant it.

"Father," Kasumi said to Soun as the Grand Duke acknowledged the League heir's courage. "We should be getting inside now. Time is running out."

Soun nodded. "Of course." He looked to the Shogun and the Gosunkugi heir. "You just didn't want to give up on the limbo contest right in the middle, eh, your Eminence?"

The Shogun flashed his teeth in a knowing grin.

SLDFS _Coronet_

19:05 Local Time, T-minus 19 minutes to impact

"Conn, Sensory; Surface launch detection. Multiple Commonwealth DropShips on orbital insertion trajectories."

Hauptmann turned to look at the displays. On the main telescope monitor, the streaks of light and vapor from several DropShips glowed against the dark clouds of the planet. The DropShips were well-armed for a close range engagement against the _Coronet_, whose primary and secondary gun batteries had not yet been tested. Still, the Orochi was closing between them, and he did not expect the Commonwealth to do anything other than keep their distance from the falling battlestation.

"Conn, Fire Control; Firing point procedures complete. Main Gun aligned with primary target. Acceleration ladder presets continue to indicate ready."

It was moment of truth time now. Hauptmann exchanged glances with Hinako, who mirrored his sanguine mood with a silent nod. The last time he had issued this order, he had nearly crippled his own ship.

"Fire Control, continue to match bearing rates and fire the Main Gun," Hauptmann ordered.

"Fire Control, aye." The tech flipped open the red safety-striped cover over the weapon trigger and removed the baton-like control from its sealed vault within the console. His thumb smashed down on the top button with gusto. "Firing the Main Gun!"

Once more, a strident alarm hooted three times in warning as the _Coronet_ prepared to fire its spinal mount particle cannon. The lights dimmed as power reserves were shunted away from hotel loads to the massive superconducting loops that fed the spinal mount. A low droning rumbled up from the depths of the Star League light cruiser as motes of starflame began to leak from the muzzle aperture at the bow of the ship. Without further warning, a gout of blinding light erupted from the muzzle, sending forth a lance of blue-white radiance stabbing down towards the Orochi.

The particle beam lingered for several seconds, connecting the falling battlestation to its Star League contemporary with a bridge of white hot relativistic annihilation. Hauptmann, Hinako, and the others stood in rapt silence on the _Coronet_ as the particle beam cut through the dorsal armor of the battlestation with a wash of sparks and plasma flame, bursting bulkheads and exploding with undiminished brilliance through the ventral hull and continuing down into the upper atmosphere of Ryuugenzawa. A crimson glow flowed from the blackened rent in the Orochi's hull as it continued its fall.

"Did we kill it?" one of the techs manning the diminished Commo section asked.

Hauptmann watched in disbelief as the Orochi fell on towards the planet. A slow spin had started on the disc-like battlestation, and fires continued to burst out from the rent, but the thing seemed otherwise unharmed.

"How soon can we fire another shot?" he demanded.

"Ten minutes at the least," Fire Control declared. "I'm showing malfunction lights on several portions of the acceleration ladder due to overheating."

"Conn, Engineering," Lieutenant Fulton piped up from aft. "The Main Reactor's a little unstable after that last shot. I don't recommend putting any more hits on the power distribution system until we can run through some checks on our end."

"Damn!" Hautpmann slapped the console with his hand. "Ten minutes is too long. Fire Control; commence fire at the Orochi with our primary and secondary weapon mounts." Fulton would just have to deal with the transient power demands from the weapons as best he could.

"Fire Control; aye. Commencing fire now with Turrets Alpha through Delta."

Hauptmann was about to issue further orders when the Orochi shot back at them. The particle beam merely grazed the bow armor, but the blast effect rocked the bridge crew violently at their stations.

"Conn, Sensory; the Orochi is powering up gun directing radar and other weapon systems! EMS sweeps from the hostile arrays are being considered by Threat Analysis to be erratic but valid."

"Thanks for the warning!" Hinako barked to Sensory.

"It happened during the power drain. Passive sensors went down for a few seconds after our shot," Sensory explained weakly.

"Port side 'E' Deck depressurization alert!" the Chief of the Watch announced as part of his ship's status board shifted from green to amber, and then to red. "Pressure curtains in position. Leak contained to outboard ring section 'Charlie,' port side. No fires or other malfunctions indicated at this time."

"Captain Ninomiya, get us the hell out of here," Hauptmann ordered. "Fire Control; let that thing have it with whatever you have available to shoot."

Hinako was already issuing commands to the helm. "Helm; All Ahead Flank! Left full rudder, ten degrees negative pitch. Come to steady course one-five-five minus one-zero!"

"Manuevering answers All Ahead Flank!" the Helmsman cried as she yanked at the control yoke for the helm. Lieutenant Fulton's voice assured them over the intercom that the ship could still put out in spite of its woes.

The _Coronet's_ main engines blazed forth high energy plasma in confirmation of his assurances, generating a semblance of gravity for the crew as they ramped up to their full three gravities of thrust. Naval Laser cannons from turrets on the starboard side rippled fire at the Orochi as the starship rolled to port and continued a dive towards the atmosphere to get out of the Orochi's dorsal firing arcs.

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

19:08 Local Time. T-minus 16 minutes to impact

"Something just happened up there," Davidge declared as red damage warnings lit up across his displays. "Safe-Mode disengaged! The Orochi is arming and readying its weapons! The various targeting systems were damaged in the battle with the Combine, but the thing is still trying to shoot."

"Give Captain Saotome the bad news," Malloy ordered. "All those fleeing Musk ships must have riled the thing up."

"Captain Saotome is already airborne, sir," of the ex-_Dragonfly_'s commo techs declared.

"Tell him anyway."

Phoenix Hawk LAM ASX-002

25,000 meters MSL above Test Area North

Ranma didn't need the warning from the bunker to know that his situation was taking a turn for the worse. The blinding shaft of charged particles ripping through Ryuugenzawa's lower atmosphere from the _Coronet_ told him in very clear terms that things were already going south.

He was pushing the LAM for everything it had, making demands on the engines he knew from recent experience were dangerous in the extreme. The mach indicator on his HUD continued to roll towards double digits as he climbed through the lower stratosphere. Water vapor on his canopy had frozen into a thin rime of frost along the edges of the clear polycarbonate armor.

At best he had about ten minutes to reach the Orochi, find a place to plant the bomb, set it in place, arm it, and get the hell out before the battlestation's plunge through the thermosphere brought it deep enough to begin ionization. It would take most of his ten minutes to get up there, even with him practically killing himself with the frequent ramp-ups from five to eight gravities of thrust to escape the planet's pull as swiftly as possible. His vision was starting to blur as his pressure suit squeezed against his thighs and stomach to keep his blood where it was needed, and his head swam in spite of his conditioning.

It would have been an impossible ascent if he hadn't been able to control his fighter directly with his brain through his neurohelment link, as he couldn't even lift his hands from his seat under the acceleration forces he endured. As it stood, he was fighting back the nausea and dizziness that assailed him, focusing his will on Akane's survival below. The blessed Star League automedic that was a part of his pressure suit sensed his distress and flooded him with stimulants and blood-doping chemicals to maximize oxygen transfer. He barely heard the hiss of the suit's injectors in his armpits over the banshee keen of the plasma drives and the bass rumble of the fusion plant in the pit of his stomach, nor did he feel the cold pricks against his clammy skin.

The minutes sped away in an amphetamine-induced blur, the ghosty green alphanumerics of his HUD forming vapor trails in his watery vision as he locked onto the battlestation's radar reflection in his racing mind. A final ramp to eight gee's hit him in the gut, driving him into his ejector seat with a vengeance as the Orochi grew ever larger. His reflexes, keyed up to the breaking point, sang out in warning as laser fire began rippling down at him.

High in the thermosphere, in what was essentially low orbit, there was virtually no air to restrict him as he juked the LAM out of harm's way. At the literal top of the world, the horizon sank away in a violet arc to either side of the canopy, lit only by the fading sun and the frantic drives of the escaping Commonwealth DropShips in the distance. Ranma transformed his LAM into the more agile Airmech Mode as the Orochi split its smaller weapon mounts between him and the light cruiser _Coronet_, higher still above him. He took care to keep the battlemech's left hand stowed during his Phoenix Hawk's transformation to protect the bomb.

Ranma streaked past the falling battlestation, firing his engines to adjust his ballistic arc in order to put him on a position and course above the Orochi while descending upon it. The center control node Davidge had described to him was there, and so were a bevy of point defense batteries, all shooting at him. The beams and bolts crazed his armor and flashed across his canopy as he defied all instincts for survival and closed with the doomed satellite.

SLDFS _Coronet_

19:18 Local Time, T-minus 6 minutes to impact

"Conn, Sensory; Phoenix Hawk LAM detected, bearing zero-zero-nine, minus seven-eight."

Hauptmann trained one of the high speed telescopes over to the indicated bearing from his position at Fire Control.

"One of ours?" he asked.

"Ranma!?" Hinako cried from the conn as the Cameron Star of the SLDF became clear on the LAM's silver hull. "What does he think he's doing up here?"

"Looks like suicide," Hauptmann concluded. "Continue to fire on the Orochi," he added to the Fire Control section. "We'll keep the heat on if it will distract that damned machine."

A hit on their starboard beam shook them at their posts, reminding them that the Orochi was far from out of the fight.

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

19:18 Local Time. T-minus 6 minutes to impact

Akane watched the telemetry displays in the control room in silence, her teeth set against her lower lip and her hands moist with perspiration. The steadying hand on her shoulder from Shinnosuke as he looked on was appreciated even if she was too busy worrying about Ranma to mention it. Hikaru Gosunkugi lurked close by, quietly pouting that it was the local bumpkin and not himself who was giving Akane comfort.

"Point defense batteries continuing to fire," Davidge announced for everyone's benefit. Akane wanted to hit him for pointing out in clinical detail how the battlestation intended to kill the man she loved. She remained glued to her chair instead, watching the tiny point of light on the display that was the radar abstract of Phoenix Hawk LAM ASX-002.

"How much longer until the Orochi reaches the lower atmosphere?" Grand Duke Tendo asked the lieutenant. Genma remained quiet and still at the Duke's side, his mind wracked with doubt and the unspoken fear that even seventeen years of intense training had left his son unprepared for such a suicidal task.

"Three minutes," Davidge replied. "After that, we'll lose our telemetry feeds and have no more contact with the Orochi."

"Look!" Shinnosuke shouted, pointing at the displays. "He's making another pass!"

All eyes focused on the Threat Engagement board as radar-directed autocannons and heavy lasers swung to bear once more on the offending fighter. The radar image began to blur, then became multiple images as the LAM's onboard ECM systems spoofed the gun-directors, but a quick glance at the nearby Electronic Warfare display showed that the Orochi was already processing countermeasure algorithms to defeat the spoofing.

"Please," Akane whispered over and over as the LAM commenced yet another attack.

Hikaru silently prayed that Ranma would succeed as well - but not live to tell of it.

Phoenix Hawk LAM ASX-002

"SonuvaBITCH!" Ranma swore as the beams burned around him, lancing through the armored engine/weapon pods and destroying the twin medium pulse laser mount. His vernier thrusters flared in every direction as he loosed another volley of countermeasure decoys in what was his third failed attempt to reach the hull. The Orochi's weapons were too well coordinated in spite of the gun-directing radar damage for him to dodge them all, and he was taking hits. His own heavy pulselaser lashed out in return, hosing fire into the gun batteries as he aborted the approach.

He soared as close as he dared to the saucer's edge and dove once more below the Orochi. The ventral gun mounts were waiting for him, and another blizzard of high energy laser and particle beam fire wove lines of electric death around him. The last of the countermeasures popped from the dispenser as he punched his plasma drives for another crushing eight-gee evasive burn.

He went blind for a moment, clawing his way through numbing waves of unconsciousness as he fought off the acceleration effects. His Electronic Warfare panel hooted an alarm declaring that the Orochi had once again unlocked his radar spoofing patterns, and then shifted to another set of countermeasure routines. He was running out of options, and all it took was one lucky hit on his left forearm to damage or destroy the bomb he needed to take out the battlestation.

Seems like the fire is worse on the dorsal side, he thought frantically. If I attack the ventral side I won't be protected by the hull when this thing hits the mesosphere, but I don't stand a chance trying to take on the upper half.

His mind made up, Ranma pulled a hard turn and came back at the Orochi from straight on the narrow edge of the saucer. Both sets of guns could theoretically fire at him from this point, but he found that they could not depress enough into the other side's firing arc to make it a problem. If anything, the volume of effective fire thrown at him was lower.

Nine hundred kilometers, he noted on his radar altimeter. He had seventy-five seconds to pull this off before the Orochi hit the atmosphere in earnest.

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

19:19 Local Time. T-minus 5 minutes to impact

"Akari?"

Ryouga's voice seemed to carry much farther than he would have preferred among the muted voices of the others gathered in the dining area of the bunker. In the event that Ranma was unable to destroy the Orochi, everyone had been sent down to the belowground portion of the bunker to ride out the impact as best as they could.

"Yes, Ryouga?" she replied.

If she sensed what he was thinking in that moment, she did not make it clear by the tone of her voice. Ryouga swallowed nervously before he continued, while Captain Grant called out the five minute mark to impact from the dining area table.

"I..." he began, but his voice trailed off. His face turned red even though he could see that everyone else in the room was busy with their own thoughts, or making nervous small-talk with their neighbors to pass the time until the Orochi crashed into the planet. No one was paying any attention to the two of them.

"I was going to ask you something," he managed after several more false starts. "S-Something very important." He wanted to let her know more than just how he felt, he wanted her to know how much a future with her meant to him, and with their immediate future uncertain, it had become a crisis within his heart.

She turned in his lap to look at him.

"Ryouga?" she asked, her voice now suggesting that she knew exactly what he had in mind, and her gentle eyes lighting up with surprise.

He nodded, allowing the question to pass between them unspoken - at least for the moment.

"Would you?" he finally asked her. "If we survive this, I mean."

She buried her face in his shoulder and nodded with a soft cry of happiness at his proposition.

"We'll survive," she assured him as his arms closed around her to hold her close in his lap. "For this, we _have_ to survive." His face continued to blaze bright red as she answered him, an effect thankfully lost upon their neighbors in the dim emergency lighting of the bunker.

Elsewhere in the bunker, Ukyou Kuonji sat in brooding silence on the steps of the stairwell leading down to the control room. Konatsu hovered close by, his eyes fixed with concern upon her.

"Are you all right, sir?" he asked.

She looked up to regard him. His pretty face was streaked with dirt and sweat from his excursion into the forest. The sight of him; so beautiful that it hurt to think about when she considered her own modest looks, and so lost without her that she felt pangs of guilt whenever she thought about why he was always there by her side. A sigh of remorse escaped her lips against her will.

"I'm worried," she finally replied. Worry and guilt were both evident in her eyes.

"About the Orochi, or Captain Saotome?" he asked in return.

Ukyou bit back the soft oath that sprang to her lips with Konatsu's question. As usual, her former majordomo cut to the heart of the matter, knowing exactly what she was feeling.

"Ranma," she said to him. "If anyone can do what he's trying to do to stop the Orochi, I know it's him, but that doesn't mean that something bad can't happen in the process."

Konatsu nodded silently. There wasn't much he could add to her statement, but he felt that her concern for Ranma was not the only thing that was bothering her.

"Do you have any regrets, sir?" he asked.

"Stop calling me 'sir,'" Ukyou snapped, irritation rising in her voice. "I didn't like it even when it meant something between us. You know that."

"I'm sorry," Konatsu pleaded, abashed by her rebuke.

"And stop being sorry," Ukyou returned. "You are your own person, Konatsu. You're not my servant, and you're not my slave. We aren't part of the Federated Shiratori anymore. Our relationship can't be based on that."

Konatsu bowed his head and remained silent.

Ukyou stood to face him, lifting his chin gently with her hand to look him in the eyes.

"Look, I couldn't ask for any friend more loyal and dedicated than you," she said to him. "You've repaid any debt of kindness you might have owed to me in the past a thousand times over. So now I want you to stop living your life as if it were at my sufferance. Can you do that?"

Konatsu's face began to redden.

"I-I don't know," he said, unsure of what he felt, much less what he could say in reply.

"You're so hopeless," Ukyou sighed, drawing Konatsu into her arms for a hug. "If anyone should be apologizing around here, it's me. We're probably gonna die down here in this hole; forgotten on a lost planet that no one else in the Inner Sphere knows exists." She squeezed him even tighter to herself. "I'm the one who led you here. I did it because I fooled myself into believing that I had a chance with Ranchan, and if my mistake gets us killed in a few minutes, then I want to apologize right now for it."

Konatsu brought his arms up to return her embrace. It was a bittersweet moment, for while he had never felt Ukyou's affection for him so strongly in his life, he knew in his heart that the love she had for him was not the love that he felt in return for her.

"I have no regrets," he managed. "I came with you because I wanted to."

"I know that," Ukyou sighed, giving him another squeeze. "But I also know the reason why you wanted to, and I feel like I've somehow taken advantage of you because of it." She wiped at her eyes, still holding him close. "I'm going to keep telling myself that we'll be okay, so humor me, huh, sugar?"

Konatsu nodded in reply. Ukyou was grateful for the silence. She needed time to think about where she was and where she was going - and if worse came to worst, she had all of five minutes in which to do it.

Blue Thunder Regimental Headquarters Company

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds, Test Area North

19:20 Local Time, T-minus 4 minutes to impact.

"My lord Prince!" Kyle pleaded with his commander from high orbit. "I urge you to take shelter at once!"

"Bah!" Tatewaki snorted in retort. "I've had enough of your girlish chatter, Kyle!" He switched off the commo link to the _Imperator_ with a flourish. His Operations Officer was becoming an embarrassment to him, and worse, infecting the men with fear. It took every gram of his command presence to keep them in ranks because of Kyle's clamor.

And for what? he asked imperiously, for he could see battlemechs standing in a line near a hill in the distance, and felt in his bones that Akane Tendo's was among them. Two of the 'mechs bore the distinctive cannon-armed silhouettes of Warhammers, his love's machine of choice.

"I go forth with glad heart to meet my destiny this day," he said lightly to himself and to his men as his Thunderbolt stomped towards the Orochi bunker.

Phoenix Hawk LAM ASX-002

19:20 Local Time, T-minus 4 minutes to impact.

Ranma wrenched at the controls as his battered Phoenix Hawk LAM skidded across the scorched lower hull of the Orochi in Airmech Mode. Once in contact with the orbital battlestation, he was too close for the point- defense guns to draw a bead on him, and he gasped for breath in the sudden respite from weapon fire as the LAM came to a halt. He could feel the Orochi's internal rumblings through his own ship as the suffuse glow of red-hot metal lit up the artificial horizon created by the massive half- kilometer disc.

Vents of flame shot up from the point where the _Coronet_'s spinal mount particle beam had blasted through the battlestation, fanning out into flat clouds against the weak air resistance as the Orochi burned from within, giving Ranma hope that his bomb would be enough to finish the job. Forgetting for a moment that with his present orientation, he was essentially upside down, and facing the looming planet of Ryuugenzawa 'above' him, the slope of the hull 'rose' to the center of the disc, where Davidge had said was a vulnerable spot. He scooted the Phoenix Hawk carefully along the hull, blasting the domed turrets of impotent point-defense guns as he went to make certain none of them shot him in passing. The main drive exhaust nozzles at the very center of the ventral bulge seemed like a good place to set the bomb.

He needed to pry open the massive thirty centimeter thick armored louvers for the drives to get inside, as there was no obvious place to plant the nuke on the exterior hull, and no way to ensure that it stayed put. The Phoenix Hawk strained at the armored shutters, working them back and forth with its one free hand and the other forearm until he had weakened their mounts enough to squeeze inside the nozzle. He did so with trepidation, knowing that if the Orochi was capable of reacting to such an intrusion, one good blast of plasma from the Main Engines would utterly incinerate him.

It was nearly pitch black inside the house-sized nozzle; a long tunnel of magnetic coils that led directly to the fusion reactor in the heart of the battlestation extended beyond. He activated his landing lights to see what he was doing, then unlocked the left hand of his LAM, which slowly extended from the forearm to reveal the thermonuclear device from the Tendo Armory. At first brush the thing appeared to be intact.

He stole a glance at the clock function he had called up to the HUD, and knew that he had less than fifteen seconds to arm and plant the bomb before the Orochi started hitting thick atmosphere. Some of the buffeting he already felt was from the falling battlestation's flirtation with the mesosphere. He set the bomb between a series of plasma accelerator coils that ringed the tunnel, figuring that it would be secure enough for the two minutes or so he had remaining before the thing needed to explode. Hurrying without being careless, and mindful that he had a slight case of the shakes from the speed his automedic had prescribed, he extended the three micromanipulator arms from the right forearm of his LAM.

The control panel cover was slid aside to reveal that all appeared normal with the weapon. It was armed, and required only the timer function to be set. He moved one of the manipulator waldoes over to the key pad, and punched in a ninety-second delay. It was the longest he dared to give the thing, knowing that he would have to squeeze his way out past the nozzle louvers and still manage to put as much distance as possible between himself and an explosion that was going to be at least a megaton in yield.

As he touched the 'enter' button on the keypad with his manipulator waldo, he offered up a brief plea for it to work.

The bomb's function display flashed several times in acknowledgement, then shifted to a series of red failure lights.

"You gotta be shitting me!" Ranma cursed as the bomb sat inert within the nozzle of the Orochi's plasma drive. The battlestation began to oscillate as it dug into the thin atmosphere of the mesosphere, and a thin stream of vapor flowed through a gap in the nozzle louvers to coil around his cockpit canopy.

Black Rose Terror Regiment DropShip _Thorn_

19:21 Local Time, T-minus 3 minutes to impact.

Sasuke watched Kodachi's battered Marauder limp out of the distant treeline from the vantage of the Overlord Class DropShip's bridge. Troops from her brother's forces were in obvious pursuit, though he had ordered what little remained in the way of the regiment's aerospace fighters to harass them to buy his mistress time.

Time was something they had very little of, for he now understood that the Orochi was going to crash into the planet, and they were judged close enough to the projected impact point to be wiped out by the blast such a collision would generate. The ninja had already overridden the captain of the _Thorn_ at the point of his dagger over the idea of abandoning Kodachi before it was too late to escape, and now the First Officer kept an uneasy watch from the command chair. Sasuke did not know what to make of the fact that Tatewaki had apparently written off the incoming Orochi as inconsequential, other than to dream of the possibilities that would come from the Prince's death.

"Hurry, Mistress!" he called to Kodachi over the radio. "We have to lift off this very moment!"

"You'll hold your position," she returned coolly. Sasuke cringed to see Tarou sitting more or less in her lap on the display. He had hoped that Kodachi's paramour had been among the regiment's fallen.

"Of course, Mistress," he demurred. He cast a sharp-eyed look to the newly minted captain of the _Thorn_, telling him without words that there would be no further discussion of the matter of leaving without Princess Kodachi.

"Mech Bay Door Number One is open and standing by for retrieval," the former First Officer replied.

Phoenix Hawk LAM ASX-002

19:21 Local Time, T-minus 3 minutes to impact.

Ranma tried entering the time delay a second time without the desired effect. Then he punched at the sixty-second manual release. Still nothing. The bomb was locked out on numerous incomprehensible errors. Had the changing environmental conditions contributed to the device's malfunctions, or was it something else?

There wasn't any time to waste with a useless piece of junk. He needed results, and he needed them now. Turning to activate his twin rack SRM launcher, he prepared to loose a volley of missiles down the tunnel of the plasma drive, and to the gigantic fusion reactor beyond.

He stopped himself just short of firing the missiles. If he did what he had intended, there would have been no time to escape. Cursing to himself as the seconds ticked away, he yanked at the release for his cockpit canopy, venting the atmosphere within to the tunnel. He'd save the missiles for the absolute last second, but in the meantime, he was going to try and hotwire a thermonuclear weapon.

How hard could it be?

He moved in freefall down the arm of his LAM to the bomb, pulling himself along while he fished in his thigh pockets with his other hand for the small array of portable tools he kept on his person. The bomb's display continued to glare at him in angry shades of flashing red as he popped the LCD panel out of its mount with a screwdiver. The only thing he had going for him was the fact that by properly arming the device for full release before he left the planet, the standard anti-tampering interlocks had been removed.

He flipped up the LCD panel and let it hang in free-fall by the slender length of wiring bundle that tied it to the rest of the bomb, and was relieved to see that a schematic diagram of the arming and firing mechanisms were present on the backside. His eyes scanned the schematic voraciously as the Orochi continued to bite into thicker air, and a thin scream of vapor whistled through the gaps in the armored shutters of the nozzle. All of his years of training as a Scout and as a burglar were coming down to this moment as he determined where and how the bomb could be overridden manually.

He found it with an exultant cry. The manual sixty-second release switch, although determined to be 'dead' with a touch of his voltmeter probe to its 'hot' side, could still bypass the keypad input function if he found a way to energize it - but as it relied on the timing circuit itself, he would have to depend on that part of the bomb to be functional. He didn't have time to figure out what had gone wrong with the bomb's control system, so he would have to take the chance that it worked.

He searched for and found an available 24 volt power input with his voltmeter probe. All he had to do now was short across the manual release with his screwdriver. He took a deep breath and touched the conducting surface of the screwdriver to the voltage source and the switch. A flash of sparks and the felt hiss of pressurization within the guts of the bomb told him something had happened. An LED began to glow next to the fission-primary casing - the tritium gas boosting charge had been loaded into the primary as a preamble to the big firecracker going off.

He spun the LCD readout panel around to see that the MANUAL FIRE light had come on, and that a sixty-second countdown was already three seconds into its progression. Stifling the urge to piss himself, he scrambled for the open cockpit of the LAM as the thermonuclear bomb counted down to detonation. He did not want to be there to check the validity of the firing circuit's function firsthand.

Ranma dragged himself up the arm of the LAM to the cockpit and pulled himself into his ejector seat, securing seat straps with one hand as his other hand closed the canopy. He pivoted in the middle of the engine thruster to face the shutters, and gripped a section of them with both of the Phoenix Hawk's hands to wrench them open. He could only guess at how much time he had left before the bomb exploded, and no matter the accuracy of his guess, it wasn't a comfortable margin.

He pushed and pulled at the louvers to force them open, fighting the blasts of atmosphere as much as the mounts. Wisps of ionization streamed past his 'mech as the Orochi began to heat up with the atmospheric friction of reentry. If the magnetically-shielded louvers hadn't been designed to withstand the incredible radiant heat of million degree plasma rushing past them, he would have been concerned about them melting to his battlemech's hands. As it stood, he was having more trouble getting out of the Orochi's innards than he had getting in.

Straining the myomer bundles to their limits, he finally wrenched the louvers open, but a flick of his eyes to the clock function on his HUD told him that he was already too late. He gave a defiant shout over the radio and launched himself free of the nozzle with the last few seconds of his reaction mass, and was propelled into the violent wash of superheated air trapped beneath the plummeting orbital battlestation. He crashed against the ventral hull of the Orochi as he cleared the nozzle, his LAM tumbling against the glowing red hull to the ragged edge of the half-kilometer disc.

There was no fighting the controls - he had no fuel left, and in the maelstrom of superheated air, no way to stabilize himself. Battered with each jarring hit against the Orochi's ventral hull, he could only hope with wildly frantic thoughts that his Phoenix Hawk would hold on to enough of its structural integrity to keep from flying apart in a thousand pieces. He was so occupied with the idea of being smashed to bits against the red hot hull that he completely forgot about the thermonuclear bomb he had set to go off inside the Orochi.

Fortunately for the people on the planet below, the bomb had not forgotten what it was supposed to do.

SLDFS _Coronet_

19:22 Local Time, T-minus 90 seconds to impact

"Conn, Sensory; the Orochi has reached the point of ionization. Estimated time to impact is nine-zero seconds."

"Can we fire another shot?" Hauptmann demanded from Fire Control. "We don't have any more time to lose."

"Malfunction lights haven't cleared," the tech replied. "And I don't know enough about this system to figure out a way to bypass the safety interlocks."

Captain Hinako Ninomiya looked on helplessly at the main telescope monitor. The battlestation was about to crash into the planet, and probably kill everyone down there. What had Ranma been up to in his mad attacks on the Orochi? Where had he disappeared to when he attacked the battlestation's underside? Surely the boy couldn't have been trying to destroy it with only the tiny weapons array of a Phoenix Hawk LAM?

"Any sign of Captain Saotome?" she asked as the _Coronet_'s sensors looked down at the fiery trail of the falling Orochi from a scant thousand kilometers above the planet. She concluded that Ranma was stubborn enough to try such a thing, even if there was no hope of success.

"No, ma'am," Sensory replied. "All I have on my scopes along those bearings are the fleeing Commonwealth DropShips plus the IFF ping from our shuttle at a range of four thousand kilometers."

Hinako was going to ask another question when a loud squawk of electronic protest sounded over the intercom speakers. She caught the brilliant flash of light from the Orochi in that same instant, and was grateful for the auto-dampening features of the telescope array. Blinking away the spots before her eyes, she watched as the battlestation fountained a column of plasma from the very center of its dorsal bulge, a column that continued to rise like a beam of pure energy well past the Star League cruiser off its port bow, and into medium orbit.

"What the hell?" Hauptmann grunted from Fire Control.

The rest of the Orochi began to break apart as the inner half of the disc evaporated with the heat of the exploding bomb. Sections over fifty meters in length scattered from the blast, while smaller pieces were propelled into crazy spirals by a combination of the explosion and the air resistance caused by their plunge into the atmosphere. Hinako watched in awe as the Orochi fanned apart into a glowing tracery of debris that expanded over the darkened face of Ryuugenzawa below.

At first she thought it had been some malfunction within the Orochi caused by the stresses of entering the atmosphere. As she watched the sections of the wrecked battlestation burn, she came to understand that its destruction had been engineered. It could only have been Ranma.

Test Area North

Shampoo winced at the brilliant flash of light that overwhelmed the early evening sky, and looked up to see thousands of streaks of flame fanning out across the heavens from a central ball of annihilation. Unaware that it was the Orochi's disintegration, she wondered if one of the starships in orbit had come to a bad end, and wondered if it had been a Furinkan Combine or Musk Dynasty ship. Bits of debris rained down in fiery white streaks as they burned up in the atmosphere, while larger pieces of the battlestation continued their fall all the way to the distant ocean.

"So beautiful," she heard Mousse whisper, and she had to agree with him. At a distance, such cataclysmic destruction had a compelling allure.

She looked down at him, stroking his matted hair and thinking about how much time he had left to live. His skin was so cold beneath her fingertips, and his breathing was so faint that she could no longer detect it. A pang of dread shot through her at the realization that Mousse was lying very still in her lap.

"Mousse?" she called to him quietly, almost pleading for an answer.

There was none. Mousse had passed on in that moment while her attention was drawn to the sky, and his eyes, half open, seemed to be fixed upon her. A touch of her hand to his chest told her what her she already knew, for the weak and thready beat of his heart had ceased.

She felt something break inside her then, a part of her that she had always kept at arm's length within her soul. It was as if the last nineteen years of her life had belonged to someone else, a person she no longer knew, or even recognized. It was the last of what had been many ruptures, great and small, with her old self; the Shampoo that had tried so hard to live up to the demands of her family and clan - and most of all, her great-grandmother - and failed.

Mousse had been her final link to that other self, and now that he was gone, she was cast adrift. Alone.

A fluttering in her belly stirred her to sob just once; a wracked, anguished cry that ended abruptly as she reasserted herself with an angry grunt of determination. Perhaps she wasn't alone, for the baby was still with her, but she would never be the same woman she had been before she came to Ryuugenzawa - _could_ never be that woman. That Shampoo was gone - as dead as the man who lay in her lap - and now she was reborn to a new life. It was a life of uncertainty and hardship, but she had learned in the last six months to expect nothing else.

She rose slowly to her feet, taking care to close Mousse's unseeing eyes and set his head down gently in the forest grass as she did so. She wanted to go back to the bunker, to the only people she had left on this world who would have her. Part of her wanted to go home, but she doubted that such a thing was possible even if they had a starship to do it with.

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

"What the -?" Davidge squawked as he strained his ears to listen over a headset for the tiniest trace of electronic signals, and was bombarded with a blast of intense noise.

"What is it?" Akane asked.

"I think he did it," he replied. "I really think he did it!"

"The Orochi is gone?" Genma cried expectantly.

Davidge nodded, pointing to one of the displays. "You can see here that there was a huge pulse of electromagnetic energy, and now there's a continuous buzz of static consistant with a large explosion high in the mesosphere. It's got to be the Orochi."

"Well, in two more minutes we'll find out for certain," Malloy pointed out. "If it's gone, then nothing will happen. Otherwise we're definitely going to feel it when it hits."

"Can't we radio Ranma and find out for certain?" Akane asked.

"Not with the ionization effects I'm detecting," Davidge replied. "We could be out of direct radio contact with anyone in space for hours, perhaps even days with a blast that big."

"So we wait," Shinnosuke observed.

"I'm not worried," Hikaru added with a shake of his head. Nervous about Saotome's survival, yes. But not worried.

They watched the clock as it ticked off the seconds. When the time for impact passed without any noticeable effect, a whoop of joy went up from those in the control room that carried up the stairs and was echoed by everyone remaining in the bunker. The Orochi was destroyed, and the planet spared catastrophe.

Akane hugged both Shinnosuke and Hikaru, and then anyone she could reach in the crowded control room. The stress and tension of nine long hours of conflict evaporated with the knowledge that they had beaten the odds and survived the battle.

"I'm going outside," she declared, wanting to be there when Ranma returned. "Who's coming with me?"

General Prince Tatewaki Kuno started at the blinding flash of light that filled the sky. His commo suite squawked in protest, and harsh static blared from the speakers. Battle management links went down, severing his connections to his command staff.

"What manner of skulduggery is this!?" he demanded. There was no response from his troops, who stopped their advance to watch the long streaks of fire that raced across the sky towards the distant sea.

Snarling curses that they did not hear over the hiss and crackle of the disturbed ether, he continued on towards the bunker. The battlemechs that stood around the low grassy hill were silent. None offered any resistance, and as he closed the distance he realized that they were unmanned. Even more curiously, they were adorned with the Cameron Star of the Star League Defense Force.

Finally, shamed at seeing their general get ahead of them, the rest of his troops closed ranks and continued their advance. The brilliant meteor shower continued above them as small bits of debris actually reached the surface, pattering the ground and in rare instances spanging off their diamond-hard battlemech armor.

Tatewaki was beside himself with anger, but as the radio interference continued undiminshed, he could do nothing to berate his troops for their distraction. He reached the line of SLDF battlemechs, and upon close examination, confirmed that they were inactive. Their crews were likely hiding within the bunker.

What he wanted to know more than anything was that Akane Tendo was among them. He felt that it was so, and yet not knowing was driving him mad. It only then dawned on him that the terrible flash of light in the sky had been the Orochi exploding high in the atmosphere, and at this he barked out a fey laugh at the miracle. Destiny was truly calling him to her bosom, or, more specifically, to the bosoms of Akane Tendo and the Pig-Tailed Girl.

"Come out!" he called out over the external speakers to the bunker. "Show thyselves, be ye Star League or mine own Confederation foes! I have come to make the peerless Akane Tendo my bride!"

"That sounds like Kuno," Ryouga said in a hushed voice from the bunker door. The Prince of the Furinkan Combine continued to rant over the loudspeaker of his Thunderbolt on the other side of the door.

"Kuno?" Akane asked worriedly. "You're kidding me. He didn't leave the planet with the others?"

Ryouga shrugged uneasily as Akari curled up behind him to listen. "From the way the ground's shaking, I think he brought his whole guard with him."

"Shall we make a run for our 'mechs?" Ukyou asked quietly as Kuno continued issuing demands for their appearance.

"It might be suicide to try," Akane returned, mirroring Ukyou's apprehension. She looked to her father and Kasumi. "What do you think, Dad?"

Soun in turn looked to the Shogun of the Furinkan Combine. "He's your son."

The Shogun nodded his head. "Yah, bruddah. Dat be true. Mebbe it be time to settle tings wit' de keiki."

"Just what did you have in mind?" Genma asked the Shogun.

The Shogun shrugged. "Gonna see if dat boy done got himself a proper haircut, first." He motioned for Ryouga to open the bunker door.

Ryouga looked to Akane for confirmation, and she turned to her father. Soun nodded slowly in agreement.

Tatewaki Kuno was stunned by the appearance of his father from the door of the bunker. His troops, recognizing the Shogun of the Furinkan Combine, dropped their battlemechs down to one knee in a display of fealty and respect. The Shogun gave them a jaunty wave and a wide grinning smile.

"Hey, boy!" he called to his son's Thunderbolt. "You gonna come down and say aloha to your papa?"

Tatewaki choked back a rush of bile in his throat. How had this man come to this place? Had Nabiki made a mistake somewhere along the line, or had she planned this from the start when she pointed him towards the Ryuugenzawa System, and if so, why?

Slowly, taking pains to preserve his dignity, he opened the hatch to his battlemech and appeared. There was no sense in letting on to his feelings of anger and confusion regarding his father's presence. He did enjoy looking down on his hated father, and he toyed briefly with the idea of stomping him into the ground with a well-placed battlemech foot.

"You gonna come down, Tachi?" the Shogun asked, his voice taking on a hint of annoyance.

"Of course, Father," Tatewaki replied with mock enthusiam. "Let me embrace you as a son to his father." He climbed down the Thunderbolt as designated members of his personal guard did the same from their 'mechs.

The two men walked towards the center of the space of ground that separated them as Ryouga, Ukyou, and Akane looked on from the door. As the two neared each other, Tatewaki threw open his arms to accept his father's love. The Shogun did the same. It was a surreal moment made even more bizarre by the fact that as they came within half a meter of each other, the father produced a pair of hair-clippers, and the son a wooden bokken.

They passed like dueling samurai from ancient legends. Tatewaki Kuno's bokken flowered into a bouquet of wooden slivers and sawdust while the Shogun sheathed his clippers with the grace and dignity born of a master's skill.

"You never could beat me, keiki," the Shogun crowed, turning to see Tatewaki's face purpling with humiliation. "Maybe you shoulda took up stamp collectin' instead o' tryin' ta rule da Combine."

"Curse you, Father!" Tatewaki retorted. "Whilst I hath expanded the mighty Furinkan Combine into many new systems in the tender years of my youth, thou'rt squandering thy hours away in frivolous pursuit of base pleasure. Speak not of matters regarding who is fit to rule and who is unfit!"

The Shogun nodded his head. "Perhaps you right, boy," he replied.

This took Tatewaki aback.

"You say this not in jest?" he asked with an arched eyebrow of surprise.

The Shogun turned to his companions in the bunker instead of replying to his son's question. "You come out now. Dere ain't no sense in resisting anymore. Da boy won fair and square."

Tatewaki saw the Grand Duke of the Confederation step out of the door, his face red with anger. Truly, Nabiki's lies went even farther than he dared dream if her father walked free on the planet Ryuugenzawa, and was not in custody on Nerima.

"What's the meaning of this?" Soun demanded of the Shogun as Ryouga and Genma tried unsuccessfully to pull him back inside. "You said you were going to talk to Prince Kuno, not compell us to surrender to him!"

The Shogun shrugged. "It's like I been saying all along, bruddah. If da boy is willin' to struggle and sacrifice for what he wants, den he deserves ta get it when it comes along." He nudged his thumb towards his son. "Da boy was crazy stickin' around on de planet when de smart ting to do was get going - but it done paid off."

Soun failed to see the point. "I will not surrender to the Combine!" he shot back. Ryouga and the others filtered out to lend the Grand Duke support, and perhaps make a break for their 'mechs - though Captain Grant and Ukyou had to drag Genma out by his arms to do it.

When Tatewaki laid eyes upon Akane, his face brightened as if looking upon the rising sun.

"Akane Tendo!" he cried, and ignoring the other Confederation types, made a beeline straight for her with his arms thrown wide for an embrace. Shinnosuke and Konatsu quickly stood in front of her to block his path, while Hikaru Gosunkugi pretended not to exist in the hopes that Tatewaki wouldn't notice him standing there with the Confederation heir.

Tatewaki drew his katana and leveled it at her escorts. "Stand aside," he ordered them. The whine of battlemech weapons zeroing in on the crowd added emphasis to his demand. "Come not between the Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine and his prize if thou dost value life and breath."

Akane stared Tatewaki down. "Speaking of breath, Kuno; I will defy _you_ to my last breath," she said coldly to him.

Her defiance was unnerving, but he swallowed his disappointment by directing his wrath towards Hikaru Gosunkugi. "Bloodless coward," he snorted imperiously. "Slow death upon thy cross is assured for thy treachery this day."

Hikaru tried not to wilt under Tatewaki's withering gaze. All this, and yet still disaster struck! However terrible the thought of certain death was to him, the agony of crucifixion paled in comparison to the agony of seeing Akane Tendo made Kuno's wife.

The Combine prince didn't give him a second thought, returning his attentions to Akane. "Pray tell, fairest of all Nerima, whither the churlish Ranma Saotome, that I might impale him upon the prow of my mighty battleship as a trophy?"

She cringed at his plans for her beloved while her hands crackled into fists.

"He'd dead," she spat. "Your troops killed him in battle today." She gave the lie to puff him up, and at the same time put him at ease in the hopes that Ranma's return to the surface of the planet would come as the surprise they needed to make their escape. Ryouga gave her a quizzical look, only to be stabbed in the ribs by an elbow of the much swifter Ukyou Kuonji to shut him up before he gave the show away.

Tatewaki Kuno expressed both satisfaction and dismay at the news. He had hoped to face the cur one last time before putting him to the sword, just to hear him beg for mercy.

"No matter," he returned coolly. "I have what I have come for."

"Not so fast," Akane retorted. "I said I will defy you to the end, and I meant it."

Tatewaki chuckled. "I value and prize thy defiance, Akane Tendo. Indeed, thy fierce and unbroken spirit is what draws me hither to thee, as a moth to the flame. Though perhaps you speak in haste, having not long had the pleasure of my companionship."

"The last time I had the pleasure of your companionship, you were hurting my friends and threatening them with death!" she yelled back at him, letting emotions flow through her that she had suppressed since Capra. "So you can imagine how that might have poisoned me to your so-called charms!"

The Shogun stepped between them, flanked by the fuming Grand Duke Tendo and several of Tatewaki's dismounted troops. He gave Akane a smile and a wink, making her blink in astonishment, and leaving her wondering just what he was up to.

"Maybe tings ain't exactly like you'd hoped, eh, keiki?" he asked his son with a rhetorical aire.

"Nonsense," Tatewaki spat. "I've won. The Confederation is as good as mine, and so too the lovely Akane Tendo. I need only to feast my eyes upon the vibrant Pig-Tailed Girl to make my victory utterly complete."

Akane made a face at him, but kept silent. Pig-Tailed Girl? Does he mean Ranma!? She cast a furtive glance to the sky, where the fiery fingers of the obliterated Orochi satellite continued to expand and fade away into flickering streamers of light.

"Maybe you ain't quite earned what you tink you got," the Shogun broached casually as Akane searched the heavens for a sign of Ranma. "Maybe you got one more challenge to overcome."

"If this is about one of your ridiculous limbo contests, I shall have nothing to do with it!" Tatewaki fulminated.

Akane, distracted as she was, understood what the Shogun was getting at.

"Kuno, I challenge you to a duel!" she cried, taking her eyes away from the sky and fixing them upon the Combine prince. "It's my right as a mechwarrior and a lady of the blood!"

Tatewaki turned to regard Akane with wide eyes.

"Challenge me?" he asked, intrigued. "The Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine?"

She nodded slowly in reply. "If you defeat me in battlemech combat, I'll submit to you right here and now. The Confederation will be yours without any more resistance." Soun and Kasumi gaped at her offer, but remained silent pending the Combine prince's response.

Tatewaki blinked in surpise. "You shall become my dutiful wife?" he asked her dubiously. "My queen and my sovereign empress? Bearing our children in the fullness of time?"

"I'll marry you right here and now," she replied, working herself up for the other end of the bargain. "And I'll be your wife and the mother of your children."

Tatewaki was beside himself with joy. "Done and done, Akane Tendo!" He leaped forward to embrace her once again.

"Not so fast, Kuno," she snapped, pushing him away. "If I win, the Furinkan Combine will withdraw from all Confederation territory taken since the beginning of the Third Succession War."

It was Tatewaki's turn to gape, and he was not alone.

Akane continued, projecting for Kuno the same steely determination to do what was right for the Confederation that had earned her the adoration of her people.

"Furthermore, you will agree to an immediate cease-fire between the Furinkan Combine and the Confederation, to last a minimum of ten years from this day. You will also pay reparations to the Confederation in the sum of twenty billion c-bills - one quarter of which will be due in six months to the Bank of Sol on Earth, and the rest in annual installments to the same. All compliance with this agreement will be monitored by Comstar, and with the appropriate penalties for any breach."

Akane knew from past conversations with Nabiki that Comstar was always looking for ways to check Tatewaki Kuno's ambitions without seeming arbitrary, and allowing them to enforce the cease-fire would be just the opening they needed to keep the House of Kuno in line, while keeping up the appearance of being impartial in the Succession Wars. She had mulled over these very terms in her thoughts ever since Ryouga's recovery of the Library Core from Happousai - though at the time it had simply been a way for her to buy off the Combine's assaults in exchange for a share of the secrets. Now she could keep the Library Core for the Confederation and still get what she wanted. She had defeated Tatewaki Kuno in battle before, and she was confident that she could do it again.

Soun began to gibber incoherently at his youngest daughter's apparent insanity - at least until Kasumi gently placed a hand over his mouth to shut him up. A look passed between the two sisters as Kasumi said without words that she understood what Akane was doing - and approved.

"Preposterous!" Tatewaki thundered in dissent. "Thy demands go beyond the limits of reason! I refuse!"

Akane faced him down, moving aside Konatsu and Shinnosuke to deliver a fingertip to his chin. "That isn't your decision to make, Kuno." She turned and offered a sweet smile to the Shogun. "Do we have a deal, your Eminence?"

The Shogun let out a long loud laugh. "Ho yeah, wahine! I gotta say you da most akamai keiki to evah come outta da Confederation. If da boy wins, you submit. If you win, you get everyting you asked for, wit' my compliments!"

He cast an amused look at his son. "So, boy. You gonna do right by da Kuno family, and end dis silly war - one way or da other?"

Tatewaki returned his father's look of amusement with a baleful glare. "I shall, Father. For the glory of the Kuno name, the honor of the indomitable Furinkan Combine, and the love of Akane Tendo; I shall prevail this day."

"Good," the Shogun snorted. "'Cause you gettin' a shaved head from me if you lose." He looked to Akane. "Hope you don't mind doin' dis in de dark, as we almost outta daylight. You got twenty minutes to prepare, wahine. De rest of your people stay out here with us as guarantors."

Star League Defense Force Proving Grounds

Bunker Nine, Test Area North

19:54 Local Time

The last of the summer evening's daylight faded into the gloomy darkness of impending rain as Akane Tendo prepared to climb into the cockpit of the Warhammer her father had operated for her duel with Tatewaki Kuno. If she defeated him, the Confederation would earn ten years of peace and stability to rebuild and rearm with the lost technology from the Library Core. If she lost, the Confederation was doomed to become a vassal state to the Furinkan Combine, and she the wife of Prince Kuno.

Ranma wouldn't stand for it, but she needed to give Tatewaki something to bite on for her to land the deal. She hoped that her lover would back down from doing something stupid - like honoring his promise to kill Tatewaki before letting the Combine Prince take her away. A quick glance skyward for a sign of his Phoenix Hawk LAM returning from low orbit ended in disappointment.

"He should have come back by now," she said to Doctor Tofu, who was acting as her Second in the duel.

"He probably went to rendezvous with the _Coronet_," Tofu replied, understanding exactly who Akane meant by her remark. "Heck, he probably used up almost all of his fuel just trying to make orbit in time." He closed an inspection hatch on the Warhammer, satisfied with what he saw within. "Don't worry about him up there," he continued. "You need to keep yourself focused on what's happening down here."

"I know," she returned softly. "But I can't help worrying about the jerk. He's probably doing this to _make_ me worry about him."

Tofu smiled. "You're probably right about that. But you can punch him for it after you've defeated Kuno, so stop thinking about it now."

Akane smiled. "I'll try."

"Good," Tofu said, moving over to rub at Akane's shoulders to loosen her up. "Now you've fought Kuno before, so you know how he acts in a battle. He likes using that sword of his, and it'll cut through your 'mech like butter, so keep your distance from him. Don't let him close on you. You've got a decent mix of armament, at least as good as his inside of one hundred meters, so pound on him from there."

"I know," Akane replied, letting Tofu work the kinks out of her.

"And watch for a jump attack," Tofu added. "He might try to close the gap with that."

"I know," she repeated, impatient to get on with it. Thinking about how much was riding on this duel was distracting her.

Tofu backed off. "Good luck, Akane."

Ukyou stepped up to take his place as Akane fastened the straps of her cooling vest.

"What is it, Ukyou?" she asked the woman.

Ukyou offered a weak smile. Though she considered herself one of the Confederation now, it wasn't without a certain amount of discomfort that she wished her rival well. If Akane lost the duel, then Ranma was fair game once more, and even though Ukyou knew that Ranma loved Akane, the faint hope that he might come around to her still lingered in her heart.

"Kick his ass, hon'," she said finally to Akane. _Even if it breaks my heart for you to win_, she thought to herself. _It makes my life a lot less complicated this way_.

Akane nodded in agreement. "Thanks, Ukyou. I mean that."

The former general shrugged her shoulders. "Just remember me when it comes time to hand out the medals for all of this, okay?"

"I can't do that," Akane said with a grin. "Only Confederation soldiers can receive decorations."

Ukyou rolled her eyes. "Jeez, now I have to _enlist_ after all we've been through on this mudball? You should have been a recruiter instead of a royal."

"I'll see about getting you a commission when this is all over. I'm going to need you for something very important in the very near future; the most important diplomatic assignment I can imagine," Akane returned, then lightly threw her arms around Ukyou for a hug. Ukyou blinked twice in surprise before returning the embrace. Diplomatic assignment? It was what she had wanted as a way to escape Mikado Sanzenin, and yet there was something in Akane's voice that told her taking the job would mean going back to the Federated Shiratori for a little while.

She'd do it, she decided. If Akane could win even her rivals over to her cause with such ease, her future as the ruler of the Confederation would be a bright one, and Ukyou wanted to be a part of it.

"Make me a captain and we'll see," she said, half-joking.

"Major at the very least," Akane returned.

"Deal," Ukyou laughed, thinking about how she would outrank Ranchan and Ryouga both.

They separated, and Akane started up the leg of her Warhammer as a light rain began to fall. "I'm not going to lose to Kuno," she told everyone within earshot.

The battlemech awaited her command. Like the Warhammer she had used against the Black Rose forces, this one bristled with all of the Star League's advanced technology. Such technology gave her some advantage over Tatewaki Kuno, but against his deadly katana and his sheer determination to win everything in one fell swoop, she knew there were no guarantees.

Tatewaki Kuno ascended the ladder to his Thunderbolt's cockpit, sure in the knowledge that he would prevail. Akane's challenge was welcomed by him, not only because she would be his once he prevailed, but also because it suited his sense of drama to resolve everything in one grand duel. He looked out at the rabble of Confederation troops below him and scoffed. There was no glory to be had in capturing them without a fight.

"You wastin' time, boy," his hated father called up to him from the ground below. How he despised that man - almost as much as he despised his cursed sister.

"Keep silent old man," Tatewaki snarled under his breath. "The Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine shall deal with you in turn."

The Shogun waved once. "You lose, boy, and it won't jus' be a haircut. You gonna be waxing surfboards for me for da next year, no shit."

Tatewaki winced at the threat, however unlikely it was to happen, for it brought back memories of a misspent youth doing just that.

"Akane Tendo, prepare thyself!" he cried as he pulled the hatch shut and sealed it.

The field of honor was the bowl shaped valley that opened up from the door of the bunker. The forest made up the boundaries on three sides, and the hill of the bunker the fourth. All in all, there was about five hundred meters of clearance from one end to the other, making this a close range fight in battlemechs. The spectators withdrew their battlemechs to the safety of the treeline, and those on the ground were forced to watch from the bunker door. Tofu and Ukyou acted as her Seconds, and were mounted up in their battlemechs. Tatewaki had two of his personal guard in his own corner of the field.

Akane wasn't worried about it being a close range fight. If she could avoid Tatewaki's katana, her battlemech had the firepower to get her through a fight at short range with his Thunderbolt. As Tofu had said, she knew how Tatewaki fought, and there was no reason to expect him to change his tactics. After all, the numerous times she had defeated him in last five years had proven that.

The only thing she was concerned about was that at any time Ranma might swoop down on the duel and render it null and void. The Confederation needed this win more than anything, and Ranma wouldn't know about it until it was too late. She wanted to know that he was all right, that he had survived the destruction of the Orochi, but this was not the time for him to make his grand return.

She activated her main radar, and spent several moments tuning it against the clutter and backscatter generated by the woods on the perimeter. This was a fight in the dark, and she needed every advantage to deliver her weapons effectively. The Streak SRM-6 launcher on her Warhammer's right shoulder would help, as would the deadly NARC beacon.

She wasn't going to worry herself with fairness at using Star League technology against Kuno. If the idiot was willing to let her use her choice of mech against him, then it was on his head. The Shogun seemed to agree with that sentiment, though for some reason, he was unwilling to point out to his son that he was outmatched in the technology department.

Perhaps he really meant what he said about Tatewaki earning his victory.

"Akane Tendo," Tatewaki said abruptly on her commo display. "Know that I hold thee in the highest reverence, and were this not a challenge with thy hand in marriage as the prize, I would never seek ye any harm."

She tried not to gag. How many times had she had to fend off a giant battlemech-sized katana or a barrage of laser fire from him while he spouted the same nonsense in her direction?

"I wish I could say the same, Kuno," she replied curtly, and put her Warhammer into a slow walk.

Shogun Kuno's voice sounded over the tac-net. "Hey Keiki, you ready?"

"The Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine is always ready for battle," Tatewaki sniffed.

"And you, wahine?"

Akane locked her NARC beacon on the distant target that was Kuno's Thunderbolt.

"Let's do this," she replied. Please dear gods let me win!

"Then Fight!" the Shogun cried.

Akane had a lock with her NARC beacon, but Kuno was just out of SRM range. She decided to light up his life with a twin blast of PPC fire instead.

Her Warhammer's gun-tube Donal PPC arms ripped out a pair of lightning bolts at Kuno, the blinding plasma arcs turning the night into day as sonorous thunderclaps echoed off the distant treeline. She watched in disbelief as Tatewaki evaded her shots, his Thunderbolt leaping into the sky on a blast of jetfire. He was closing the range as quickly as possible to deal a katana strike that would end the fight.

She waited until he touched down at a range of three hundred meters before releasing the missiles. The Streak SRMs rippled from the shoulder launcher with earsplitting screams, and shot at high speed in a hooked claw formation that rode the NARC beam straight to the target. Kuno didn't seem to care that they were about to hit, for he continued to march straight at her.

As the six missiles came within meters of his Thunderbolt, the giant katana flashed in the muted moonlight. Explosions popped like orange strobes and their booming reports filled the air with hot shrapnel. Even before the smoke had cleared, Akane knew that Kuno had cut them out of the sky.

He could never do that before - could he? she wondered with horror as the Thunderbolt continued to stomp inexorably towards her. All those other times I beat him, was he just holding back from me?

"This doesn't look good," Ryouga said in taut voice to Akari from the bunker door. Grand Duke Tendo had fainted away into Kasumi's arms with a groan of disbelief.

"The battle isn't over," Akari pointed out. She nuzzled a little closer to Ryouga anyway, seeking comfort.

He looked up to the BattleMaster that stood atop the bunker. He wanted to join the fight - but this was Akane's duel! He couldn't protect her, even though he wanted to desperately, and she would never forgive him if he intervened. There was also the rain that he would have to face to even reach his 'mech. Akari still did not know about his Jusenkyo body, and he preferred to break the news to her some other way.

"He's just trying to psych you out, Akane," Ukyou said to her over the tac-net.

"It's working," she said in reply. She selected her twin gunclusters for a furious salvo as her missile launchers reloaded. She was going to hit him with everything at once, and see how well he dealt with it.

"Don't let him get to you," Tofu added.

"How can I fear the beam, bolt, or missile from the woman who shall be my wife?" Tatewaki broke in. "Nay, I shall not fear them, for they shall not harm me!"

"We'll see about that!" Akane yelled angrily, and let fly with the whole shebang. Her Warhammer's systems squawked in protest under the power and waste heat loads, and she swiped at the system shutdown override button as alarms wailed.

The Thunderbolt again leaped into the air on jump jets, though she saw with some satisfaction that at least her missiles had struck him. Six plumes of vapor rolled from the impact craters in his torso armor as he touched down within a hundred meters of her.

"How was that!?" she asked him defiantly. She had hoped for much better results, but at least she had pierced his damned mantle of invulnerability.

"A love tap," he replied. "Oh Akane, how can you stand to let this charade go on!? Drop to one knee and say you'll marry me this instant!"

"Go to hell!" she yelled at him, and triggered another blast of PPC fire. The bolts blasted headlong into the Thunderbolt's torso, shrouding it in a nimbus of electric fire as the rain began to fall even harder around them. The battlemech staggered with the hits, but continued on with arms wide open for her.

"Why isn't he shooting back?" Shinnosuke asked Konatsu.

"It could be because he's an idiot," the kunoichi broached delicately.

Hikaru Gosunkugi was taking no chances with that. He prayed fervently next to them for Tatewaki's utter defeat. All of his straw effigies were in place, each with a namesake spike embedded into them. Candles burned at his temples, their wax dripping onto his shoulders and spilling down his tunic. His sunken eyes seemed to take on a hellish light of their own as he chanted the same unending mantra.

"Lose, Kuno... Lose, Kuno... Lose, Kuno..."

Akane found herself backpedaling as the Thunderbolt advanced into point blank range, its hull armor smoldering but intact. She fired her gunclusters at him, the laser beams and machine gun rounds chewing into his battlemech as he raised the katana with shocking speed and brought it down at her. She sacrificed an arm to stop the blade from cleaving through her battlemech's torso - the gun-tube Donal PPC flying from the elbow joint in a clash of steel and sparks.

"You're mine!" Tatewaki crowed as she nearly fell on her back with the hit. "ONE HUNDRED BLOWS!"

The katana flashed and sparked as he threw strike after strike at her. Bits of ferro-fibrous armor flew in all directions as he diced apart her Warhammer's torso armor, yelling out triumphantly with each blow. She felt the strain on her failing gyro, and knew that she was being pushed over backwards.

She brought up her mech's leg in the only attack she could think of, catching the Thunderbolt in the groin area with her Warhammer's knee. Though there was nothing of vital significance in that area of the battlemech, the blow was enough to throw Kuno off balance, and she pulled him over in a somersault as she fell.

The Thunderbolt landed flat on its back some distance from her Warhammer as she fought to stand up. It began to roll over to all fours as she fired a salvo of SRMs into it, the explosions throwing Kuno to the ground once more.

Her launchers reloaded as the Thunderbolt rose again. She had no other weapons remaining to her - just the missiles, as Kuno's attacks had cut up every gun mount she had. A second volley of Streak SRMs pounded into him, blasting apart the Thunderbolt's left arm at the shoulder.

"You are mine, Akane Tendo!" she heard him cry out in anguish. "Let no one come between us, even if it be death himself!"

He would not stop. A third volley crashed into him even as his katana severed the launcher from the Warhammer's torso with a clumsy, chopping stroke. She let out a shriek of alarm as he raised the sword overhead for the finishing blow, and hooked her torso about to club him with the stump of her remaining PPC arm.

Both battlemechs hit each other at the same time. The sword cleaved down into the Warhammer's centerline torso, the edge bisecting the cockpit visor in a flash of flame and sparks against the falling rain as the gun-tube arm smashed across the Thunderbolt's cockpit. Both battlemechs hit the ground with sickening thuds from the force of the impacts and lay very still as black columns of smoke rose to the leaden sky.

"This can't be," Ryouga gasped.

"Akane!" Doctor Tofu cried, advancing his Centurion at a run towards the center of the field where the two mechs lay. The ground was turning to churned mud where the two combatants had struggled, and he fought to keep his mech's footing.

"Could we have a tie?" the Shogun asked over the commo from the Combine side of the field. "Da first 'mech to stand up will be declared da winnah!"

"Stand up, Akane!" Ukyou cried out over her Hatchetman's external speakers as she caught up to Doctor Tofu's Centurion. "For God's sake, stand up!"

Akane Tendo felt something warm and sticky running down her nose from her scalp and shrieked. Her fingers rubbed at the stuff, and she strained by the light of her instruments to see what it was. The bright red color made her feel faint with fear until she noted the distinctive petroleum scent of hydraulic fluid.

She blinked away her disorientation as Ukyou shouted in her headset to stand up. What was going on? It was like had awoken from a deep sleep. She had no idea where she was or what she was doing within the cockpit of her Warhammer.

The long aligned-crystal steel katana blade imbedded through her forward cockpit reminded her at once. She marveled at it, the way it had cut through the armor and her control systems so effortlessly, and had it bit just ten or more centimeters deeper, how it would have cut her apart just as easily.

Ukyou shouted for her to stand up once again. One look at the interior of the cockpit told her that such a feat might be difficult indeed.

A tertiary display told her that she still had power, though she was leaking coolant through the fusion reactor's primary bank of heat sinks. If she was going to stand up, she would have to hurry, or else the powerplant was going to fuse itself into slag. She wiped away the slick oily hydraulic fluid that dripped down on her head from a line that had been broken, and then gripped her controls.

Gyro feedback filtered into her brain from the neurohelmet. She could do this, instrumentation or not! The Warhammer roared in protest as she thought it into a sitting position.

"She's moving!" Shinnosuke cried.

Hikaru was evoking Jesus, the Buddha, Muhammed, anyone who could lend a divine hand in sealing Tatewaki Kuno's defeat. He was about to go Shaker on them when the Warhammer rose unsteadily to its feet, then pivoted its torso to look at the bunker.

"Da winnah!" Shogun Kuno declared. "Da fine wahine, Akane Tendo!"

Akane did not look upset to see two Furinkan Combine medics carrying the cold-cocked Tatewaki Kuno away on a stretcher to a waiting DropShip. Neither did the Shogun.

"A deal's a deal, wahine," he told her. "Da Daimyo ain't gonna like it, but de Big Kahuna nevah go back on his word."

"I'm glad to hear that, your Eminence," she replied.

"You put up one helluva fight. Da way de boy chopped da missiles outta de air like dat, I tink you one done wahine."

"I wasn't going to lose," she responded quietly.

"Anyway," the Shogun continued. "I'm takin' de boys home now. Dere ain't no reason to stick around here, an if I'm lucky, dis bruddah is gonna catch de last o de good waves back on New Hawaii." He looked at Grand Duke Tendo and Hikaru Gosunkugi. "You bruddahs are welcome any time, yah. Da food at de luau is gonna be jus' broke da mouth, no shit!"

"I think I'll be taking you up on that very soon," Soun agreed heartily. He could not contain his happiness at the fact that the Shogun appeared to be honoring his word.

"We gotta go now," the Shogun replied. "Send de hula girls and any Combine prisoners over to de _Imperator_ as soon as de interference clears up. We wait. In de meantime, I send de armistice notice to de rest of de Inner Sphere. Oh, and give me regards to dat akamai wahine, Missus Saotome."

He waved jauntily for them and turned to join his troops in leaving.

"I do believe we'll be seeing a new era in relations with the Furinkan Combine," Soun observed, watching the Furinkan Combine troops withdraw from the bunker. "I just hope it lasts."

"I'm working on that, Dad," Akane replied. "I just can't wait to tell Ranma what we just won for ourselves."

20:28 Local Time

Shampoo passed silently through the Furinkan Combine perimeter as Tatewaki's Thunderbolt smoldered in the darkness. She did not know and did not care about what was taking place at the bunker. All she wanted was to find Doctor Tofu. Of all the people in the Confederation camp, he was the only one who had cared so deeply about her well-being, and she needed comfort for all her wounds - inside and out.

She found him standing next to a woman of willowy beauty that bore a passing resemblence to Akane Tendo. It must have been the eldest daughter of the Grand Duke, Kasumi. By the way the doctor stood next to the Tendo woman, it was clear that he harbored strong feelings for her. She felt a pang of grief at this. It was as if any man worth having was always denied her.

"Shampoo?" Tofu asked her worriedly upon seeing her bloody and battered, and clad only in panties and a half-shirt. "Are you all right?"

Shampoo threw herself into his arms and held him tight. She fought back the urge to sob in his shoulder, and was mostly successful. Tofu's face blazed red as Kasumi gave him a questioning look. Minutes passed as Shampoo finally caught hold of herself and let him go.

"It over," she said to him.

"I know," Tofu replied. "We've been concerned about you ever since Konatsu returned without you. Where did you go?"

"That not important," she returned. "I make decision about baby. I keep."

Tofu blinked several times as Kasumi arched an eyebrow at him. How did he explain - without sounding like an idiot - that the child wasn't his?

"Th-That's great!" he managed. "What made you decide?"

She looked away to the south. "I no wish to talk about," she told him. "I only ask one more thing."

"What is it?"

She closed her eyes. "Shampoo left friend behind in woods. No want animals to take body away. Mousse deserve good funeral with own people."

"I understand," Tofu said solemnly, making his own guess as to who Mousse was to Shampoo. "I'll take care of it personally, if you'll show me where you left him."

Shampoo hugged him again. "You good good man," she replied. Then, releasing him, she took Kasumi's hands in hers. The eldest Tendo looked into the fierce violet eyes of the Amazon as she made her offer. "If you no want, Shampoo keep for self. Doctor Tofu make good husband with proper Joketsuzoku conditioning."

Tofu made a strangled noise next to them as Kasumi smiled gently.

"I think I'll be keeping him safely within my own orbit, thank you," she returned sweetly.

Orochi Control Bunker

07:18 Local Time, 20 June 3025

"Please tell me you've heard from Ranma," Akane said to Lieutenant Davidge. Her face remained unwashed from the battles of yesterday, and it was clear by the dark circles under her eyes that she hadn't slept a wink since then.

Davidge shook his head slowly. He had been dreading this moment since early that morning. "I'm sorry, milady. I haven't."

"Is it still the interferance from the explosion?" she asked, as if begging for it to be true.

"No," he replied dully. "The interference cleared up about two hours ago. Neither the _Tautog_ nor the _Coronet_ has seen or heard from him."

"That isn't possible," she replied, almost to herself. "That just can't be."

"I'm sorry, Akane," the lieutenant offered. "I'll keep listening on all channels. He's bound to turn up sooner or later."

"Please do that," she begged. Despite their victory, they would be spending at least three more days on the planet to repair the _Palomino_ and to make a final sweep of the Star League facilities for any lostech before leaving for good. If Ranma had been forced down far from the bunker, they would have plenty of time to look for him.

She only hoped that the Shogun had a firm enough grip on his son to leave the system and keep the cease-fire as they had promised. Until she and her friends left Ryuugenzawa, they were still vulnerable.

Shinnosuke met her in the stairwell as she left the control room where Davidge kept his vigil.

"Are you all packed?" she asked him.

He shook his head. "Not yet. I still haven't convinced Grandfather to come with me."

"He does realize that he's welcome to come to Nerima with us?" she asked.

Shinnosuke nodded. "I think he's trying to get me to leave the nest," he said to her. "He doesn't understand that I'm not leaving without him. I'm really the only family he's got here, and now that our duties as caretakers are over, what does he have left?"

"I'll have Ryouga drag him onto the DropShip if I have to," she returned. "Don't worry about it."

He nodded appreciatively at this. "Has Ranma returned?" he asked gently.

"Not yet," she sighed. "If he's doing this just to make me worry... I'll pound him into snail snot."

They climbed the stairs up to the top level of the bunker. The doors were open, and the stomp of Ukyou's Hatchetman moving out with Genma's Orion to clear the fallen trees from the _Palomino_ echoed through the chamber. Sunlight streamed through the open door, and Akane stepped outside to let the rays warm her.

Her father stood with Kasumi on the slope of the hill formed by the bunker. She joined them wordlessly, and they continued their discussion.

"What would your mother do about her, Kasumi?" Soun asked his eldest child.

"Show patience," Kasumi replied. "Without compromising discipline."

"It's more than a matter of putting her over my knee and spanking her," Soun returned. "She's committed high treason against us - and very nearly destroyed the Confederation."

Kasumi sighed. "I can't condone executing her, Father."

He nodded gravely. "And yet I fear the risk of letting her live," he said, stroking his moustache uncomfortably. "I don't broach this subject lightly, Kasumi. Believe me. If I thought there was another way, I would take it."

Kasumi steepled her fingers neatly together as she watched her baby sister stride up the hill looking much older than her tender nineteen years.

"Perhaps it would be best if we let Akane decide," she said to her father.

"Akane?" Soun asked.

"Me?" Akane chimed in. "Decide Nabiki's fate?"

Kasumi nodded. "You are the one who rescued the Confederation from the Furinkan Combine," she said gently. "When Father and I nearly lost it."

Soun saw the wisdom of Kasumi's reasoning.

"I can't make that kind of decision," Akane said to them. "You don't _want_ me to make that kind of decision. I can't show mercy to her, not after all that she's done to us!"

"Then don't," Kasumi advised, though by her tone it was clear that she was only playing the devil's advocate.

Akane closed her eyes and waved them off. "I can't make this decision. Not right now. Not with so much else on my mind." She looked to the horizon, where Ukyou and Genma's battlemechs stomped on towards the _Palomino_. "When Ranma returns, _then_ I'll think about it."

The whine of turbojets rose in the air as one of the _Coronet_'s shuttles lifted off from the clearing and rose for the starship in low orbit. Doctor Tofu was aboard, as were Shampoo and the body of the man the two had brought in from the woods last night. From what Akane understood of the situation, the man, Mousse, had been the other infiltrator aboard the _Dragonfly_ when the astrogational patch had been stolen. Mousse had also been the father of Shampoo's child.

She didn't particularly care for the Amazon, especially because of the way she looked at Ranma sometimes, but she also knew that if she was going to make her plan for peace in the Inner Sphere work, she needed the cooperation of the Amazons. Shampoo was the great-granddaughter of the Matriarch, so presumably she had some cachet with her - at least enough to act as a go-between for the two countries.

Ukyou too, though she would no longer wear the uniform of the Federated Shiratori. She wanted Empress Azusa's participation in her plans, if for no other reason than to compell the Furinkan Combine to play nice. There wasn't anyone else but Ukyou and her friend Konatsu to carry the message to the Empress.

Hikaru Gosunkugi, already resting aboard the _Coronet_ as a guest of the State, was the final element in her plan to end the Third Succession War, and gods willing, to ensure that a Fourth Succession War never happened.

The battlemechs they had recovered had given her the idea, though Ranma's insistence that they keep the Cameron Stars of the SLDF painted on them had helped. The Star League didn't need the return of some ghost like Aleksander Kerensky. All it needed was the cooperation of the Great Houses, and with the Library Core, she had the incentive she needed to get the others to set aside their differences and talk through their disputes.

It was a gamble, trading secrets for support, and it could all very well explode in her face, but she was willing to bet that if she could realign the Inner Sphere to put the Furinkan Combine on the defensive - that is, to get the League of Five Nails, the Jusenkyo Commonwealth, and the Federated Shiratori to join the Nerima Confederation in a new Star League - then the Furinkan Combine would have no choice but to behave, even to join as well.

Hikaru Gosunkugi would be named First Lord of the Star League, she decided, though the title would not be the hereditary dynasty that it had been in the days of the Camerons, nor would it be a permanent position, but would rotate among the Great Houses every few years. Nor would the First Lord's word be law. To go back to the Terran Hegemony and the original Star League would only lead to another disaster.

It was going to be a balancing act of epic proportions, she decided. The fate of billions would ultimately depend on her. If it didn't work, then the Inner Sphere would continue it's slide into darkness, but if it worked, then the new golden age that everyone kept pining for would finally come about.

It was a terrifying prospect, and it wasn't something she felt she was capable of carrying out all by herself. She would crack under the pressure and end up going completely insane. She needed Ranma there to steady her, and to remind her in his own infuriating way when she was in over her head and needed help.

And where the heck was that stupid jerk, anyway?!

The steady thump of battlemechs approaching from the east drew her eyes. The sound came from the direction the _Palomino_ lay, and yet as she squinted against the early morning glare, she saw that east was also the direction of the distant sea.

The Phoenix Hawk LAM's brilliant silver and white livery was gone, scorched and scored from the hull by a force and heat that she didn't want to think about. Bits of dried seaweed hung in green and brown garlands from the vents, and from the battered engine/weapon pods. Ukyou and Genma's battlemechs flanked the 'mech proudly as it stomped slowly and steadily towards the bunker with its sensor head fixed squarely upon Akane Tendo.

"Oh my," Kasumi gasped as she saw the Phoenix Hawk LAM emerge from the forest.

"RANMA!" Akane cried, and ran down the hill to meet him. Tears spilled down her cheeks as all her fears and doubts were dispelled. First she was going to knock his block off for making her worry about him, then she was going to kiss him silly.

The Phoenix Hawk stopped within fifty meters of the bunker as Akane ran toward it. It dropped into Airmech Mode with a grinding noise that made everyone wince, then the canopy lifted to reveal Ranma Saotome. He stretched out his arms, appeared to yawn behind his helmet facebowl, then casually rolled over the side of the cockpit to land feet first on the grass below.

Akane made a flying leap into his arms as he straightened up, and he spun her around for a moment in the air as the others at the bunker drew close.

"Everything all right?" he asked her with lopsided grin.

She tapped on his helmet. "Take that silly thing off and I'll tell you what you missed," she replied.

He caught the fire in her eyes as she said it.

"You gonna hit me?" he asked her.

"Of course I am," she replied. "But then I'll kiss it all better."

He set her down gently on her feet as Ryouga, Akari, Shinnosuke, Tad, Captain Grant and the others circled around them. "Maybe I'll wait to take it off."

Akane kicked him playfully in the shin. "Jerk."

"That's me," he replied. He finally twisted his helmet off. "Man, I'm bushed. I need some sleep." His stomach growled audibly. "And some chow."

Akane took the helmet from him. "No food until you explain to me why the heck it took you _twelve hours_ to return! And the airwaves have been clear for two hours now, so you can explain why you couldn't be bothered to radio us!"

He rubbed at his sore neck. "Radio's busted," he replied with a yawn. "And I had to walk the whole way back."

Ukyou called down to him from the outstretched hand of her Hatchetman. She held up a stringy garland of seaweed that dangled from the Phoenix Hawk. "Jeez, Ranchan, what did you do, crash into the ocean?"

Ranma curled his arm around Akane's waist and pulled her close to his side. "Crash? Gimme a break, Ucchan. Me crash? Let's just say I made the most of a water landing, and that I decided to save what was left of my engines by walking home instead of flying."

"He's my son all right," Genma crowed from the open cockpit of his Orion. "Conserving one's resources is the hallmark of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts."

Ranma gave his father a sidelong glance. "With a beer gut like yours, Old Man, I can see which one of us takes that more to heart."

Akane turned his face to look at her while Genma tried to think of a stinging rebuke for his son. "_Ahem_" she harrumphed. "Shouldn't you be kissing me right now?"

Ranma turned red, and his pressure suit readouts began to flash.

"In front of everyone?"

She gave him a fiery, if loving, look. "Shut up and smooch me before I change my mind about hitting you."

Nerima Confederation WarShip _Coronet_

Leaving Ryuugenzawa Orbit

Ryuugenzawa System, the Magistracy of Canopus

23 June 3025

Genma Saotome placed both hands on his son's shoulders and held him firmly in place within the last shuttle to come up from the planet. He had insisted that the two of them be the last Confederation personnel to leave Ryuugenzawa. Once the shuttle had docked with the ship, the _Coronet_ began slowly accelerating out of orbit to take them to the distant Jump Point - and from there, the trek home to the Capella System. The celebratory mood had not dampened since the defeat of Tatewaki Kuno and the return of Ranma, and Genma had one last admonition for his son before he stepped out of the shuttle and was reunited with his mother.

"Now remember, boy. Your mother can't find out about your Jusenkyo body. Not now. Not ever. The same goes for me, so don't even think about trying to change me into a panda when she's around."

Ranma scowled at his father. "You mind explaining why?"

Genma looked away. "It's something I promised your mother when you were little," he began. "...It's... Well, it's very complicated. Just promise me that you'll never tell her about it. It's a matter of life and death."

"Start talking," Ranma spat. "I know how your promises go, and I want the whole story this time."

"All right," Genma conceded. "One of the conditions for your mother letting me take you on this training journey was that through it, I would make you a man among men."

Ranma flexed his bicep for his father. "Not too shabby, I'd say," he declared. "So what's this got to do with not letting Mom know about what happened at the Jusenkyo Labs?"

Genma fixed his son with a glare. "If she finds out that you need a D-cup bra whenever you get wet, then you aren't very manly now, are you?"

Ranma saw his point, but he still wasn't convinced.

"So what?" he asked. "Hot water changes me right back to my old buff, manly self. If I can get used to it, then she can too."

"There is also the matter of the suicide pact I made, and that you signed before we left Sian," Genma pointed out in an ominous tone of voice.

"Say what!? I don't remember signing any suicide pact!"

Genma nodded gravely. "It's true. You were little more than a baby then, but your handprint on the document is unmistakable. When I promised your mother that I would make you a man among men, I promised for both of us in blood. If at any time she feels that I have failed to keep my word to her, then both you and I are to commit ritual suicide at her command."

Ranma did not believe a word of it. Still, the very thought of having to honor such a bargain...

"That's insane!" he protested. "What kind of a father does that to his kid? What kind of mother would honor a deal like that?!"

"There is something you have to understand about your mother, boy," Genma replied, skirting the issue of his own shortcomings as a parent. "Of course, you've hardly known her growing up away from her like you did, but once you've gotten to know her, you'll understand that she would indeed hold us to our accounts."

He reached into his dougi and withdrew a worn stereograph of Nodoka. Ranma had never seen it before in his life, and certainly didn't believe that his father would have carried it on him before now. "Look at this, boy, and tell me she wouldn't do it."

Ranma looked at the stereograph. It was taken about the same time as his own picture of his mother. She was pretty to the eye, and he could see how he had inherited most of his looks from her. The stereograph was otherwise unremarkable.

"So what am I supposed to be looking at?" he asked snidely.

"See that bundle of silk on her back?" Genma returned.

Ranma looked again. There was in fact a long slender object wrapped in silk and neatly tied to her back.

"Okay, I see it. What is it?"

"The Saotome Family sword," Genma answered him. "The sword she will use to cut our heads off after we've disemboweled ourselves at her command."

Ranma choked. _Mom would do that?_ "No way!" he finally managed.

"She's still carrying it with her," Genma pointed out. "Trust me, I saw it on the planet when she was in the bunker."

Ranma fought back the urge to slug his father. His own mother, whom he had not seen for seventeen years, had been on the planet with him during the fighting, and he had not been told about it.

"So she's still carrying the sword, knowing that she might have to cut my head off with it the second she sees me?"

Genma nodded. "She's a remarkable woman, don't get me wrong," he hedged. "But she's a little obsessive."

Ranma grabbed his father by the collar of his dougi. "And you made a death pact with her over something as stupid as this!?"

"It was the only way I could get you away from her long enough to train you to become a great mechwarrior!" Genma protested. "She was smothering you with affection - you would have ended up a limp-wristed, slack-jawed sissy if I hadn't rescued you from her!"

Ranma's face turned purple. "Gee, thanks Pop!" he yelled, his hands now close to strangling his father. "I can only imagine how terrible it must have been to be a little boy with a mother who loved him that much!" He now bobbled Genma's head back and forth. "How can ever repay you for taking me away from that and giving me a life of hardship, suffering, poverty, and pain instead!?"

"You don't have to thank me," Genma gurgled out. "I was happy to do it for the sake of my only son."

Ranma dropped him on the deck of the shuttle as Akane stepped through the airlock door from the Shuttle Bay.

"Are you coming out or what?" she asked him. "Everyone's waiting for you - especially your mother!"

When he didn't answer her, she stepped past the fallen Genma Saotome to brush a hand at his cheek. Ranma stood rigid and fuming, his eyes burning holes into his father on the deck.

"What's the matter with you, Ranma?" Akane asked him worriedly.

"Tell me something, Akane," he replied tersely. "Is my mother carrying anything with her out there?"

She blinked at his question. "I don't think so. Why?"

"On her back," Ranma added. "Was she carrying anything on her back? A sword, maybe?"

Akane thought about it. "Now that you mention it," she began. "There was something strapped to her back. I guess it could be a sword. Why are you asking me this?"

Ranma closed his eyes. "You know how I feel about you, right?"

"It might be nice if I heard it from you directly, in so many words, just this once," she pouted. "But yes, I think I _do_ know how you feel about me."

He blushed in spite of himself. "Then if it means anything to you, you'll promise me that you won't ever mention my Jusenkyo body to my mother."

"What for, Ranma?" she asked.

"Do it," Genma grunted from the floor. "Promise him."

"Shut your pie hole," Ranma barked, putting a foot on his father's face. "This is all your fault!"

"Is this going to take more than five minutes to explain, and do I really want to know why you're asking me this?" Akane asked him.

"No and no," Ranma replied. "Just promise me. And pass it on to the rest of your family - assuming they haven't already spilled it to her."

Akane shook her head. "This is nuts, but since when is anything to do with you or your father normal... Okay, I promise."

"Good," Ranma said tersely. "Let's go." He took care to step on his father on the way out the airlock door to the Shuttle Bay.

His mother was the first person he saw. She looked a little older, and maybe a little sadder, than his stereograph of her, but it was definitely her. He realized that he had seen her once in the bunker on Ryuugenzawa, but in his haste, and with the Shogun's people milling around at the same time, he had missed who she really was.

The silk bundle on her back definitely looked like a katana.

"Ranma!" she cried, and ran to embrace him.

Her voice, the voice that had serenaded him in dreams as a little boy, now dispelled his misgivings and he ran to meet her halfway. She was no longer the towering, almost mythic presense he remembered as a child. He picked her up as effortlessly as he did with Akane when he wanted to twirl her around.

In spite of himself, he began to cry.

"I've missed you, Mom," he said, trying not to sob. His father's admonition to be manly was punctuated by the sight of the bundle on her back, now only centimeters away from him as he hugged her. It tore at him to think that she could do such a thing, and yet he dared not take the chance. How many chalk marks on the wall of reasons to despise his father was he going to make before the man redeemed himself?

"Ranma," she sighed in his ear. "How you've grown. I couldn't ask for any son as manly and brave as you."

He wanted to say something endearing in return, but all he could think about was how long the trip home to Nerima was going to be now that he had to avoid cold water like the plague. He knew full well that anything that could trigger his curse would be attracted to him like a magnet.

"It's good to see you, Mom. It's so good to see you."

He meant it, even if she might prove to be his undoing some day.

Azure Cloud Castle

Planet Nerima, Capella System,

The Nerima Confederation

15 July 3025

The acrid smell of plasma-arc incinerators hard at work made Nabiki's nose wrinkle in distaste as she passed through the Salon to the large bay windows overlooking the castle proper and the city of Gondolin far below. She looked once over her shoulder to observe her assistants frantically destroying as much of the documentation generated during her brief reign as possible before her father's ship arrived from the orbiting Star League cruiser _Coronet_. She had no illusions about her fate - not with the Furinkan Combine beginning a general withdrawal from all Confederation territory, and her father and sisters returning from Ryuugenzawa in apparent triumph. The best she could hope for was to make any legal investigations into her activities as difficult for them as possible.

Though several members of her staff had committed suicide upon the news of _Coronet_'s arrival in the Capella System, Nabiki was not going to give her family the satisfaction. If they wanted to exile her - or even execute her - they would have to come down to the planet, look her in the eyes, and do it themselves. She would not oppose their landing; it was futile to think that she could compel even her most loyal troops to fire upon the rightful Heir to the Confederation in her moment of glory.

The news networks were all abuzz with the armistice, and more than one pundit had called for her abdication as regent with Akane still millions of kilometers away in system space. How they had defeated Tatewaki Kuno so utterly, she did not know. It didn't seem possible, and yet she could trace the ultimate failure of her plans to the loss of her father and the Shogun to the damn loyalists. She should have kept them closer at hand, and she had nearly given herself an ulcer thinking about where her father had disappeared to after his rescue. Now she knew.

Nabiki looked away from the document incinerators and returned her gaze to the castle's windows. Her father and sisters were taking their time about landing. If the tables had been turned, she would have had them arrested before breakfast. Indeed, she had spent a sleepless night while the _Coronet_ settled into orbit, waiting for one of her own men to appear at her door with a warrant for her detention - or perhaps a poisoned dagger like the one that had killed Tetsuo Gosunkugi.

Count Baldur Thuringia appeared as she thought about arrest. She caught the reflection of his uniform in the glass of the window. He was not alone - a half dozen Marines from the 5th Brigade flanked him, and they were led by a grinning Gunnery Sergeant Tranh Minh Ky. Behind them appeared the short and stout Commodore Tanaka. Additional Marines entered the room to arrest her staff and to stop the destruction of any more evidence.

She turned around to tell the count what she thought of his treachery; that he didn't even have the dignity to stay bought once she had made him her tool, but fell short of issuing her rebuke when she saw that he was in irons.

The look in his eyes was one of placid resignation. Nothing could be said about that. If Rolf were still alive, she would have expected him to laugh out loud at their mutual downfall.

"Nabiki Tendo," Tanaka said to her, displaying a piece of parchment taken from the inside pocket of his long officer's bridge coat as he did so. She snorted dryly at the irony of the gesture, for she had done the same thing to her own father.

"Get on with it," she replied, her voice steely and proud in spite of her fear. The thought of a rope drawing tight around her throat made her feel very cold and small inside.

"You are under arrest for High Treason," the Commodore declared. "By joint order of Grand Duke Soun Tendo, ruler of the Nerima Confederation, and Lady Akane Tendo, Viscountess of Gondolin, and Heir to the Nerima Confederation, you will surrender to my custody immediately."

Nabiki put her back to the Commodore and looked out the windows once more. A Leopard Class DropShip was descending for the landing pad that serviced the family armory. It was the _Palomino_, the ship whose departure she had toasted over six months ago, and whose return she had believed would never come.

The Saotome Gambit had paid off.

Eight Shining Pearls Fortress

Planet Jusenkyo, Jusenkyo System

The Jusenkyo Commonwealth

4 March 3026

"Hush, Mushan," Shampoo said to her baby in a voice that was soft and loving, and yet edged with the tempered steel of her own Joketsuzoku upbringing.

The tiny child, barely six weeks old, looked up at her with piercing blue eyes and gurgled a noisy response. Though all children's eyes were blue at birth, and remained so for up to a year before changing to their permanent color, Shampoo recognized the shade in her little one's eyes as that of Mousse.

"Impudent brat," Shampoo sighed as she handed Mushan over to her great-grandmother.

"He reminds me of you as a baby, actually," Cologne pointed out. "Though perhaps he has better manners." She took her great-great-grandson into her arms, her old and withered hands caressing the top of Mushan's head. The little boy quieted immediately in his ancestor's care, and looked up with intense fascination at her ancient face.

Shampoo regarded her great-grandmother with a jealous look. "He never quiets that fast with me," she pouted.

Cologne toyed with a curly dark purple lock of Mushan's hair. "That's because you spoil him, child."

Shampoo didn't agree with her great-grandmother on that matter, but she knew better than to get into an argument about parenting with a woman who had raised more children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and now great-great-grandchildren than she could easily keep track of.

"I have an appointment to keep," she said finally.

Cologne's eyes darkened for a moment, then her face returned to its normal placid and serene self.

"You have nothing to prove, Shampoo," she told her great-grandchild. "The Elders are ready to exonerate you in light of your distinguished service against General Herb and the Musk Dynasty." The entire matter of Shampoo's punishment had been put aside upon her return to the Commonwealth, as Joketsuzoku law forbade anyone who was pregnant to engage in combat, and it was the accepted wisdom that a woman remained exempt for forty days after childbirth.

Shampoo shook her head slowly in reply. "I have a duty to _myself_ to appear in the Circle. The required time since the birth of Mushan has now passed. I am eligible to fight for my life. If there are any who still feel that it is necessary for me to die for my past mistakes, then I must meet them and settle this matter for all time."

Cologne nodded gravely. "I understand, child, though I feel that it is foolish to tempt fate by choosing to enter the Circle so soon after giving birth. It has been many years since the last time _I_ had a child, and I still remember how sore and weak I felt even six weeks later."

Shampoo did not expect such an admission from her great-grandmother, who was said to have fought and won a major battle against the Furinkan Combine within days of giving birth to the girl who would someday become Shampoo's own grandmother. The truth was that she did _not_ feel up to her old levels of physical readiness. She had fallen far from the peak of her strength and stamina during her pregnancy, and the discomfort in the aftermath of childbirth along with the long nights of nursing a young baby had taken their toll. She barely recognized herself in the mirror sometimes.

"But if you must do this," Cologne continued. "Then I do understand. You are young, and while I see that you have done much growing in the last year, you are still entitled to be impetuous. I only ask that you take more care to look beyond the necessities of today." She raised little Mushan up to the level of his mother's eyes. "My number one great-great-grandson depends on you, Shampoo."

"He is a child of the Joketsuzoku," Shampoo responded. It was her own conditioning talking, and she regretted saying it as soon as the words slipped past her lips.

Cologne measured her own rebuttal by the look of regret on Shampoo's face.

"He is your son," she replied, and left it at that.

The Fated Circle was a ring of rough-hewn stone in a secluded courtyard of the fortress that had been worn smooth over centuries of combat. Fine white sand had been carefully raked and leveled to a pristine and even surface within the ring. Close to three hundred kinswomen of the Joketsuzoku stood on the perimeter of the circle as the Elders were brought in on gilded litters to face the east.

As the presumed condemned, Shampoo faced the west, the direction associated with death, for her challengers. She wore her full dress cheongsam, though it had been retailored in the last week to accommodate her better in her post-partum body. Though no man would have ever considered her fat, she was a little roomier in the bust and hips than she would have preferred, and as long as she nursed Mushan, she was going to stay that way.

The Elders regarded her in placid silence. She could see her little son in the arms of a much older cousin, who took her place by Cologne's side as an attendent. Shampoo remained calm, and she saw that the faces of those in the gathering crowd did not seem to be very supportive of her impending death sentence.

It was the reason why she felt she could tempt fate, as her great- grandmother put it. The Elders were in fact prepared to exonerate her since her return from Ryuugenzawa, both for her struggle against the Musk Dynasty, but also for her work in resurrecting the Star League with the Nerima Confederation. In Commonwealth eyes, Akane Tendo's fledgling Star League was equated with a strong alliance against the Furinkan Combine, and as minor but vital bits of lostech were deciphered and sold at reasonable prices to companies within the Commonwealth, the economy was promising to boom. It was hard to hold a grudge against her on the cusp of a new era of wealth and security.

"Your great-granddaughter faces her death well," Elder Peony said in aside to Cologne.

"She is of my blood," Cologne replied crisply. The scales of power had once again tipped in her favor over Peony with the death of General Herb and the disintegration of the Musk Dynasty that followed. The quiet threat of an audit of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's books was more than enough to put Elder Peony back in her place, as such an investigation would have eventually turned up her complicity in arming and financing a traitor to the clan.

Still, Peony seemed terribly smug in that moment. Cologne began to wonder if something was up.

Elder Peony, as if reading her thoughts, merely sat back in her chair and puffed placidly on a pipe. Her homely face betrayed nothing to her bitter enemy.

Shampoo stood at attention on the east side of the circle, facing the west and the Elders as Cologne rose to speak. Her great-grandmother's voice was dry and even as she spoke to be heard by all around the circle. That little Mushan let out a loud cry of annoyance by her side did nothing to her ability to project tranquil majesty.

"Though it is the opinion of this Elder Council that Mechwarrior Major Shampoo has exonerated herself of all shame and disgrace by her actions in war and in the peace that followed, there may be those who feel as if they or their clan have been wronged without sufficient redress."

"Thus it is the judgement of the Elder Council that Mechwarrior Major Shampoo submit to this Fated Circle, in a trial by combat to the death, to answer for any outstanding crime." Cologne made a slow circuit of the crowd with her most inscrutable gaze. "Should no one step into the circle to offer challenge to Mechwarrior Major Shampoo, then let this matter be dropped for now and for all time."

There was a long murmuring pause as the crowd waited to see if anyone would step into the circle. Cologne stood coolly at her place, her gnarled ashwood staff rigid and erect by her side as a symbol of her authority, and waited.

It seemed as if no one would accept the challenge of killing Shampoo. Then the crowd parted, and Pink stepped over the low ring of stone and onto the warm sand. Her twin sister Link remained on the other side of the ring, as if torn between her devotion to Pink and some other, unnamed, concern.

Shampoo was about to close her eyes in relief when Pink appeared in the circle. The look on her face was unreadable, save for the one fierce glance she cast at Shampoo before turning to address Cologne.

"I am Mechwarrior Lieutenant Pink, and I stand in challenge to Mechwarrior Major Shampoo's presumed exoneration," she said in a loud voice.

Cologne realized then that Peony had engineered this turn of events as revenge against her, though as to what grudge the young poisoner, Pink, had with Shampoo, she could not imagine. Peony was not in a position to promise much for this service, though perhaps Pink did not understand that.

"Very well," Cologne replied calmly. "It is the right of any Joketsuzoku to face the accused in this trial by combat." She paused to give Link a questioning look. "Are there any more who wish to join Pink within the Fated Circle?"

Link cast her eyes down to the sand. No one else stepped forward. It was a formality, as while Shampoo stood, anyone could join the circle at any time. Only when Shampoo was the last one standing, and no one else wished to challenge her, could the trial be considered over.

"Very well then," Cologne continued. "Mechwarrior Lieutenant Pink, you have ten minutes to prepare yourself, if you wish."

"I am ready now, Elder," Pink replied.

"Then this Fated Circle is now open," Cologne said in her gravelly voice. "Let the will of the gods be made known to all this day."

She sat down on her litter as Shampoo and Pink saluted and stepped towards the center of the stone ring. Her face did not betray her unease with the situation. Shampoo was not ready for an intense combat, and though Pink was not a strong fighter, her use of poisons and other agents would require that her great-granddaughter exercise the utmost care with her.

"How did you find this one, Peony?" she asked dryly, letting her know that she was aware of her rival's plot.

"That's not important," Peony returned with her toothless smile. "But if you must know, there was the matter of a recent poisoning in which the young mechwarrior was implicated. I offered to lend her my assistance in stifling the investigation if she would do me this one small service. Strangely enough, she was very receptive to the idea of killing Shampoo." She narrowed her eyes to rhuemy slits at Cologne. "Your great-granddaughter does not look prepared for this fight."

_As you well know_... Cologne thought darkly.

"Considering for a moment that Shampoo insisted that this trial take place today," she replied crisply to Peony. "I wonder if your 'pessimism' is misplaced." She couldn't resist adding another dig. "Taking into further consideration your own historically poor choice in pawns for implementing your plans, I wonder if you haven't made yet another mistake in this one."

Cologne's barb hit home, and Peony turned to sit back in her chair with a sibilant huff.

Shampoo stepped within several paces of Pink as she drew her long mechwarrior's dagger from its place on her hip. Shampoo didn't need to ask if it was poisoned, nor would there be any opprobrium if it was. The use of such tactics brought into question the poisoner's basic fighting skills, but if the victim wasn't skilled enough or sufficiently aware of the danger to avoid the envenomed blade, than her death was considered a just reward for her own shortcomings as a fighter. The Joketsuzoku did not become one of the great fighting forces of the Inner Sphere by making excuses for themselves or playing by Hoyle's Rules.

"Why are you doing this, Pink?" she demanded as she drew her own dagger. A wary glance in Link's direction confirmed at least for the moment that she was just fighting Pink.

Pink returned her look. "I have my reasons," she hissed.

"Share them with me," Shampoo insisted.

Pink lunged with a strike that probed Shampoo's defenses. As she had hoped, Shampoo was slow to evade, though she noted that Shampoo had sense enough not to try and parry her poisoned blade and risk getting cut.

"Your whelping of Mousse's child for one thing," she spat as Shampoo's riposte was turned aside with a clash of steel. "How could you bear the seed of a Musk traitor - and a worthless son at that!?"

Shampoo's eye twitched at the denigration of her little Mushan. He was male, but he was her one and only son - whom she loved with all her heart - and he was all that remained of Mousse in this world. She was reminded of her last conversation with Pink on Tau Ceti IV, which had only taken place a year and an eternity ago. Pink's fanatical female chauvinism had not apparently been diminished by the fact that it was Mousse, a man, who had brought down the Musk Dynasty, and all for the love of a child he had presumed was a girl.

"You forget yourself," she returned, kicking up a cloud of fine white sand with her slippered feet to distract and perhaps blind her foe. "You killed Laughing Orchid for opposing Mousse. Now you condemn him?"

Pink scrambled backwards, her eyes tearing up, and swiping wildly with her knife to keep Shampoo at bay. "That was different!" she snarled. "Laughing Orchid stepped out of line."

"And you alone are the judge of us, then, Pink?" Shampoo shot back. "Perhaps I was blind to not realize your exalted place on the Elder Council!" She turned aside the horrid dagger of her enemy and slashed at Pink's shoulder. The ring of steel upon silk cheongsam was music to her ears, as was the sharp gasp of pain from Pink as the dagger cut her tender flesh.

Shampoo stood her ground in the circle as Pink withdrew several paces to nurse the wound in her shoulder. Her blood was running hot now, and she let herself forget her aching back and the tender spot between her thighs where her episiotomy still mended. Pink was going to die today, and perhaps the girl realized it too.

She was not entirely surprised then, when a cloud of noxious spores filled the air before her. She threw herself over in a somersault, her joints crackling and her nerves singing their distress. Pink continued to loose the foul substance from the bangles at her wrists as she held her arms out at chest level before her.

Shampoo's head swam in spite of her swift evasion, and she knew she had been exposed to at least a little of Pink's attack. She had some confidence in the idea that the poisoner would never use something fatal in such an unpredictable and indiscriminate attack. As her sinuses began to fill and her ears buzzed, she realized that it was merely a deleterious agent meant to distract and leave its victims vulnerable to the true danger - Pink's poisoned dagger.

Pink waited to advance on her foe until the agent had taken its full effect. The murmur from the crowd was mixed in its mood. While such methods were not the norm in battle, they were kosher enough for the Fated Circle.

"So killing me is your answer?" Shampoo asked while Pink waited patiently out of reach.

"I consider it a cleansing," she replied. "You've been corrupted by Mousse and his putrid seed. You've forgotten what it means to be one of us."

"I'm a mechwarrior," Shampoo said coldly to her. She wiped at her freely running nose and slung the blob of mucous at Pink's feet. "Not a vigilante assassin. If _that_ is what it means to be a Joketsuzoku, then I want no part of it!"

Pink flushed with anger. "I shouldn't have expected you to understand. You didn't before, after all." She moved with great deliberation towards Shampoo, her black slippers padding quietly across the sand and avoiding the blob of snot that her foe had cast at her. Her voice now was soft enough to carry only among the two of them.

"The corruption that infects our people can't be rooted out with the old ways. They take too long, and presume too much good of the guilty. If you live this day, you will likely and in the fullness of time take your great-grandmother's place as the Matriarch of the clan. With your foul son by your side, you'll only lead us down the path of ruin, with men soon considering themselves our equals, and more and more traitors like Herb rising up to overthrow us." She looked at Shampoo over the glint of her knife, the faint silver-green stain of her chosen poison casting its own shards of light on the crowd.

"Killing you is only the start," Pink went on. "I swear to you that your son will not long survive his mother's passing. Crib death is still a menace, even in the days of star travel and mighty battlemechs."

Any remaining kindling of sympathy in Shampoo's heart for spiteful, misguided Pink was quenched as she swore to destroy Mushan. She crouched in a low stance like a cobra preparing to strike, her long knife raised above her shoulder with the point directed at Pink's right eye.

"If I die today, it will be in the knowledge that you will precede me into the void," she said to Pink, and stalked towards her enemy. She had to concentrate with everything she had to remain guarded against the swelling in her sinuses and the watering of her eyes. Her chest was getting tight, and her breaths were coming in short and ragged gasps. Perhaps she had been mistaken about the lethality of Pink's spore cloud.

Pink lunged in a feint, a maneuver Shampoo almost fell for until she caught the placement of her enemy's weight on the wrong foot for the attack. She recovered in time to parry the dagger with a cry of desperation, then stepped inside Pink's guard to drive her own knife straight into her enemy's heart. The dagger punctured the chest wall with an audible crunch that made even the hardened crowd of warriors watching the battle wince, and the butcher's ring of tempered steel grating against Pink's sternum echoed across the ancient courtyard.

Pink's eyes were wild with fright as Shampoo's wrist chopped aside her last frantic attempt to stab her enemy. Shampoo held her there, fixed upon the dagger as her fluttering heart lacerated itself further against the razor sharp blade sunk into her chest. Blood spilled down her dress black cheongsam to spatter in a pool at her slippered feet. All the while, Shampoo stared into her terrified eyes as death's icy hand closed around her.

Pink coughed out a garbled curse, thick with dark blood from a severed pulmonary artery, and then expired. Shampoo let her slide off the blade to collapse spread-eagle on the warm sand of the circle. Only when the roar of surprise from the crowd had passed did she stoop to wipe the blood from her dagger on the hem of Pink's cheongsam. She felt sick, not just from the spores she had been exposed to, but with the very idea of slaughtering a fellow clan-sister.

Cologne nodded quietly at her place as Peony choked out a gasp of disbelief. She rose then to address the crowd.

"Mechwarrior Major Shampoo has defeated Mechwarrior Lieutenant Pink," she announced. "Does anyone else wish to challenge Mechwarrior Major Shampoo?"

Another pause passed through the crowd. Many eyes fell upon Link, who had fallen to her knees in grief at the edge of the circle. When she did not rise to avenge her sister, the silence that followed was nearly tangible.

"Then let it be known that this matter had ended," Cologne declared. "The Fated Circle is closed. Let no one hold the events of this day against Mechwarrior Major Shampoo, for the celestial justice of the gods is far beyond the ken of mortals as ourselves."

7 March 3026

"There is something I must show you," Cologne said to Shampoo as she led her great-granddaughter down a dimly lit stairwell that seemed to lead forever into the bowels of the basalt mesa that was the foundation for the ancient Joketsuzoku fortress. "Few have ever heard of this place, and fewer still have seen it. You alone of all my great-grandchildren have thus far been entrusted with what I am about to show you, and you will keep this in the absolute strictest confidence."

Shampoo nodded quietly at her great-grandmother's admonition. She was still recovering from the effects of Pink's poisoned spores, and was surprised by Cologne's invitation to accompany her into the very heart of the fortress.

"I understand, Great-Grandmother."

"See that you do," she replied.

They came to a huge door, as large and solid as any bank vault. Cologne removed something from the folds of her robes that Shampoo could not identify, and spoke several cryptic and half-heard lines from a poem whose origins were lost to the antiquity of the pre-Jump era.

"I foresee that you will lead our people some day, Shampoo," Cologne said as the door unlocked with the heavy sound of massive bolts being thrown. "You are starting to show the germination of the first seeds of real wisdom. Not the proverbs and parables of our people, mind you, but the kind of true-seeing that comes only from hardship, pain, and loss. You have experienced that firsthand now, and the birth of your son has made you even more cognizent of your own mortality. Nurse those seeds within you, Great-Granddaughter. Let them grow tall and strong, and let their arms stretch wide through your soul. You will have great need of them someday. In this you can be assured, as you shall soon see."

They stepped soundlessly through the door, and into a long bare passageway, illuminated only by a single set of fluorescent track lights along the right-hand wall. The vault door closed behind them with a heavy thud, terrifying in its finality.

The passageway turned once to the left, and opened up into a vast gallery, a chamber hewn out of the solid rock at the bottom of the fortress. Gantries and catwalks criss-crossed the outer walls of the gallery, and stretched out across the open air in a tracery of steel and plastic. Shampoo realized that most of the complex was below the level of the passageway, for she could look down upon the many partitions twenty meters below her as if peering down at an enormous rat maze. The indistinct buzz of a babel of voices and activities met her ears, and she marveled at how so many people could work here and yet keep the goings on of the place a secret.

"The darkest secrets of the Joketsuzoku are buried here," Cologne said to her as a platform elevator rose up from the maze to their level. "Most will stay buried for as long as I can keep them here, but even I grow old, and someday the responsibility must pass to another."

They stepped upon the elevator, and it began to descend into the gallery.

"There are so many people here," Shampoo broached.

"They know no other existence," Cologne replied, sensing what Shampoo was asking in her statement. "Most of them have never been outside the gallery in their entire lives. It is the only way to maintain the security of the place."

"But what is this place, Great-Grandmother?"

Cologne stepped off the elevator as it touched down. "The very life's breath of the Jusenkyo Commonwealth," she replied. "As much I look forward to reaping the rewards of membership in Akane Tendo's Star League, I cannot bring myself to believe that the peace will last long beyond the ten years she won for her people. Already there are stirrings within the Furinkan Combine to overthrow the Kunos for what happened, and whispers of the Black Rose gathering strength in the marches along the Federated Shiratori are never far from my ears.

"We must not put our complete faith in this Star League, child. Though the Tendos currently entertain no dreams of dominion outside their own Confederation, they control the flow of recovered technology to the rest of the Inner Sphere, and so long as they are willing not to divulge or use HPG technology, Comstar turns a blind eye to their growing power. There will come a Tendo one day who has not known what it was like to be on the losing side of a war, who will see his country as the strongest in the Inner Sphere. What then of the new Star League, when he usurps the political mechanisms carefully installed by Akane Tendo to prevent abuse?"

Cologne shook her head slowly to herself as Shampoo listened.

"No, child. We cannot ever fully trust those outside our own clan. We must continue to rely only upon our own power, our own people, and our own technology. That is what this place is for."

They passed an enormous bank of glass cylinders, each filled with a clear yellow-green fluid - and a human being suspended within. Shampoo's eyes widened in shock as she realized that the stories of a forbidden Star League cloning facility were true.

"Yes, child," Cologne replied to her wordless question. "In the days before the fall of the Camerons, the scientists of the day were drunk on their own knowledge. They tampered in the domain of the divine, creating - or at least transplanting, as Gaido suspects - the Jusenkyo Pools and, yes, even constructing this facility. What little we are able to coax out of these ancient machines is enough to preserve our clan. The first hybrids, so important to the creation of our ultimate army, got their start here after their forebears were exposed to the Jusenkyo Effect."

They continued on past the silent technicians, most of them hybrids, as they looked after the incomprehensible technology that drove the place. After passing through a sterile antechamber, they entered a wide open section of the gallery, where warm, humid air blew gently across their bodies.

It was here that Shampoo saw Kima, alive and apparently unharmed, standing among a group of winged hybrid children who clamored noisily for her attention.

"...Kima..." she gasped.

"No, child," Cologne corrected her. "Not Kima. Not the Kima you knew, anyway."

"I don't understand. A clone?"

"Yes, a clone," Cologne replied. "This Kima knows nothing of the intelligence agent we exposed to the Pool of Drowned Akane Tendo - the Kima you knew. They have never met, nor have they ever suspected the existence of the others."

"Others?" Shampoo asked. "There are more than just two?"

"A secret for another time, child. You have much to learn before then."

Shampoo nodded dumbly, still awed by the sight of Kima, so hale and alive. It brought back bitter memories of the broken body of Akane Tendo lying dead in the street of Capra City - the Kima she had known, and the Kima that Tarou had slain. This Kima moved with the same unconscious grace as her clone-sister as she looked after the hybrid children - one of whom bore a suspicious resemblence to General Herb.

"Come, great-granddaughter. It is not polite to gawk," Cologne said to her, and led her along with a gentle tap of her ashwood staff.

They came then to another chamber within the vast underground gallery. Shampoo saw the man who stood at the center of the room, and did not believe that any man could be more handsome or more frightening. It was like looking at the face of a god, and as he rose up on angelic wings, clad only in a golden satin loincloth, the air seemed to shimmer with heat. She felt a blast of it upon her face, and flushed with an almost sexual frission.

"Saffron," Cologne announced calmly. "Would that I were a hundred years younger, I might feel the same for him as you do, child."

"He is a hybrid...?" she muttered.

"He is our greatest triumph," Cologne replied. Saffron flew to the top of the gallery to stretch out his wings. To Shampoo, he seemed to exude a golden fiery glow from every pore of his mostly naked body. "And perhaps, as Doctor Gaido fears, he will prove to be our ultimate undoing. I do not know what the future will bring with Saffron, but I fear a future without him even more."

She leveled a fiercely cold gaze at Shampoo. "Saffron is not to be trifled with, child. He is a tool that must be kept very close at hand. Remember this, you who will rule the Jusenkyo Commonwealth someday."

Tetsuyama Fortress

Planet Angbad, Melkor System

The League of Five Nails

4 March 3026

"Hikaru Gosunkugi, First Lord of the Star League."

The title would take some getting used to, Hikaru decided. Still, it had a delicious feel to it as he said the words aloud once more. He was going to be the First Lord of Akane's new Star League.

The suspicious part of him warned that it was just a sop to garner the support of the League of Five Nails for the new order Akane had in mind for the Inner Sphere. He supposed that it could be true, for the position of First Lord did not carry with it the power it had once held in the grip of the Camerons' hereditary dynasty. The stranglehold on the Inner Sphere the Camerons and their Terran Hegemony had enjoyed ended with the assassin, Stephan Amaris, and even General Kerensky himself could not restore it when the Usurper was overthrown and put to death.

Now he was to be First Lord, but his powers were largely ornamental in function. He technically had political control over the new Star League Defense Force - once everyone got around to actually raising it, of course - but with the provision that for at least the first twenty years, it would be directly commanded by one of the Tendo line. Otherwise, his powers extended only as far as setting Star League policy, overseeing the eventual bureacracy that would spring up to administer the League, convening and adjourning the High Council, and casting the tie-breaking vote, if the need should arise. There was some power there, he supposed, but not much.

On the other hand, the decision to make him the premier First Lord had carried with it real power over his meddlesome parents. Popular support for him had never been high, being the recluse that he was, but now, he was actually cheered by the people upon his return to Angbad. The Furinkan Combine was retreating to its own systems, and the Third Succession War seemed to be at an end. Hikaru was quick to capitalize on that, and with his elevation to First Lord in a new Star League, he had managed to check- mate his parents into abdicating.

The removal of so burdensome a yoke had done wonders for him. He felt reborn. His only regrets now were the unavenged death of Tetsuo, and that he had been unable to remove Ranma Saotome from the equation involving himself and Akane Tendo.

That Nabiki had a hand in Tetsuo's death, Hikaru was now quite sure. How he could obtain revenge for the loss of his cousin and best friend, he was less certain. She was well guarded by her family, and her isolation was believed to be almost total. That she had not been executed for her treason came as a surprise to Hikaru, but as plans for the new Star League began to unfold, he understood her true value to the Tendos.

As for Ranma Saotome, he did not know. The impossible fool had been remarkably resilient to the assassination attempts Hikaru had quietly - very quietly! - ordered against him. It was also maddeningly clear that Akane was hopelessly in love with Ranma. That fact alone was enough to make Hikaru wish that Tatewaki Kuno had been correct in assuming that Ranma had some sorcerous hold over her. He knew better, but he still found himself wishing that it were so.

In the stillness of his chambers the sound of an ancient book creaking open was loud enough to make him wince. His slender, spidery fingers traced along the lines of text, absently searching for an unconventional solution to his problems. He predicted that many an hour would be spent under the flickering light of votive candles as he continued his occult studies with a renewed vigor. There was no viable military answer to the issue of Ranma and Akane. The political arena created by the new Star League was yet to be established, and so he could not seek for answers there, even if he had the time and the free hand with which to act against an undesired marriage.

That left only one option to him: he would pursue those avenues of occult power that he had wisely avoided in the past. He understood the risks, or at least thought he did, and had come to the conclusion that without Akane Tendo by his side, being the First Lord of the Star League was empty and devoid of real meaning. His lips trembled as he chanced across a relevant passage, and he had to look away for fear of unintentionally mumbling aloud something dreadful. Yes, more study - careful study - was required before he was ready to take that step.

He could wait. Being the prisoner of Tatewaki Kuno had taught him a measure of patience that would serve him well in his plans. He would not give up on his dreams of making Akane Tendo his bride.

The South Tower of Azure Cloud Castle

Planet Nerima, Capella System

The Nerima Confederation

28 December 3025

Kasumi Tendo paused at the top of the stone steps to rest, as she had done every day for the last five months. Four heavily armed Marines from the 5th Brigade remained at silent attention behind the aligned-crystal steel and superhard transparent polycarbonate walls of the security lobby. The lobby cordoned the tower from the winding stairwell that was the only direct connection with the rest of the world. She presented her pass from Grand Duke Tendo to them through a security drawer, which ensured that no human contact ever passed through the barrier without strict controls.

Electromagnetically-driven bolts threw themselves open with loud _clunks_ as her pass was approved and a phone call made to the main security station within the castle proper to report the entry. Kasumi stood patiently while the heavy door swung open towards her, and a Marine beckoned her into the mantrap beyond. The eldest Tendo daughter did so quietly, knowing that both doors to the mantrap could not physically be open at the same time, and waited for the first door to close before the second one opened.

Once she was scanned for weapons and tools, the second door slid open and the Marine escorted her through. Once she was safely on the other side of the barrier, her noble status and priviledge was re-established. There would be no further escort for her unless she requested it, and she never requested it. The Marine passed her through with a salute.

The South Tower had once been a terrifying prison, a place of torture and murder where Confederation nobles and even quite a few Tendos from the Civil War in the late 29th Century had been taken to keep them out of the way - usually to await execution, although a few had spent the rest of their lives imprisoned here when it was not politically prudent to do away with them in an official capacity. Kasumi knew of several Tendos from the Civil War period who had been quietly murdered during their exile in the South Tower for that very reason.

Despite the fresh paint, the fine wallpaper, the plush carpeting, and the exquisite wood paneling, Kasumi could almost see the blood on the walls, and could almost smell the madness and decay from decades of imprisonment. Far worse than any treason she had commited against her father and her country, Nabiki's actions had forced Kasumi to face the darkest aspects of her family's history, the ugly times during the First Succession War when she would have been ashamed to call herself a Tendo. Nabiki had reminded them all that the difference between treason and legitimacy was merely a matter of who won out in the end, and that within the warmth and love of family, even vipers could make their nests.

She knocked gently on the door to the sitting room and opened it. Nabiki was there: in the same chair and in the same pose as she had every single time Kasumi had come to visit. Kasumi sighed quietly to herself at the sight of her middle sister. She sighed because she would not permit herself to scream - in rage or in anguish, though she wanted to do both.

Nabiki, for her part, remained silent and stoic at the table. Coffee steamed from a silver pot. The aroma had the rich fragrance of beans grown on New Hawaii, and Kasumi wondered briefly if they had been given as a gift to Nabiki by Tatewaki Kuno when he had come to Nerima to sign the instrument of surrender.

Nabiki followed her with her eyes as she approached the table to sit. A slight nod of her head was all the assent she would give. As Kasumi took a chair across the table, Nabiki's eyes flicked to the blue sky beyond the window.

"Why do you keep coming here?" she asked finally. Her voice was filled with a scorn that had become tired with frequent use. Her question was the same question she asked Kasumi every day.

Kasumi replied with the same answer she gave every day.

"It's my duty as your sister," she said quietly.

Nabiki's eyes never left the window. She sipped at her coffee for a moment, then set her cup down before her.

"That is so much bullshit, sis," she spat. The scorn in her voice had returned with a vengeance. "You walk up six hundred meters of stone steps every day because it's the only way you can think of to assuage your guilt."

Kasumi blinked at this. She did not reply.

"Your silence speaks volumes," Nabiki added after a satisfied moment of quiet.

"What exactly do I have to feel guilty about?" Kasumi replied, her voice taking on a hard edge of its own that gave Nabiki momentary pause. "You are here for reasons entirely of your own doing, Nabiki."

Nabiki took another sip of coffee. The bitterness of the brew was reflected in her voice as she spoke. "You feel guilty, dear sister, because you continue to believe that if only you had stayed on Nerima instead of going off to fight the Combine on Oni, you could have done more to keep me out of trouble, so that none of this would have happened."

Nabiki's words hurt, if only because there was so much truth behind them.

"Save yourself the grief and stop believing that," she added. "You were never going to stop me with tough love." Only then did she finally turn to look at her older sister. "Stop coming here, Kasumi. You're just wasting your time and mine."

Kasumi poured herself a cup of coffee from the silver pot. She then took a cube of sugar from the bowl with deliberate care and sweetened her cup. Nabiki glared at her in silence as she next stirred in a measure of cream.

"The day I stop coming to visit you, Nabiki, is the day that Akane changes her mind about your sentence," Kasumi said to her as she sipped gently at her cup.

Nabiki flinched ever so slightly at that. It was infuriating to spend empty days and intolerable nights thinking about how her life was solely in the hands of her baby sister. That Daddy wanted to have her executed for treason was no surprise - since the day Mother had died of a disease that a doctor two centuries earlier would have laughed at, he had always been the most reserved, even cold, towards her. Akane had become the darling in Daddy's eye, the one most like Mom. Now she was damn near ruling the Confederation herself!

"I wouldn't mind," she said finally to Kasumi. "Death would be a break from the monotony of imprisonment in this gilded cage."

"There are times that I think that death would be too easy for you," Kasumi retorted. The riposte was so unlike her that Nabiki found herself doing a mental double-take. "Can't you even once imagine the harm you caused us? Or the damage you did to the Confederation?"

Nabiki shored up her position with an arrogant laugh. Kasumi was never one for intricate head games, since she always wore her heart on her sleeve. "Please," she snorted. "Whatever harm I may have caused was nothing to the ten years Daddy sat on his ass while the Confederation crumbled around him. What was I supposed to do, sit there and watch everything we had go up in flames?"

"It's always about money with you," Kasumi returned coolly. "You could never see past the price tag of anything - not even family."

Nabiki had listened to that tired old saw from her older sister enough times to let it slide past without effect. "We've been through this a thousand times, sis. I fail to see the point in arguing it again. I may have the next forty or fifty years to spend in this awful place - unless of course whoever is sitting the throne some day decides he needs to make room for someone more important..." She drew her finger across her throat with the appropriate sound effects. "In which case I can only hope that they decide to do me quick. But until then, stop boring me with your tired old platitudes and your meaningless values."

Her eyes bored into Kasumi.

"Face it, sis; we stopped being a family when Mom died, and you know it."

Kasumi looked away. "There are times when I feel that Mother is still with us," she replied in a hushed voice. "And that you're the one who died."

Nabiki's coffee soured in her mouth at that. She swallowed it down with a grimace and looked out the window to hide her reaction from Kasumi.

"Yeah, well, that would have made things better for everyone now, wouldn't it?" she managed.

"Stop it, Nabiki," Kasumi snapped. "If you really _do_ wish to die so badly, then do something about it. There hasn't been a suicide watch on you in months."

Nabiki was surprised by Kasumi's frank invitation to kill herself, and decided that their conversation might prove to be interesting after all.

"Oh no," she replied with a crooked grin. There was mirth there in her expression, but it was the malicious kind; the kind of grin a sadist wears when he pulls the legs off of an insect before burning it down with a magnifying glass. "I wouldn't give you or the others the satisfaction. If you want me dead, you'll have to kill me yourselves. I want to see if you have the guts to do it. In the meantime, I'll content myself with the notion that every day I'm alive is a day you'll be quietly worrying about some plot I may be hatching to escape and overthrow you again."

"You can't do anything here," Kasumi replied. Nevertheless, the fear of just such a thing happening was the reason why Father had wanted to execute Nabiki.

Nabiki shrugged. "You're probably right," she conceded. Her expression suggested otherwise, but how much of it was concocted on the spot to sow the seeds of doubt and how much of it was genuine, Kasumi could only guess.

Kasumi wanted to reach across the table and shake some sense into Nabiki, but she remained calm and cool as she always did. How could anyone grow so far apart from everyone that mattered to her? It was the question she had been asking of Nabiki for years - ever since Mother had passed away, although the signs were perhaps there long before then, she realized. How could Nabiki stand to be so dead inside?

A look at Nabiki as she poured herself a fresh cup of coffee gave her a glimpse at the answer. She knew she was dead inside, and the tiny smears of mascara at the corners of her eyes, the way her lips seemed to hang with a sullen heaviness for just a moment before she licked them self-consciously and took a shallow breath to cover it up, and the ancient weariness behind her scornful expressions were her way of letting it show.

Nabiki hated herself, Kasumi realized. She hated what she had become. Perhaps she even hated what she had done. It was more than just the burden of living in such an oppressive exile, it was something she had been carrying around inside her for over a decade. All she had left was her own pride, and those little weapons of spite and malice she could muster to turn aside the probing gaze of anyone who might guess the truth about her.

It was heartbreaking to Kasumi, who wanted nothing more than to take her little sister into a hug and love her until the hate and the self-loathing were abjured forever. She wanted to execute the cold and cruel manipulator that Nabiki had become, and spare the little girl with the mahogany-colored bob of hair and the playful nature that she had once been.

Not even Nabiki was as surprised as Kasumi was when she found herself rising up out of her chair, pulling the middle Tendo daughter from her own seat, and hugging her tight.

"Kasumi," Nabiki hissed uncomfortably in her ear. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Hush," Kasumi replied, her arms circling around Nabiki in an embrace that was loving, and yet too tight for her sister to slip out of easily in escape.

"Let go of me, goddammit!" Nabiki protested bitterly, and squirmed to no effect in Kasumi's arms.

Kasumi remained silent, her eyes closed as she thought about much happier days in their lives. She focused everything she had on the Nabiki she once loved, and wanted to love again. It was foolish of her, and she knew that one hug wasn't going to heal wounds that had been festering for ten years and more inside her sister's soul, but perhaps there was something to be said for tough love that Nabiki didn't bargain on.

She drew upon all of the love in her own life; love for Father; love for Akane and her somewhat pig-headed but nonetheless-wonderful-for- her-fiancee, Ranma; love for her dear friend in adversity, Mrs. Saotome; and of course, love for a man she had often overlooked in the past as little more than a sweet but bumbling mechwarrior turned family physician - Doctor Tofu Ono. Nabiki squirmed less in her embrace now, as if resigned to ride out the hug to its end. Kasumi gave her an extra-tight squeeze just because she could.

"I think there's still hope for you," she whispered in Nabiki's ear. "That's why I come here day after day."

"Don't waste your time," Nabiki growled in reply, though her bitterness had lost most of its bite.

"I don't think you're a waste of time," Kasumi said to her. "And I intend to continue proving that to you."

She felt Nabiki shudder in her embrace, and just briefly, felt her sister's arms come up to return the hug. A single sob, felt more than heard, escaped Nabiki's lips. Then she managed to throw herself off and spun around in a huff.

"Get out," Nabiki barked. "Leave me the hell alone."

Kasumi nodded as her hands clasped at her waist. "Very well," she replied. As she turned to go, she set a thick manila file on the table from the satchel she carried with her during the day. "I brought something to help keep you occupied," she said.

Nabiki eyed the file warily, her suspicions on full alert after the surprise mugging she had received.

"What is it?"

Kasumi smiled gently at the door. "Some proposals of Akane's for a new Star League. I thought you might appreciate a look."

"Ha," Nabiki snorted, getting back to her old grouchy self again. "Akane and diplomacy? Please... It would be a wonder if her precious 'Star League' lasted six months, let alone the ten years she supposedly won from the Combine."

Kasumi arched an eyebrow at her. "Perhaps you have a few suggestions then?" she asked sweetly.

Nabiki knew she had been taken for a sucker.

"This was your plan all along," she accused. "Butter me up with some affection, then hire me on as slave labor to fix all the problems in your pet political project!"

"The affection was genuine, Nabiki," Kasumi replied. "And your assistance isn't demanded at all. I just thought you might like to read something that wasn't restricted to romance novels and three-year old gossip magazines."

Nabiki eyed the folder hungrily. There was bound to be current events information in there - something she had been forbidden to access from her South Tower library terminal. Cut off from the outside world with only Kasumi for company, she had been starving for real news for five months.

The underlying intent was clear. At the moment she had no value to the family except a certain sentimental attachment. Doing the grunt work for Akane's crazy Star League gave her a value beyond that. Nabiki read a little closer between the lines. Could it have been a quiet signal from Akane that, in time, all could be forgiven?

She wasn't sure she wanted all to be forgiven. It seemed as if, except for remaining among the living, she would get very little out of a deal that would probably entail years of grueling effort on her part. Her pride stung at the thought of it.

"Real cute, sis. I underestimated you," she replied. "Both of you," she amended.

Kasumi smiled once more, then closed the door behind her.

Nabiki stared at the manila file and tried not to shake. She was still feeling a little disoriented by Kasumi's impromptu embrace. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that it hadn't been some put-on to soften her up for the work. Kasumi just didn't operate like that.

Kasumi wore her heart on her sleeve.

She caught herself in another sob as her throat began to sting. The problem with love, she realized, was that you always got hurt by it. Always.

She wiped away a drop of moisture from her eyes and opened the file. There was work to be done - the first work she had done in months - and perhaps, she allowed through her skepticism, the most important work she had ever done in her life.

Maui Atoll, Planet New Hawaii,

Alpha Centauri System, The Furinkan Combine

10 January 3026

"How's it going, keiki?"

Tatewaki Kuno bit down on the curse that came reflexively to his lips. He took a sharp, short breath, and turned to face his accursed father; the very architect of his present misery.

"It proceeds well," he replied blandly, mindful that stoicism was a hallmark trait of the samurai, and that he would ultimately grow stronger with this tempering of his spirit.

The Shogun of the Furinkan Combine set aside a pineapple shaped cup of rum punch to inspect his son's handiwork. The four-meter-long surfboard glistened beneath his fingertips in the vermilion light of another gorgeous New Hawaii sunset. Several priceless cans of authentic Mister Zog's Sex Wax lay at his feet as he bent low to run his rough hand across the polished wood of the board. A traditionalist in the spirit of Duke Kahanamoku, the Shogun shunned surfboards made of plywood, or, even more heinous in his opinion, synthetic materials. Real men rode massive planks of polished lumber on monster waves, not six measly kilos of advanced polycarbon fiber.

"Very nice, keiki," he said with a satisfied lilt in his voice. "You finally gettin' de hang o' dis." He patted the board affectionately as he beamed at his son. The wax was very lightly buffed where his feet would keep in contact with the board, making the surface slightly tacky, and giving him additional control while he was up. The rest of the board was free of wax to allow it to cut across the water with minimal drag. The art of surfboard waxing was a discipline every bit as demanding and technical as swordsmanship in the opinion of the Shogun, and he was well pleased to see that his son had finally mastered it.

Tatewaki closed his eyes and inclined his head slightly in deference to the complement, trying not to let his hatred seep through in his voice as he replied.

"I am pleased that you think so, Father."

The Shogun lifted the heavy timber board with a strength that belied his soft party-boy lifestyle.

"You gonna join your old man for a few waves?" he asked. "De tide is jus' no ka oi."

Tatewaki rubbed at the stubble on the top of his head with his hand, what was now the ruins of his once manly and stylish hair, and tried not to scowl.

"I regret, Father, that I have other pressing matters to attend to," he replied. It was hardly true, given his current status of having been relieved of command of the Furinkan Combine's armed forces, but he knew that his father would not press him on the matter - no matter what other indignities he insisted upon.

"You sure, boy?" the Shogun offered hopefully. There was always hope that Tatewaki would grow out of his battlemech fixation and take up the sublime sport of surfing, and he remained ever the optimist.

"Quite, good sir," Taewaki seethed.

The Shogun shrugged. "Suit yourself, boy."

When his hated father was gone, Tatewaki removed himself from the quaint beach house where he had spent the bulk of his exile and stalked across the sand to a grove of native fern palms. Captain Lucius Kyle, his former Operations Officer aboard the _Imperator_, was there waiting for him.

"Speak," Tatewaki commanded. Though he had been stripped of his rank and command, he was no less imperious in his mood. He knew that Kyle had come with news of greatest import to him, but that was all he was certain of.

"My lord prince," Kyle began. "I have been dispatched to tender a pronouncement from the Daimyo of the Kessel, Benjamin, Alshain, Raselhague, and Trondheim marches."

Tatewaki smiled. Already the Daimyo, whilst ever clamorous for spoils and glory, and as impatient as children when denied, were now run through the full measure of their patience. It was as he had forseen.

"The Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine, be he bloodied with misfortune, is yet unbowed," he replied in turn. "He does not treat with those who are beneath him as his equals."

Kyle bowed respectfully. "I realize that, my lord," he said in a hushed tone. "As do the Daimyo of these great marches. They come to you through me as loyal retainers to their lord."

Tatewaki maintained his stern countenence while he beamed inwardly. The Furinkan Combine was on the brink of civil war and collapse with the threatened secession of the eastern marches of Galedon and New Samarkand, and the recent bloody rampages of the restored Black Rose Terror Regiment. As he had foreseen, there was no one within the ranks of the nobility who possessed the stomach or the mettle to crush the separatists and bring Kodachi to heel.

"And what do these loyal retainers pledge to me beyond their vaporous oaths of fidelity?" he asked Kyle archly. There could be only one correct answer.

Kyle smiled. "My lord, the Shogunate is yours if you desire it." He produced a document from a mag-locked tube at his belt. It was festooned with the personal seals of all five of the remaining loyal marches of the Furinkan Combine, plus the signatures of fifty battlemech regimental commanders, a hundred aerospace fighter wings, and the Chief of Naval Operations himself.

Tatewaki looked askance at the paper as Kyle displayed it for him.

"What conditions do they place upon my investiture to the Shogunate?"

"None, my lord," Kyle replied with pride. "The Daimyo realize that you alone can restore order to the Combine, and they come to you as humble supplicants seeking only to serve you."

"Indeed," the Combine prince snorted contemptuously. "Though only now at this perilous juncture in history do they realize it."

It was a bitter victory for him, Tatewaki realized as he accepted the document for closer inspection. The Daimyo were grasping at straws, their own feeble attempts to hold the Combine together having failed in the last six months of chaos, and their fear of the Jusenkyo Commonwealth taking advantage of the situation had propelled them to this course of action. To preserve their own power, they needed him to put an end to Kodachi and the adventurism of the eastern marches.

"When can the _Imperator_ arrive in the system?" he asked imperiously.

"The ship awaits you at the Jump Point, lord," Kyle replied. "A shuttle stands by even now to take you to your DropShip."

Tatewaki spared a glance towards the sea, where his father poked out from the tube of falling water known to surfers as 'the green room.' He was oblivious to the coup d'etat that had just occured.

"You have orders to inform my father of his removal from the Shogunate?" Tatewaki asked archly.

"I do, my lord," Kyle confirmed.

"Forget your orders," Tatewaki commanded. "Leave my father to his pleasures on this accursed planet. See to it that he lacks for nothing in his new state of exile, but also see to it that he never leaves this world again." He rubbed at his shaved head, seething with long-suffering fury, and yet vindicated by his brief imprisonment on this terrible paradise planet. "To the shuttle, Kyle. I am loathe to remain upon this world yet a moment longer than I must."

"Of course, my lord." Having been gifted with a little foresight of his own, Kyle had already sent men to gather up his lord's belongings and convey them to the ship.

Tatewaki turned his gaze one last time to the sea. There was no point in gloating to his father over his triumph, for the man understood nothing, and never would. It was best to leave and say nothing.

"Make haste with thee!" he barked, and stomped off towards the far side of the island, where the shuttle would be waiting for him. He had an empire to bring under control, and then... Akane!

Former Shogun Kuno watched the shuttle lift off from the island with the shrill of turbojets from the vantage of a wave-top. He had known why the ship had come to Maui Atoll, even as he knew that his son was leaving. He shook his head ruefully, but did not give it any more thought. The boy was stubborn, and there was no telling him anything. He offered a single wave to the space craft as it shot into the upper atmosphere, bound for orbit.

"Aloha, Keiki."

Headquarters Company

1st Nerima Guards Regiment

Planet Nerima, Capella System

The Nerima Confederation

11 January 3026

It had been a year since Ryouga first became a pig.

Mechwarrior Captain Ryouga Hibiki, the recently appointed commander of Akane's personal guard, sat within the cockpit of his mighty BattleMaster deep in thought as the thunder and crack of weapons filled the air of the battlemech firing range around him. He had almost forgotten the significance of the 11th of January until that morning, when a splash of water from the cooling vest connection tubes had reduced him to a small black pig in less time than it took for him to squeal in surprise.

Akari had taken the discover of his secret identity well, he mused darkly. She had been suspecting for months that the company's mascot and Akane's beloved pet was none other than her much-adored husband, and to finally see his transformation in action produced little more than a gasp of surprise followed by a soft chuckle. She then gave him some hot water without another word about the incident, and kissed him on the cheek as he had dressed himself with a red face of shame. Sometimes he wondered if he deserved to have such a loving and devoted wife.

The 11th of January also brought with it thoughts of Happousai and Tarou, and it was these two men who had made him so quiet and moody within his cockpit. Happousai was dead - at least he had every reason to believe so - and in the last six months since Ryouga had torched the wizened old master of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts with a blast from his BattleMaster's PPC, he had yet to feel much regret in doing so. At the same time, he felt little satisfaction in the deed. It was as if by killing the master of his school, he had somehow killed the school itself.

Genma Saotome and Grand Duke Tendo weren't up to the job of replacing Happousai, though Genma himself claimed the title of Master of the school now. Grand Duke Tendo could speak only of retirement once the Star League negotiations were complete and the Inner Sphere united under one political system, and Genma Saotome, well... He remained as greedy, slothful, and gluttonous as always. Happousai might have been ruled by his libido during his life, but at least he had the skills and techniques to call himself a master.

As for Tarou, Ryouga had only hearsay and rumor of him. The Black Rose had risen once more from the ashes of defeat at Ryuugenzawa, and was operating in those eastern marches of the Furinkan Combine that were now practically in open rebellion against the Shogun. With Tarou at her side, the Black Rose and her Terror Regiment had reconstituted itself and gone on a rampage of violence and destruction against both the Furinkan Combine and the Cult of Azusa in the Federated Shiratori. The two were inseparable, it was believed, and their individual hatreds had become common goals.

Because of this, Ryouga had recently been warned by Confederation Intelligence that he was a potential target for assassination.

That was one secret that Akari still did not know about him, and the one that he worked hardest to keep her from. Tarou wanted him dead for what had happened on Ryuugenzawa, and wanted it enough apparently to hire agents to spy upon him - for the purpose, it was intimated by Confederation Intelligence, of having him killed.

Ryouga doubted that Tarou would hire someone to kill him. It wasn't the man's style. Tarou's hatreds were dire and personal affairs, and he would never contract them out to someone else when the possibility of getting his revenge on his own was there.

Still, it was something that concerned him. Tarou might not wish to have someone else get his hands dirty by killing him, but the possibility of making him suffer in other ways was there. Akari was too easy and obvious a target for something like that.

The shooting stopped abruptly around him, and he snapped his eyes up over the console displays of his battlemech to see that the rest of the company had completed their exercises. It was time to lead them back to Azure Cloud Castle. Akari would be waiting for them to return, though Ryouga hoped that she would let the rest of her crew of technicians handle the company so he could spend some extra time with her.

"Form up by lances and start back to base," he ordered over the tac net. He was still not entirely comfortable with the idea of command, but he could not refuse Akane's request that he take over her personal guard.It was an honor, and yet at the same time, he thought back to the days of being an itinerant mercenary with no ties and no responsibilities.

The company began stomping back to the base of the mountain along the reinforced road from the firing range, with his BattleMaster in the lead. For a moment his eyes caught a glint of reflected sunlight high in the sky, and he zoomed in on the aircraft with his telescopic cameras. It was a Boomerang recon plane in the middle of some aerobatic routine, and he smiled to himself. Ranma was probably showing off again.

Akari was waiting for him at the battlemech hangars, and with her were Ukyou and Konatsu. He jumped down from his mighty BattleMaster, surprised to see the two, and wondering why they weren't at the starport.

"Kiss me first," Akari said to him with a shy smile as he touched down on the tarmac. She had read the puzzled look on his face and knew that he wanted to talk to Ukyou right away.

Ryouga turned red. They had been married for several months now, but he was still nearly overcome with embarassment over displays of affection for her in public. All the same, she was hard to resist in her neat, pressed technician's coveralls and the yellow and black bandana she wore over her hair.

"Heya, Ryouga," Ukyou greeted him as he set Akari down on the tarmac, still blushing from their smooch.

Ukyou was resplendent in her red Nerima Conferation uniform, and proudly bore the rank of Mechwarrior Colonel. A flash of silver at her lapel showed off the Cameron Star Akane had commissioned for those who were part of her project to resurrect the Star League. Konatsu smiled demurely at Ukyou's side, the kunoichi bearing the rank of Lieutenant, and the white and blue ducal piping of one of the Tendo family's royal guards.

"Why are you here?" he asked her. "I thought you had already left for orbit by now."

She gave him a light pounding on the arm. "Jeez, I just came to say good bye," she told him. "But I see how it is."

"No no no!" Ryouga protested, ashamed. "It's just that I thought -"

Ukyou shrugged. "You're right, though," she said to him. "I should be going, but to tell you the truth I'm going to miss everyone on Nerima."

She blew at her chestnut bangs. "And I'm honestly not looking forward to going back to face Empress Azusa and Mikado, even if I have the _Coronet_ backing me up. I burned a few bridges leaving there."

"You don't think it will be dangerous, do you?" Akari asked her.

Ukyou offered a lame smile. "I don't know. With the Cult of Azusa, rationality isn't a given. I should hope that the thought of a massive particle beam screaming down at the palace from orbit would give them second thoughts about harming me. Since we're trying to induce them to join the new Star League peacefully, I also hope it doesn't come to that."

She sighed. "Anyways, that's why I'm here. I have no idea how long this will take, but my orders are to get through to the Empress or anyone we think might have the power to bring the Federated-Shiratori over to our side. I'm hoping the bloodbaths Kodachi's caused them of late will make them see the light, but you never know... I could be there for six months, maybe a year before Akane gives up and calls me home."

"We'll miss you," Akari offered sweetly. "And Ryouga and I will be sure to send you letters as often as we can."

"I know..." Ukyou said, trying not to get too emotional. Ryouga and Akari had become very close to her since she had settled on Nerima with her new commission in the Army. "Oh hell, now my mascara is starting to run," she said, waving them off. "Love ya both!" she managed, hugging Akari, kissing Ryouga's cheek, and then punching him jovially in the chest before fleeing to the waiting staff car. Konatsu curtsied shyly and followed after.

Akari sidled up to Ryouga, who put an arm around her waist and snugged her tight as the staff car pulled away from the battlemech hangars.

"I hope things work out for Ukyou," she said to him.

"I hope so too," Ryouga agreed.

"That is..." Akari added shyly. "...I hope that she can be home in less than a year."

Ryouga nodded absently, not noticing how Akari looked up at him adoringly as she spoke.

"It would be a shame for her to miss the birth," she declared.

Ryouga nodded again, oblivious.

"Yeah..." he said distractedly. He was busy watching the Boomerang perform its aerobatics high in the Nerima sky, and wasn't really paying much attention to what she had said to him.

Akari settled her cheek against his shoulder and sighed.

"I wonder if it will be a boy or a girl?" she mused loud enough for him to hear.

"What will be a boy or a girl?" he asked her absently.

"Why, our baby, of course," she cooed lovingly in reply.

Ryouga went rigid, his eyes glazing over.

"Baby?" he squeaked.

"Ryouga-dearest?" Akari cried softly to her husband, who lay spread-eagle on the tarmac in a catatonic state, one eye twitching spasmodically as he offered a dazed grin to the heavens. "Ryouga...?"


	7. Chapter 7

The Saffron Agenda

For centuries the Inner Sphere has been aflame with war.

Struggling from the ashes of the Star League are five Great Houses: House Kuno of the Furinkan Combine, House Gosunkugi of the League of Five Nails, House Joketsuzoku of the Jusenkyo Commonwealth, House Shiratori of the Federated Shiratori, and House Tendo of the Nerima Confederation. Each House has a claim to the Star League throne, and each has an army of mighty Battlemechs with which to conquer - but only one House can rule the Inner Sphere, and none will allow that rule to come without a price.

In the year 3025, two Dispossessed mechwarriors named Saotome gave the Inner Sphere its first real hope that the era of unending war might come to an end, when they and a small band of warriors and explorers under the command of the Nerima Confederation's heir to the throne, Lady Akane Tendo, found the location of the mythical Ryuugenzawa System, a fabled repository of old Star League knowledge and technology. After a desperate battle for control of the system, Lady Akane and the Confederation became the sole possessors of the Star League's secrets, and sought to restore the old Star League and the stability and prosperity it once symbolized. While Akane has brought the Third Succession War to an end and saved her people from Combine domination, the path to final peace is yet still an uncertain one, and there are many factions who still oppose her vision of the Inner Sphere's future...

Star League Defense Force WarShip Coronet

Approaching the Melkor System Zenith Jump Point

Melkor System, the League of Five Nails

19 July 3031

"Conn, Sensory; possible new contact bearing two-seven-zero by zero. Range: indeterminate. Classification: indeterminate."

Captain Hinako Ninomiya cocked her head in the direction of Sensory and frowned at the report. They were here to transport Hikaru Gosunkugi to the Capella System to preside over an emergency session of the Star League High Council, and as the current First Lord of the Star League, he made for an inviting target.

"Do you or don't you have a contact at that bearing?" she demanded.

The Sensor Officer tried to look apologetic. "Ma'am, I'm getting intermittant energy readings at that bearing, on a track that is paralleling our course exactly. That's all I can say at this time."

"Is it possible that you're looking at a sensor artifact generated by this ship?" she asked him coolly, having no time for this kind of nonsense.

The Sensor Officer, who had not been part of the Dragonfly crew, and was therefore slightly suspect in Hinako's eyes, held his ground.

"No, ma'am," he replied. "These readings are not consistent with anything we might be radiating ourselves."

Hinako stepped over to the Sensory section to see for herself. From his position opposite the Bridge, Lieutenant Commander Davidge ordered up a diagnostic of the ship's systems.

"Show, me, Lieutenant," Hinako ordered her Sensor Officer.

The lieutenant pointed to several displays at the supervisory station. The Passive EMS board showed what appeared to be faint emissions in the soft ultraviolet spectrum, though their intensity was at best just above the gain setpoint for the sensors, and therefore only slightly stronger than background emissions or the signal noise generated within the sensor array itself. The only thing that looked out of the ordinary was the plot for the anomaly itself, which appeared to be following the Coronet directly off her port bow at some indeterminate but relatively close distance.

"There's more, ma'am," he added, pointing to the gravitic anomaly detector. The GAD was a little understood mechanism on the ship, and so it was hardly used. There was only one person on board who had even the faintest idea how it worked, and that was Lieutenant Barstow, the Sensor Officer himself.

"None of that means anything to me, Lieutenant," Hinako told him in her sultry bedroom voice. "You're the one fresh from the Nerima Institute of Science."

Barstow nodded apologetically. He was unabashedly proud of his attendence at the Institute founded by Akane Tendo - where the secrets of the Ryuugenzawa Library Core were being teased out and put to work for the Confederation and its Star League allies with painstaking care. "I'm sorry, ma'am. Basically, the Gravitic Anomaly Detector can sample and measure distortions in local space-time, and from those distortions determine if a Jump is imminent or has just occured."

Hinako arched an eyebrow. "But you don't think that this is a Jump signature, do you, lieutenant?"

Barstow shook his head. "No, ma'am. I don't know what this anomaly represents. What I do know is that the anomaly is consistent in bearing and course with the ultraviolet emissions." He looked level into Hinako's eyes. "There is something out there, Captain. A vessel of some kind - highly stealthed, I'm assuming - and generating some kind of low level gravity distortion. That's all I know."

Captain Ninomiya looked across the Bridge to Davidge, who shook his head silently at her. There were no detectable malfunctions with the Coronet's systems.

"Gravity distortion?" Hinako asked. "For what purpose?"

Barstow shrugged. "I don't know, ma'am. I guess it may be some kind of stealth ship with a leaky Jump Drive field that doesn't know we can detect its emissions. The Coronet is currently the only starship in the Inner Sphere with a working GAD array, after all."

"That makes sense," Hinako observed. "If there was a ship out there, they might want to make a fast getaway, and so they would have their Jump Drive warmed up and ready."

"It's the best I can come up with, ma'am. Anything else smacks of pure science fiction."

Barstow's off-handed remark caught Hinako by surprise. She gave him an appraising look. "You're on to something, Barstow. What is it?"

He looked embarassed to even broach it.

"Ma'am, it's total speculation. Fantasy even."

She put her hands on her curvy hips and faced him down. "Lieutenant, I enjoy the favor of the Grand Duke because he trusts me to act wisely on every conceivable threat to the Star League and the Confederation. If you won't keep me informed about the status of your station, how exactly am I to uphold the trust of His Grace?"

Barstow turned red. "Yes, ma'am," he replied sheepishly. "It's just that I was thinking about some research manuals that had been taken off of the Library Core at the Institute. In the last days before Stephen Amaris assassinated the Camerons and started the war against Kerensky, the scientists of the First Star League experimented with the possibility of a reactionless propulsion system based on controlled gravitic distortion. It was an attempt to localize a ship's Jump Drive field to affect realspace without actually causing a Jump."

"A gravity drive?" Hinako asked him.

"Basically," Barstow answered her. "But the thing is, while it was theoretically possible, it proved to be completely impractical given the state of technology at the end of the First Star League period. They could never get one to work properly - they either ripped the test ships apart or caused misjumps that lost them forever. They ended up scrapping the project and scattering the researchers to other areas two months before Amaris' treason."

Hinako sighed. "I can see what you mean by fantasy," she said. "All the same, this is too unusual to let slip by us. Assume for a moment that such a thing weren't just possible, but practical. Real, even." She gave him a heavy-lidded look. "Who could possibly possess such a thing?"

"I can think of three possibilities," Barstow replied. "One would be Kerensky's exiled army. They had all of the First Star League's technology, plus a good share of the scientific talent when they left. It's possible that in whatever place they went to after they fled the Inner Sphere, they could have perfected the technology."

Hinako had to admit that it sounded good in theory. Were the descendents of Kerensky's exiles observing the Inner Sphere as a prelude to their return? It was a sobering thought, for the Inner Sphere was not ready to face a conquering army possessing such technology. Akane's Second Star League was far too fragile and weak at the moment to even unite the entire Inner Sphere under one banner, much less repulse such an invasion.

"What are the other possibilities?" she asked him.

"Comstar is my second idea," Barstow answered. "We know that they have held on to many of the technologies that the Successor States lost during the wars - HPG technology especially. It's possible that they have kept up lines of scientific research and inquiry in tight secrecy so as not to tempt one of the Great Houses into attacking them to get it. We know also that they've been keeping a wary eye on us in the Confederation ever since the Library Core became public knowledge. We represent a threat to their monopoly on FTL communications with the Library Core, and while we've promised them not to follow paths of research into HPG technology without their approval, they certainly wouldn't trust us at our word."

"So it could be a Comstar stealth ship out there ghosting us," Hinako said gravely.

"The third possibility is that the Jusenkyo Commonwealth could possess such a technology, although what little we do know about their black research programs indicates that they are oriented more towards biological and genetic endeavors rather than advanced physics. I'd say they were a very big long shot possibility."

"I'd have to agree with that," Hinako said to him. "If the Commonwealth possessed something like this, they would have used it by now against the Furinkan Combine."

She turned to face the telescope monitor, which was trained on the bearing of their mystery contact. There was nothing out there but a brilliant field of stars and dust. There were no tell-tale shadows moving across the starfield to indicate that a stealth ship was out there. There was nothing at all, save Barstow's mystery gravitic anomaly.

"Astrogation, mark time to Jump Point," she called to Davidge.

"Three-zero minutes, Captain," Davidge replied.

She toyed with the idea of altering their course to see if the anomaly would react. It was tempting, but all the same, what would she accomplish by it? If there was a starship out there, an advanced starship unlike any other in the Inner Sphere, but one that she could detect because her own vessel had a unique piece of sensory gear on board, why should she give up her advantage? Let them think they were following her unobserved.

"Maintain course and velocity," she ordered. "Sensory, you are not to employ active sensors against that contact without my express permission. Just make sure that everything is being recorded for later review when we get to Nerima."

"Aye aye, ma'am," Barstow replied.

Captain Hinako Ninomiya returned to her command chair and sighed wearily. Grand Duke Tendo's bold 'Saotome Gambit' had bought the Confederation time to regroup and rebuild against its enemies, but in turn it had focused even more attention on them. If Akane Tendo's Second Star League failed to end the continuing balkanization of the Inner Sphere and the conflicts such disintegration engendered, there would be no final hope.

Aleksandr Kerensky Suite

SLDFS Coronet

First Lord of the Star League Hikaru Gosunkugi breathed in the pecularly acidic tang of incense procured from an ascetic mystic living on the League/Commonwealth border. It was supposed to assist in achieving the necessary state of being required for communion with the higher powers of the cosmos - a conversation the frail Gosunkugi lord was most eager to begin, for he had exhausted temporal means of separating his beloved Akane Tendo from her cursed fiance, Ranma Saotome. If the dark gods were to assist him in making Akane his at last, he had to reach them first.

It had taken him the better part of the last five years to reach a level of study where he felt confident that such a communion was possible. His occult dabblings prior to the end of the Third Succession War had been along the lines of divination and prophecy; endeavors that had been frustratingly difficult to actualize with any real measure of success. Now he was desperate, for while he still believed that Akane Tendo was his destined bride, she was in love with the brash mechwarrior Saotome. Though wedding plans for the two were still in the indefinite future, it was only a matter of time for them, and though Hikaru's affection for Akane would be undiminished, he wanted her unsullied with the stain of such a union.

The final breakthrough in his designs had come from his own secret cabal of researchers. Their work had predated the discovery and slow dissemination of secrets from the captured Ryuugenzawa Library Core, though until this point Hikaru had been reluctant to utilize it. Their research led down a path of inquiry from which there was no backtracking.

He had the lights dimmed in the spacious cabin where the great general Alexsandr Kerensky had spent many of his days during the campaign to restore the Star League from Amaris the Usurper. The luxurious wood paneling on the bulkheads soaked up the flickering light from an array of candles set upon his traveling altar, and the soft plush carpet felt warm and comforting beneath his bare feet as he knelt naked before it. He would not be interrupted in this stateroom - the voluptuous Captain Ninomiya had seen to that upon his arrival on board.

Satisfied that his procedures were in order, he leaned over the ornate leaded-iron casket that occupied a central place upon his altar. Within the casket, upon a bed of velvet, lay a vial of clear liquid and a spray hypodermic injector. His hands trembled slightly as they reached inside the casket for the two objects. With infinite care he measured a dose of the liquid into the injector, and then placed the tip against the bare flesh of his thigh.

The hiss of the injector went unnoticed over the hiss of discomfort Hikaru emitted as the chemicals flowed into his body. The drug had been distilled from the sectioned brains of human beings who had demonstrated above normal aptitude in psionic abilities to his investigators. It had taken no small amount of effort to conceal such a heinous crime from his parents and the people of the League of Five Nails at large, and the tiny vial represented the entirety of the distillate in the Inner Sphere. If it worked, he would move to procure more, though it might take some time to find enough raw material to begin replenishment.

He began to feel his awareness expand as the chemical reached his nervous system. Though it was necessary to achieve his goals, he did in fact feel a pang of conscience at the means by which his drug was acquired. If he thought he could trust the Amazons (which he couldn't), he would have tried to have the chemicals synthesized with their forbidden biotechnology labs buried deep below their mountain fortress.

In spite of himself, he laughed at that thought. His recent forays into higher modes of consciousness had allowed him to see far more than those silly Amazons could have dreamed, and he had wandered unmolested and undetected through their dark caverns. He had looked upon the god they thought they had made, and while he feared what Saffron could become if they ever lost control of him, he was confident that he could make an alliance with a power much greater than that genetic monstrosity.

His brain was begining to sing now, motes of starflame flashed within his consciousness as his mind expanded out into vast gulfs of infinity. His first foray into this higher realm had nearly consumed him with its infinity, and in spite of his rapture, he had to maintain great care not to lose himself in his ecstatic state. The ancient texts had been quite clear about the dangers of this frame of consciousness.

He focused now upon himself, willing himself to be in this realm of impossibility that a more pedantic type would simply call hyperspace. Another laugh burbled up from his murmuring lips at this, for he, Hikaru Gosunkugi, who hated interstellar travel, was now journeying naked and alone through the hyperspace he abhored.

The shining hull of the Coronet was left far behind him now, for he was beyond her physical constraints, moving at - for lack of a better term - a velocity of staggering magnitude. The universe was laid bare to him, revealing him to be a meager light in a dazzling gulf of brilliance. Time flowed in many directions here, entropy was a state ignored as often as it was honored, and many modalities of thought and being (Hikaru realized that the two were one in the same) could be experienced simultaneously and yet independently from one another.

He did not intend to contact the powers that were rumored to exist full-time in this realm. This was but another preliminary reconnaissance to acclimate him and to hone his mind for the struggle that would surely arise from such a confrontation. And yet as he stretched out his being into the void, contact was made.

Hikaru recoilled instantly at the touch of minds, knowing that there were no accidents in this realm of infinite possibility. In spite of his reflexive action, he could feel a shard of an alien will embedded within his own, like a thorn that had somehow worked its way past his skull and into his living brain. Terrified, he focused all his efforts on actualizing himself in the void, willing himself to be with even greater effort, that in so doing, nothing that was not himself could remain.

He returned to physicality with a shout of pain and surprise, spilling forward over his altar to burn his chest upon the candles. Still shrieking at the terror within, he beat mindlessly at the pain without, wiping away the solidifying wax from his reddened skin. His heart trip-hammered in his chest as he fought for breath. His very soul felt contaminated.

Much later, when he could breathe normally again, and his pulse was no longer the flutter of a hummingbird's wings, he pulled himself up to his knees. Had his encounter been real, or was it merely a vivid and terrifying hallucination brought on by the injection of powerful psychoactive chemicals? Had he really touched the mind of a god, or was he merely looking at his own astral grotesque - a reflection of the taint in his soul caused by his black crimes?

The Jump Alarm sounded three times on the 1MC intercom as he heaved and shook. As the Coronet plunged into hyperspace for the trip to the Capella System, it was all he could do not to scream in terror.


End file.
